Stephen Schneider, one of the world’s leading experts in global climate change and a professor of biology and environmental studies at Stanford, presented the annual Robert D. Clark Lecture Tuesday, titled “Global Warming: How Do We Manage the Risks?”
The lecture was co-sponsored by the Oregon Humanities Center and the environmental studies program.
Schneider focused on research about global warming and what steps can be taken to combat the effects caused by humans. Schneider said he favors skepticism of climate change, but that a complete denial of the effects caused by humans is not the right point of view to take. Since global warming involves “large scale and long term” accumulation, it is important to examine many pieces of evidence, he said.
“To (analyze) global climate change, you need to look over a long period of time,” Schneider said.
Working since the early 1970s on issues of climate change, Schneider is also a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group that was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.
Many who try to debate the existence of global warming use one piece of evidence to say the effects are part of a natural cycle or aren’t consistent with claims about global warming, Schneider said. Since science is based on preponderance of evidence, or a build up of research and data that can lead to a conclusion, it is important to remember that nothing can be proved or disproved based on one piece of evidence, he said.
“One piece of data doesn’t trump one thousand,” Schneider said. “This is a slowly evolving issue, and a lot of expert judgment is needed to manage the risks. It’s very hard to challenge the preponderance and say (global warming) is a random event.”
Schneider used comics, pictures, graphs, charts and many comparisons to show the evidence related to global warming. Many of his examples, such as increased hurricane intensity, glaciers melting, mountain ice caps melting, an increase in wildfires, sea levels rising and an increase in the average temperature of the earth are debated by scientists because of “competing explanations” based on data, he said.
“Science has got established stuff, competing explanations, and speculative stuff,” Schneider said. “We want to sort out the risk of what could happen and what are the odds.”
Managing the effects of global warming requires scientists and governments to work together to form policies that will battle human effects, Schneider said.
“We can’t solve this problem except by communal action,” he said. “The key is we need the c-word, not competition but collaboration.”
Individuals can combat the effects by trying to conserve energy, use efficient appliances and cars, and to reduce their overall carbon footprint, especially at universities. Governments need to attend to both adaptation and mitigation, he said. Adaptation involves accepting the effects of global warming are already here and helping those affected, such as people in coastal cities and those affected by hurricanes. Mitigation, or changing human behavior to alleviate the problems, becomes the next step because adaptation only works for so long.
“Certainly wasteful consumption has to decline,” Schneider said. “We need to be much more efficient in our consumption patterns. We have to reduce our carbon footprint because we can’t adapt indefinitely.”
Colin Curwen-McAdams, a University senior in environmental science, said he thought the lecture was beneficial because Schneider talked about both sides of the issue of climate change.
“I really liked his emphasis on finding ways to communicate uncertainty as well as risk,” Curwen-McAdams said. “Science is never about having an exact answer, it’s about using knowledge to make the best choices possible.”
Senior Hannah Cooley said he liked the way Schneider approached the topic because he made the complicated issues accessible to the audience.
“I think he is very comprehensive in both analyzing the risks and assessing the methods used to discuss climate change,” Cooley said. “He’s really able to connect with people in a way they can understand.”
While visiting the University, Schneider met with students and faculty from the environmental studies, economics, architecture, biology, physics, geology and environmental leadership programs to discuss how faculty can deal with issues of climate change in their research and teaching.
For more information about Schneider’s work with global climate change, visit www.climatechange.net.