Researchers Address Climate Change Controversy

 

The Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, where climate change is addressed through a Presidential Dream Course titled "Earth, Sustainability and the Economy."

The climate change controversy has been talked about at length throughout the scientific community despite having its share of skeptics.

Climate change advocates point to global warming as its main cause. Global warming attributes the rising temperatures in the oceans and atmosphere to the human activities of burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. The skeptics do not believe that mankind has made a significant impact.

Dr. Berrien Moore, Dean of the University of Oklahoma's College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, believes the burning of fossil fuels by humans continues to have a great effect on the atmosphere and the waters.

"When you burn fossil fuels, you ever so slightly decrease the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, Moore said, "The big question of the climate is how it will change the distribution of water."

The Presidential Dream Course "Earth, Sustainability and the Economy" presents a series of lectures, including one done by Moore, on the topic at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History in the Robert Kerr Auditorium.

Dr. Jorgen Randers, professor of climate change strategy at the Norwegian School of Management, lectured Feb. 28 titled "The Limits of Growth - 40 Years Later," and believes the skeptics have no case once they look at the facts.

"The scientific community is in total agreement that [average temperature] is going up," Randers said,  "The climate change skeptics disregard history."

The Environmental Protection Agency researches climate change, and set up a website for the public to obtain more facts on the matter at: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/.

Dates and times for the the lectures of "Earth, Sustainability and the Economy" can be found here: http://www.snomnh.ou.edu/calfilter.php?series=Lectures.