1499 Sunday Warming

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Today I went to a ... panel discussion? (but there was no discussion, really. It was three presenters) ... on global warming, organized by Mensa and sponsored by Sierra Club and two SUNY environmental groups. Today's portion was the science and why it's worrying. Next Sunday is the politics. The following Sunday is what can be done.

It was at 3 pm in the lecture center at SUNY New Paltz. I have a problem with that campus. It's huge, and no matter what maps I print out, the minute I enter the campus, I'm lost. Somehow, the way the roads twist around, and end suddenly, and unexpectedly become one-way, I lose all sense of direction. North becomes west, labels on the map bear no relation to signs on buildings. I always just park in the first legal-looking space I can find and ask someone to point me in the direction of the building I want.

Our current Mensa programs person is a prof at SUNY New Paltz, so she seems to think the campus is the ideal place for events. "So convenient." I hate to admit the place scares me.

I found the talks interesting. There were a lot of townspeople and students there, which was nice, but only three of us Mensans, two of whom were the organizers of the event, and me. That was disappointing, but I could have predicted it - there was no free food!

The first speaker addressed what "global warming" is, what causes it, where the greenhouse gases come from, and why it's dangerous. Even a small change causes a shift in ocean and air currents, increasing the effects.

The second speaker addressed a question I've had, which is "How do we know what the temperatures were all those thousands of years ago, when, like, there was nobody out there waving a thermometer around." There are several things they look for in ice and ocean floor cores, one of which is the proportion of two particular oxygen isotopes (I'm not a chemist and may be using the wrong term - ignore me) in the shell remains of ocean critters, and the air trapped in ice. He showed the relationship of temperature fluctuations over a few hundred thousand years in relation to the amount of methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and how they determine those amounts.

The third speaker addressed the environmental and economic effects of rising temperatures on the state of New York. (I figure one good outcome is a shorter snowmobile season. I HATE the damn things. Noisy ground-tearer-uppers, operated by idiots with no respect for private property.)

We three Mensans went out for dinner after the program. The other two were saying that the second speaker was completely over their heads, and maybe they should review content ahead of time. I said that he's the one I found most interesting, the others talked about stuff I already knew, and I didn't find him dense at all. Oh, well.

They've had some difficulty finding politicians willing to speak at next week's session. Several well-known federal and state representatives at first agreed to participate, and then one after another they cancelled. To hot a topic, perhaps? Too small an audience? They've had to settle for poli-sci types.

I had a question I've been carrying around for two years now, and I should have asked it of the second speaker, but I forgot. The movie about the march of the penguins - the penguins walk a gazillion miles across ice shelves into Antarctica to breed and raise their chicks, because that's where they have been going for eons. Now, is it possible, even probable, that back when penguins started going there, it wasn't so terribly far? That either the ice shelves didn't extend so far out, or the ocean was higher? If so, where does that fit on the time/temperature charts he was showing us? Is there an explanation?

I'm so annoyed that I forgot.
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