Panel Discussion Global Warming Panel

Panel Discussion

Global warming panel

What is the impact of global warming on our community and what will be the consequences be here where we live?

Panel discussion:

What is the impact of global warming on our community and what will be the consequences be here where we live?

Jane Goodall

Primatologist Jane Goodall is famous for her pioneering work with chimpanzees. Goodall's work underlines the similarities between humans and the great apes. By showing human connections with the animal world, Goodall demonstrates our responsibility as a species to preserve the environments where animals live. She is concerned about "deforestation, the growing human populations and bush-meat trade, which is the commercial hunting of wild animals for food, the live-animal trade, shooting mothers to take babies. The chimpanzee population… [was] somewhere between 1 million and 2 million a hundred years ago…Today, 220,000 is the closest estimate….I always tell people that the most important thing you can do is to spend a little bit of time learning about and acting on the consequences of the small choices that we make each day, like: What do we buy? For example, clothing: Where does it come from, how was it made, did it involve child slave labor? Food: Where was it grown, how was it grown, did it have a lot of pesticides, can you buy organic?" (Peter, 2008, pp.1-2).

Goodall's presence on a panel dealing with global warming would reveal the consequences of environmentalism upon the animal and human world. Because of her earlier work in Africa, Goodall has also shown a great deal of interest in the reasons that individuals live in a non-sustainable manner in the developing world. Eradicating poverty and the causes of animal cruelty in Africa in the developing world are necessary to improve the planet. Goodall's work links compassion to animals, humans, and the planet. Improving all facets of this 'equation' is required to make life better for all.

Roger Revelle

Roger Revelle was one of the earliest predictors of global warming. As part of the 1977 National Academy of Sciences Energy and Climate Panel, he discovered "forty percent of the anthropogenic [human-generated] carbon dioxide has remained in the atmosphere, two-thirds of that from fossil fuel, and one-third from the clearing of forests." (Roger Revelle, 2010, p.2). Revelle's presence on the panel would demonstrate the long-standing nature of global warming. Revelle could also discuss why taking action on global warming has been so difficult politically, despite mounting scientific evidence that the phenomenon exists for so many years. Revelle began his work in oceanography but gradually expanded his focus to population studies, enabling him to bring his expertise in both fields to the panel (Roger Revelle, 2010, p.3).

Michael Pollan