Oct. 2, 2006
 
FILM FORUM: Virtually Unnoticed Critical Climatic Crisis Unfolding
 
By Tony Rutherford
Huntington News Network Writer
 

Mel Tyree
Huntington, WV (HNN) -- What represents the greatest danger to our country? The ten top threats on most people’s radar screen likely encompass terrorism, bird flu, Iraq, Iran, fuel prices, and health care. Few absorb the impact of climate change a.k.a. global warming.
 
Following a showing of “The Inconvenient Truth,” Dr. Tony Szwilski, professor of Environmental Engineering and Science, asked the audience to “consider beyond our own lifecycle” in caring for the earth and its resources.
 
Szwilski, who also is the Director of the Center for Environmental , Geotechnical and Applied Sciences, challenged the environmental friendly audience members with “what can we do” before “the polar icecap melts?”
 
Environmental scientist and consultant Mel Tyree resoundingly blamed a “fossil fuel misinformation campaign” which coal and oil lobbyists have made their agenda. In turn , as an audience member succinctly put it, “we accept sound bytes as the whole story.” Another member added, “The gatekeepers are more concerned with the economy than saving the world.”
 
Angela Jones, director of marketing and external affairs for the Marshall Artists Series, suggested that among student demographics environmental issues remain uncool. Jones views the warnings of “Truth” as “a call to action” analogizing holding the “keys in your hands” to car use and individually becoming environmentally responsible.
 
Choices for transportation dominated a one portion of the discussion. Dr. Szwilski, who once lived in Europe, explained that cities over there are laid out more for walking, bicycling, and public transportation. In America, “cities and malls are designed for cars.”
 
Dr. Tony Szwilski
Several members of the audience who stayed after the film told of their personal contributions to environmental concerns ranging from turning a computer off at night to reusing plastic bottles (after washing) and commuting via bicycle. The latter came from a former New Yorker where the extensive public transportation system makes vehicles non-essential. In fact, he joked that here he’s often asked why he lost his driver’s license.
 
One student suggested conserving fossil fuels by purchasing less trucks and SUV’s. But, he did not mean not have one, instead, have a large vehicle for particular uses and a “fuel efficient” car for every day transportation needs.
 
Perhaps surprisingly (or not), most of those speaking admitted “Truth” did not change their minds. Instead, they were already concerned about the environment before seeing the film. Asked to balance the “science” with a “political agenda,” Tyree verbally rubber stamped the science. A very informal opinion emerged that “Truth” was 80 to 90 percent science and the remainder “political.”
 
Debra Nicholson, a Kanawha Valley resident, spoke passionately about hit you in the face changes, such as the Elk River not freezing over in the winter.
 
“I’m very environmentally conscious. I live in a very small place and drive a car that gets 35 m.p.h. per gallon in the city,” Ms. Nicholson explained adding that by representing an older demographic than the majority at the Keith Albee forum she remembers when the “Elk River used to freeze so deeply you could ice skate on it. Even my parents could ice skate on it. [Now] , you rarely see a piece of ice there [and] that’s what’s really scary to me.”
 
Both Szwilski and Tyree blame economic interests for diminishing the urgency of the greenhouse emissions. Both agree that we now have only a ten-year window of opportunity to reverse the process. Tyree calls it a “global tipping point” which concurs with Szwilski’s analogy to a “hockey stick” curve --- a long period of little or no noticeable change followed by a significant spike. However, the tipping point represents a position where the global warming effects become irreversible. In the words of scientists, we can not wait until then to address the issue.
 
“We should choose to buy fuel efficient cars that would stimulate the industry to make better fuel efficient cars,” Tyree said. Calling for a powerful world wide environmental enforcement policy, he believes that shifting from an economy based on fossil fuels to “an economy of wind, solar and geothermal power” would not result in job losses. “It’s a shift in how we use energy. It does not have to be a loss of jobs.”
 
Szwilski agreed citing the passage of the Clean Air Act as an impetus for developing “different types of industry,” including “generating jobs in environmental [fields] and technology.”
 
Unfortunately, both scientists believe that it will take “an emergency” to put what Tony Blair’s scientific advisor called “the most critical crisis to ever face humanity” on the plates of political decision makers. That could be the melting of all the glaciers on Greenland, an increasing number of mosquitoes (who are not killed by colder weather), or other public health factors such as the potent strains of the flu.
 
We live in an eco-system and if it gets out of whack….