Parker Boyler ’24
Dr. Michael Mann recently visited St Andrew’s and delivered a fascinating lecture about the climate crisis.
Speaking to students from various science classes, Dr. Mann encouraged them to be active about climate change and encouraged everyone to act fast to prevent the more disastrous effects of climate change.
At the start of the lecture, he gave students some background on his work. He first joined the field in the late 1980s and is currently a professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Mann presented some reports on climate change and noted how the language has shifted over the past few decades as climate change has worsened. He showed how, early on, scientists published findings on climate change and said that humans had a “discernible” effect on climate change.
As the years went on, the language was changed as climate change worsened to acknowledge the growing effect that humans have had on climate change.
In relation to what people can do about the climate, Dr. Mann said that “we still have agency.”
However, he also noted that while the technology does exist, people are not moving fast enough towards alternative energy sources, leaving the world with about a decade left until we hit a point of major damage to the environment.
According to Dr. Mann, at this point, most of the work that needs to be done is overcoming political obstacles. In terms of the current statistics, he noted that at this point the planet has heated up by 1.3 degrees Celsius and that once we hit 1.5 degrees Celsius (or 3 degrees Fahrenheit) we will be at dangerously high levels.
At the conclusion of the lecture, Dr. Mann encouraged students not only to make a change in the world but to “be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Photograph from SAES Instagram
