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Anthony Chiu
Drs. Thomas Holtz and John Merck
CPSG 100
December 9th 2014
Reaction Paper: Environment and Development Challenges: The Imperative to Act
Early in the semester, I attended a talk by former University of Maryland
faculty member Sir Robert Watson entitled “Environment and Development
Challenges: The Imperative to Act”. It was given on October 9th in the Computer
Science Instructional Center to a full room of students and faculty.
In his speech, Watson focused on the escalated rate of climate change in the
world today, and the impacts it has on ecosystems and economies. He highlighted
his stance that we currently possess the technology to counteract climate change,
but we do not have the political will to do so. I’d also like to note that it was around
this time that the People’s Climate March organized the largest ever climate change
gathering in New York City; the spectacle received national attention ahead of the
U.N. summit on climate change that was held in New York on September 23rd. The
objective in place is for global legal action to be taken in 2015. Personally, I have
friends that attended the march in New York and I gave a speech in communications
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class on the subject earlier in the semester, so it was an issue that I had already
started becoming more informed about.
Digressing back to the talk, Watson was introduced as an expert in the field
and welcomed back to the University of Maryland, and began his speech focusing on
the immediacy of climate change concerns in our global society and his proposed
solution. He began the lecture by stating that most climate change is due to human
activity (specifically emissions), therefore instilling in us not only a responsibility, but
a means by which to buffer rapid climate change. He demonstrated the urgency of
this issue by showing graphs and charts of global effects in recent years, such as rise
in sea levels and temperature increases. In addition, he cited a decrease in water
quality, agricultural productivity, and a loss in biodiversity.
Overall, the opening of the presentation had a significant impact on my
perception of the issue. Admittedly, I didn’t know how urgent the issue was when I
was first enrolled in Science and Global Change. When Sir Watson was showing the
data on climate change, particularly rising sea levels, he mentioned an increased
frequency of natural disasters as an effect of climate change. It was at this point that
I imagined a world not too far after my lifetime facing an influx of natural disasters,
causing the physical earth as we know it to change for the worse. When I got back
from the talk, I can remember that I was telling my friends how my view had
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seriously changed on the importance of climate change, encouraging them to at least
believe that it was an urgent issue.
As another key point of his presentation, Watson proposed the solution that
nations around the world adjust to a low carbon economy. Part of this process would
be to make universal access to clean energy sources a reality. In addition, he advised
to “put a price on carbon” to limit industrial and personal overuse of carbon
resources that produce waste emissions. Lastly, he predicted a future of a biofueldriven society to reduce carbon emissions, provide renewable energy, and reduce
deforestation. Again, Watson argued that the largest obstacle in reaching this goal is
a lack of political will, especially in other nations. This reflects why the issue has been
so slow to resolve.
I found this talk to be especially consistent with the topics central to Science
and Global Change. In class, we have went in-depth to explore the implications of
science and to define it. I think one of the major problems about the issue of climate
change is that not everyone believes in it, as if it is something that can be refuted. If
more people thought scientifically about the issue, then there would not be such
controversy. In addition, those who are not informed about ecosystem biology do
not realize the significance of scientific findings regarding climate change. For
example, studies show that average global temperature have risen about 1.5 degrees
celsius in the past century. To the average citizen, 1.5 degrees seems nominal.
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However, environmental scientists and activists know this to be a significant and
impactful change. Either way, it is easy for individuals and nations to become
preoccupied with more immediate threats like epidemics and terrorism. Another
reason that I think the issue doesn’t receive as much attention as it deserves is that
our global society is already dependent on carbon-emitting fuels, and switching to
more renewable energy sources requires sacrifices to be made. Because people
cannot currently witness the effects of climate change in the same way that they
may witness the spread of Ebola or acts of terrorism on the news, they are not so
inclined to treat it with the same urgency.
As a result of attending this talk, I feel that I have become more personally
interested in the issue of climate change and have a better understanding of its
urgency. I am excited to learn more about the issue in the upcoming semesters of
Science and Global Change.