OLLI SPRING – DU Central: Paul Belanger’s Climate course page
Earth’s Climate: Past, Present and Future – concerns and solutions
Wednesday March 30th – May 18th, 2016
- Harvest Chapel room 309 basement 9:30-11:30 a.m. every Wednesday starting 3/30 thru 5/18 – includes trip to ice core lab Address: 3651 S Colorado Blvd, Englewood, CO 80113
Week 1: Wednesday March 30th, 9:30-11:30 a.m.: Introduction/Key principles of climate change -(week 1 last updated 3/31/2016)
(click here for slides and detailed postings)
WEEK 2: Wednesday April 6: Earth’s past climate and what caused those changes
(click here for slides and detailed postings)
Week 3: Wednesday April 13
Field trip to National Ice Core Lab
(click here for slides and detailed postings)
Week 4: Wednesday April 20th, 9:30-11:30 a.m.:
Concerns: Rates of Change, Ocean acidification, and Modeling
(click here for slides and detailed postings)
WEEK 5: Wednesday April 27th , 9:30-11:30 a.m.:
Skepticism vs. Denial: The issues, the disinformation campaign, the ideology and psychology
(click here for slides and detailed postings)
WEEK 6: Wednesday May 4th , 9:30-11:30 a.m.: Guest speaker, Bob Raynolds: The Anthropocene
(click here for last year’s slides) WEEK 7:
WEEK 7: Wednesday May 11th, 9:30-11:30 a.m.: Solutions and economics Part A: (click here for detailed postings)
SLIDES Belanger week 7 2016 economics and solutions(PPTX); Belanger week 7 2016 economics and solutions (PDF);
David Weisberg slides: Energy – Nuclear Power
WEEK 8: Wednesday May 18th , 9:30-11:30 a.m.: Solutions, part B; conclusion
SLIDES Belanger week 8 2016 economics and solutions – pdf (pptx too big)
(click here for detailed postings)
Facilitator: Paul Belanger; pebelanger@glassdesignresources.com; cell 303-249-7966
Readings:
All readings will be handouts distributed weekly by e-mail or hard copies handed out in class for those without Internet access; please advise me of the latter. The readings will include excerpts from books, articles, and web site links. There are no required books for this course, although I might suggest some for those wishing to delve more into the topics at hand.
- climate-club/ and
- http://carbon-price.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-01-04-Nordhaus-ClimateClubAEA-v2-slides.pdf (30 slides, Jan, 2015)
- http://citizensclimatelobby.org/
Three books to consider – Climate summary books pdf:
- Simple succinct Summary – prerequisite for 2015:
What We Know About Climate Change (Boston Review Books) by Kerry Emanuel (Nov 30, 2012)
p. 76: “…costs may be high and those paying them are not likely to be serious beneficiaries of their own actions. Indeed, there are few, if any, historical examples of civilizations consciously making sacrifices on behalf of descendents (sic) two or more generations removed.”
That’s what the discount rate is about. In that regard we need a social paradigm shift
- Intermediate Level Book:
Earth: The Operators’ Manual by Richard B. Alley (Apr 18, 2011)
- More comprehensive book:
Experimenting on a Small Planet: A ScholarlyEntertainment by William W. Hay (Dec 14, 2012) – The history of Science, especially as it pertains to climate science.