On Thursday, September 10, 2015, I attended Frozen Earth, a climate change panel discussion at Stockton University’s Noyes Museum of Art. The moderator of the discussion was Diane Burko, an artist who has addressed the issue of climate change, particularly the retreat of glaciers. The panelists included Michael Lemonick, Amy Lipton, Dr. Jeff Niemitz, Andy Revkin, and Aaron T. O’Conner. Lemonick is a writer for Climate Central, who covered environmental and science issues for TIME prior to his current position at Climate Central. Lipton is a gallerist and co-founder of Eco Art Space, a leading organization of artists, writers, scientists and businesses developing strategies to address environmental issues. Nimitz is a Professor of Earth Sciences at Dickinson College. Revkin is a journalist and professor who has covered science and environmental issues for over 30 years and is currently the Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding at Pace University. O’Conner is the director of The Arctic Circle, an Arctic residency research and public engagement program.
The program began with Lemonick explaining how he misrepresented scientific evidence concerning the ozone depletion as being related to global warming when he was working for TIME. The October 19, 1987, issue of TIME had a cover with both topics being addressed underneath the phrase “The Heat Is On.” Lemonick used this example to show how the relationship between scientists and science writers who report their findings has developed since the 1980s, and how the evidence for climate change has continued to mount. Amy Lipton continued to elaborate on similar efforts that she leads in Eco Art Space, such as her project “Down to Earth” at the Schuykill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia. Lipton educated visitors about sustainable practices and green principles and their relationship to aspects of society such as art and agriculture. More recently, Lipton has organized Human/Nature: Art and the Environment, a program she has led with The Nature Conservancy to promote and establish discussions between climate scientists and artists.
Dr. Jeff Niemitz was the next participant to speak. He discussed the correlation between the increasing CO2 levels and increasing global average temperature, and the evidence that climate change deniers often ignore, such as how loss of land ice, not sea ice, contributes to sea level increase. One of Dr. Niemitz’s specialties is the geological and climatological history of Earth, and he discussed how greenhouse gas emissions have been behaving during the last 1 million years and how their increase today is unprecedented in this time frame. He continued the panel discussion by showing predictions for further carbon emissions for up to the year 2100, as well as the problems resulting from the emission increase, such as further increase in average global temperature.
Next to speak was Andy Revkin, who discussed his work on documenting changes in the Arctic. Aaron T. O’Conner also elaborated, explaining how severe changes in Arctic ice levels have been and what the effect has been on the surrounding ecosystems. The panelists ended the discussion by stressing how important hope is in ameliorating environmental problems associated with climate change, and that the fact that these issues are becoming recognized should give us hope. They also pointed out that may be too late to completely mitigate climate change, but that future work should be focused on attempting to live with it and preventing it from getting worse.
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