Climate Change: The State of Science

One of the biggest problems facing our generation and those to come is climate change. This topic has sparked political debates, religious debates, industry changes, and is something that I’m particularly interested in because I spent IAP in a city where the pollution causes the visibility on sunny and foggy days to be equivalent.

The data being shown in this video is nothing new, it’s something that our teachers, parents, and peers talk about: the ice caps are melting, the carbon in the air is increasing. What I think the video does well is it provides a visual to this that elicits an emotional response from the watcher. The video shows a time lapse of earth over the next hundred years, where we can actually see what it will look like when our planet is no longer capped with white and when Florida is no longer a dry piece of land.

The video tries hard not to offend watchers and place blame, but at the same time it tries to scare watchers into action. Did you know that the acidity of the ocean has increased 26% since the industrial revolution? Did you know that if nothing changes, the earth will be 4 degrees warmer in 80 years? The video ends with earth being depicted as a ticking time bomb.

The visualization of the data allows even the least technical person to understand. The technique of showing change over time is similar to what Rosling does in his Ted Talk; however, instead of showing past measured data, the video shows projected data if nothing about humanity’s current carbon footprint changes. I think that the presentation is very effective, and that the audience is just your average Joe.

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