As Earth Day 2016 nears on April 22, it’s a good time to consider: is global warming a conspiracy and a hoax, or a serious threat to humanity’s future? Is the subject of climate change so touchy that you avoid bringing it up in conversation?
If you’d like to be part of an open, civil and respectful conversation about the issue of climate change, come to T.B. Scott Free Library’s Community Room at 1 p.m. on Sunday, April 17 for Conversations on Climate Change: A Measured Discussion on Ways to Improve Public & Political Discourse.
Dr. Ankur Desai, who studies climate and ecology as a Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be one of the discussion moderators. He has focused on teaching, research and outreach on how ecosystems and the climate influence each other, and has been gathering data for several years on how the atmosphere, humans, lakes, forests and wetlands use carbon dioxide, water and other greenhouse gases at long-term research sites in northern Wisconsin.
Joining Dr. Desai will be Dr. John J. Magnuson, Professor Emeritus of Zoology and Limnology at UW-Madison. He helped form UW-Madison’s Center for Limnology in 1982, and has a special interest in lake ecosystems and seeing science used to solve real-world issues such as species conservation, climate change and fisheries management.
Desai notes that while, even in Wisconsin, there are real measurable risks from ongoing natural and human-caused climate variations, action is mired in uncertainty, doubt and fear, prompted in large part by the competing interests of science, politics and business. Public sector regulation comes with a cost, and free market approaches are underappreciated.
In this discussion, Desai and Magnuson will examine the controversy surrounding climate change and explore ways to improve the public and political discourse on the topic.
Admission to this Words Worth Hearing program is free, as with all library events. Refreshments will be served, compliments of First Street Coffee Station and The Checkered Churn.
For information about library events, call 715-536-7191 or check www.tbscottlibrary.org, or “T.B. Scott Free Library” on Facebook.