Climate Change: Dr. Edelstein

The Climate Change Reality Project

"We NEED to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and go back to the climate we use to have" -Dr. Edelstein

Dr. Edelstein gave a presentation about climate change and the major effect it has on us and the change it creates every day. Dr. Edelstein said climate change is a direction we cannot turn back from, we are in very far. There are actions we can take to reduce or avoid climate problems. Adaptations are adjustments we need to make to live in a world with all these problems we need to adapt. The atmosphere is a very thin layer on earth. There would not be life on earth without our atmosphere. The earth is a system and everything in science is a system 

Dr. Edelstein talked about a very interesting website called 350.org. 350 means parts per million. We want to stay below 350 parts per million which are the amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We are at the tipping point beyond which we may venture and never come back. Today we are well over 400 parts per million way past the tipping point and we cannot reverse it. The link to 350.org               

The video was created by 350.org. Climate Change is a real and serious issue. In this video, explains what causes climate change, how it affects our planet, why we need to act promptly to mitigate its effects, and how each of us can contribute to a solution

There are holes in the north and south poles. That is why people in Australia are always wearing hats since Australia is so close to the south hole in the ozone layer. Good news is that the holes are closing up and going in the right direction by making it much safer. 

There have been agreements signed to reduce climate change by the world. Al Gore tried to enforce climate change to the United States Congress and pushed as an issue to work together to reduce production of CO2. One international agreement is the Paris Agreement which deals with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance. This agreement is important because every country agreed to sign it but then the United States said they will withdraw due to President Trump. All these things tie into issues with science. 

Two important terms we learned about and were told to know as a teacher were: 

• biogeochemical cycles: all the cycles that allow life on earth. We are in the troposphere too much ozone. It is a respiratory poison. Days when O3 is really high, it is not safe to spend a lot of time outside. Children, the elderly and people with respiratory issues should not be outside. This is when the weather app or meterolgist says we have a heat advisory.
• albedo: degree of reflectivity of the earth, if the earth is wearing black it has low albedo and if it has a white shirt it has high albedo. Albedo is high in the poles because of the ice and glaciers. We are sending light back into space. The ocean absorbs heat. 

With our students, we can walk about outside and have your students point out things that have a high or low albedo. This is a good engaging activity to help them learn and remember albedo. 

We are spewing 110 million tons of manmade global warming into the thin shell of the atmosphere every 24hours as if it was an open sewer. Combustion creates heat. When do we burn stuff? All the time we are burning stuff. Coal mining, burning coal, industrial processes, landfill etc. 

Throughout my education, I have learned about climate control but it was just taught briefly and they just told us the issue that causes it. Dr, Edelstein really opened my eyes on the issue and explained in great detail, a detail I have never known. We will all be living through these effects that are happening. Climate change impacts are on their way. Work with current generations about climate change and how to deal with it. Do we really truly know about climate change by what we just learn in school? Can we go back from climate change? Can we go back and pretend there is not a problem?
NO, we cannot. We cannot go back because we cannot put what the Earth has lost back together. We cannot recreate all the ecosystems we lost, sea level rise, glaciers melting. We need to educate our students about how climate change is affecting us every day. They are the voice of our future.