NCAR --> SERE --> CCB --> Conference --> background

 

• Problem statement

The Fourth Assessment (AR4) of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has served to catalyze government leaders around the globe to take seriously the existing scientific information about human impacts on the naturally occurring greenhouse effect. Each assessment has shown that the effects are growing, and that now societies must take action to deal with a warmer climate.

Undergraduates around the globe will be entering the work force in the very near future. It is imperative that they have the tools available to them in order to enable them to become fully conversant about global warming and its impacts on ecosystems and societies.

Coping with climate change and its impacts requires, indeed demands, that decision makers, gatekeepers, and stakeholders draw their expertise from a wide range of fields, from science to policy to ethics & equity. As American ecologist Barry Commoner once said, “you cannot do just one thing” (in other words, things are interconnected).

Most environmental changes in which human activities are involved --- deforestation, desertification, biodiversity loss, wetland destruction, water shortages, greenhouse gas emissions --- are of the creeping (incremental) kind. They accumulate over time, eventually ending as a major environmental change and crisis for decision makers. Policy makers around the globe have difficulty coping with creeping problems until those problems develop into a full-blown crisis, partly because there are no clearly identified thresholds of change and partly because there is uncertainty surrounding the sciente of the environmental change.

One should not allow scientific uncertainty to be used as an excuse for not taking interest in or action about climate change. This is the “precautionary principle” applied to education and training.

It is important that students learn about global warming and its potential direct and indirect impacts, regardless of their disciplinary training.

 

• Focus

It is important that students, regardless of their disciplinary training, learn about global warming, its potential direct and indirect impacts, and societal responses to those impacts.

This conference aims to help undergraduates to understand their role in civil society in dealing with global, regional, and local climate changes. The key question is how to cope with variability, extremes, and change in climate, water, weather, and societal interactions.

The conference organizers wish to have the student participants leave Shanghai with an enhanced skill set as well as passion for engaging in dialogue about climate, water, weather sensitive issues.

 

• Audience

The audience is expected to be primarily composed of undergraduates in colleges and universities around the globe; however, the conference is also open to interested parties, such as educators, postgraduates, as well as young professionals in the work force and high school students.

 

• Ten reasons why you should attend this conference
  
  

	YOU are the eco-generation (enhance your capabilities to fully engage in your generation’s climate, water, and weather issues).
	Relationship building  (cross-discipline, cross-border networking).
	Create a culture of “transboundary trust” (ethics & equity).
	Develop baseline skills needed to understand climate, water, weather variability, change, and extremes.
	Identify the role of “civil society” under a changing climate.
	Share experiences among peers from other cultures and countries.
	Develop a skill set for coping with research and impacts of climate, water, and weather conditions.
	Improve awareness of the skills needed for engaging in diplomatic negotiations of a global climate-related treaty.
	Receive coaching from graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and educators.
	Gain greater respect for all living things.

 

• Field trips

Mid-conference field trip: Chongming Island in mouth of the Yangtze River. After the conference, depending on the level of interest, conference organizers can help to provide participants with their travel plans around China.