Opening Message: What are some renewable energy options
Saskatchewan could pursue?
When I hosted my kitchen meeting, I purposely asked friends
of mine who were not involved with biology or environmental studies. I came up
with a few discussion topics and I wanted to make sure that the people I was
discussing climate change with, had not had any previous teaching on climate
change, past what you would learn in high school science. During the kitchen
meeting, I also shared with my participants what I have learned so far from
Setting the Agenda with the Climate Friendly Zone. We discussed talking to
policy makers regarding Provincial election, and I asked them if they knew how
to write a letter to the editor, as well as I shared my letter with them.
Now I will summarize the discussion with you:
·
What does climate change mean to you? The
discussion started with one participant saying that it is a change in the
climate over an extended period of time, and everyone agreeing with said
participant. Another added that it occurs naturally in the environment from the
natural release of carbon. She also thought that everyone keeps making a big
deal out of it claiming that all the blame is on humans, and that she thought
that it will happen no matter what humans do to change it. Some understood the
concept more when we talked about global warming, because the topic specified
the warming of the climate.
·
Do you think climate change is something we need
to be worried about in today’s society? There was quite a distribution in
answers to this question. I received some yes’ and some no’s. This is where it
is important to indicate that climate change is a long process. It does not
happen overnight and the actions we take today to limit carbon emissions will
determine the fate of our planet for future generations.
·
What are some renewable energy options that you
are aware of? The renewable energy options that people were aware of was solar power
and wind energy. The ones that some people were unaware of was carbon-neutral
and negative fuels, biomass, ethanol biofuels as well as other biofuels,
geothermal energy, as well as hydrogen fuel and thorium fuel. A lot of these
are not used widely so they are fairly unknown as energy options. More
information on additional sources of renewable energy can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_energy#Geothermal
I I also had the participants calculate their ecological footprint and I am really glad I included this into our discussion because I think a lot of people were very surprised with how large their ecological footprint is. A lot of what we do day to day can increase out ecological footprint more than we expect and I think it is important to know what you can do to minimize your footprint. Below are a few resources from the Saskatchewan Environmental Society for you to check out to learn ways to reduce your footprint:
http://environmentalsociety.ca/category/tips/
My experience while hosting a kitchen meeting has shown me just how much information about how the facts surrounding anthropogenic climate change is undisputed. It is commonly known that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is human-caused. Anthropogenic climate change refers to the production of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity. By examining the polar ice cores, scientists are convinced that human activity has increased the proportion of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which has skyrocketed over the past few hundred years. This strong evidence of global warming comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems.
Sources:
My experience while hosting a kitchen meeting has shown me just how much information about how the facts surrounding anthropogenic climate change is undisputed. It is commonly known that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is human-caused. Anthropogenic climate change refers to the production of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity. By examining the polar ice cores, scientists are convinced that human activity has increased the proportion of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which has skyrocketed over the past few hundred years. This strong evidence of global warming comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems.
Sources:
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