Spring Break
Gelbspan calls for civic activism
by Anya Bergman
News | 4/29/08
Posted online at 3:00 AM EST on 4/29/08
At Earthfest 2008's closing event Wednesday April 16, journalist Ross Gelbspan spoke about the severity of the global climate crisis and the recognition by citizens that a clean environment is the most important basic human right.
Gelbspan has written extensively on the global climate crisis and appeared in the film Everything's Cool, which was screened at Brandeis last spring.
In his introduction, Global Communications and Operations Director Charles Radin said Prof. Laura Goldin (AMST) was leery about Gelbspan coming to speak during the screening of Everything's Cool because his sentiments are difficult to hear and the students can't handle his grave predictions. Radin explained that Gelbspan is an investigative journalist and the last to sugarcoat things.
Gelbspan began his speech by saying that he is a journalist, not an environmentalist, and that he began investigating the issue of climate change because the coal industry was paying journalists to say nothing was happening.
"I tolerate the trees," he said in reference to his feeling about environmentalism.
Gelbspan said that a recent Time magazine article on climate change warned readers to "be afraid, be very afraid," but the real message citizens need to hear now is, "Be brave, be very brave."
He said one observation he made on climate change is that it is happening in the blink of an eye and became known to the public in 1988 through an intergovernmental panel on climate change and by studies produced by NASA.
Additionally, because of lag time, carbon dioxide stays in the air for up to 100 years, and we are now seeing problems from the 1970s. Feedbacks are small changes that trigger bigger ones in other places. For example, he said, carbon dioxide and methane released into the atmosphere in Siberia can affect the climate in other places.
He also noted the sensitivity of the climate to change in temperature, and said that the earth will undergo a three- to 10-degree Fahrenheit change in the near future.
Gelbspan has written extensively on the global climate crisis and appeared in the film Everything's Cool, which was screened at Brandeis last spring.
In his introduction, Global Communications and Operations Director Charles Radin said Prof. Laura Goldin (AMST) was leery about Gelbspan coming to speak during the screening of Everything's Cool because his sentiments are difficult to hear and the students can't handle his grave predictions. Radin explained that Gelbspan is an investigative journalist and the last to sugarcoat things.
Gelbspan began his speech by saying that he is a journalist, not an environmentalist, and that he began investigating the issue of climate change because the coal industry was paying journalists to say nothing was happening.
"I tolerate the trees," he said in reference to his feeling about environmentalism.
Gelbspan said that a recent Time magazine article on climate change warned readers to "be afraid, be very afraid," but the real message citizens need to hear now is, "Be brave, be very brave."
He said one observation he made on climate change is that it is happening in the blink of an eye and became known to the public in 1988 through an intergovernmental panel on climate change and by studies produced by NASA.
Additionally, because of lag time, carbon dioxide stays in the air for up to 100 years, and we are now seeing problems from the 1970s. Feedbacks are small changes that trigger bigger ones in other places. For example, he said, carbon dioxide and methane released into the atmosphere in Siberia can affect the climate in other places.
He also noted the sensitivity of the climate to change in temperature, and said that the earth will undergo a three- to 10-degree Fahrenheit change in the near future.
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