Panelists at the Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) Symposium, "Adapting to Climate Change," offered attendees several unique perspectives on mitigating and adapting to a world amidst a rapidly changing climate.
The event, which took place Sunday afternoon in Cabot Auditorium, entailed taking a closer look at such issues as global warming and the Kyoto Protocol.
The Protocol is one of many steps the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has taken toward reducing carbon dioxide emission rates. An increase in carbon dioxide over the years has been linked to an increase in global warming - the phenomenon associated with rising temperatures and sea-levels across the globe.
Gwin Prins, a research professor at both the London School of Economics and Columbia University, addressed his own reservations and criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol in light of global warming.
"Europeans have signed the treaty despite doubts about the ability to meet a target," Prins said. This target, according to Prins, is a consensus on the rate at which carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced globally.
Prins also warns that the treaty will be hard to fulfill given European nations' "unwillingness to build enough [in terms of] non-fossil fuel generating capacity."
In addition to criticizing the ambiguity of the treaty's goals, Prins said that the Kyoto Protocol is "fatally flawed" in part because it has "fallen a victim of bad timing."
Prins said that, in the wake of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, environmental activism fostered in the early 1980s has ebbed toward anti-war activism.
Richard Lindzen, professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), agreed with Prins that the Protocol is faulty. Lindzen said that a failure in "alarmism," or ability to incite immediate action, renders the Protocol ineffective.
"The trouble with the Protocol is that it doesn't imply alarm but instead leads to an opposition to alarm" Lindzen said.
Lindzen said that the "public has been lulled into not having to understand anything" with regard to the Kyoto Protocol's objectives, in part because of the vastness of the effects of global warming.
"Regional climate change is vastly greater than global climate change," Lindzen said.
William Moomaw, Professor of International Environmental Policy at the Fletcher School and recipient of one of this symposium's Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Awards, said there are a variety of ways in which humans will have to adapt in light of climate changes.
According to Moomaw, several countries are already "paying the price" for failing to adapt to a rise in temperature and sea level.
He gave cities in Peru as an example, as these cities are currently experiencing shortages of water due to the rapid shrinking of glaciers that are commonly used to store and supply water.
