News Times Live
May 5, 2006

http://news.newstimeslive.com/story.php?id=83650&category=Local

Global warming a big concern
Eileen FitzGerald
The News-Times
The News-Times/Chris Ware

New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin speaks at WestConn about the environment Wednesday.
DANBURY  He's filed stories from a tent in the North Pole as scientists charted changes in the ice.
He's reported on the destruction of the Amazon rain forest and the expanding pipelines on the north coast of Alaska.

After a quarter of a century writing about the environment, New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin has seen enough to call for humans to find a more sustainable balance between economic growth and the natural world.

And to be worried about the impact humans are having on climate.

"It's only when you step back that can you see the imprint on climate," Revkin told about 118 students, faculty and community members during a lecture Wednesday in the new science building at Western Connecticut State University. "We have to come to grips with this problem."

"The future of this issue depends on the youth knowing what's going on," Revkin said. "Sociologists say that you can't impose worry on people, that it must come from within. We have to find a way to convince people that global warming must be acted upon promptly."

Revkin peppered environmental insights with humorous anecdotes about his career journey during 1½-hour talk.

He even joked about the suit he was wearing. He doesn't dress formally on trips to the Arctic, but he met former president Bill Clinton earlier Wednesday in his Harlem office.

Revkin asked Clinton if he had to choose one issue to pursue, what it would be. Clinton said it would be dealing with the climate and future energy needs.

Although scientists continue to debate the level of destruction caused by greenhouse gases, Revkin said no one denies that the amount of carbon dioxide from smokestacks and tailpipes must be reduced to stop global changes that will harm Earth.

"By 2040, we are going to need profoundly different energy," Revkin said, and it must be a method versatile enough to be used in the United States and China.

One problem is that many people still are stuck on the high-profile issues of the past, like toxic waste, instead of seriously examining what he called the slow-drip effects of decisions that contribute to global warming.

He said few scientists understand the whole picture. For instance, the long-range threat of rising seas from global warming could make efforts to rebuild New Orleans fruitless.

Revkin showed slides that illustrated some of his assignments. One slide of three maps showed the expansion of oil pipelines on the north coast of Alaska over 30 years. He challenged the government's quest to add to those lines by drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

He said oil companies need solid ice to explore for oil. There used to be 200 days a year to explore. Now there are 100.

Revkin's desire to write about environmental issues began while sailing two-thirds around the world after after college.

While on the 1 ½ year trip, he came across a stone wall piled with leopard skins on an impoverished island. It made him stop to think, "this can't be sustainable."

He recalled a stop at the island of Futuna in 1978. There was one telephone and the only entertainment was a Chinese merchant showing 16-mm newsreels from the past.

"I was coming from New England, where I lived a very high-speed life. This dawn-to-dusk lifestyle was life in simplicity. It was paradise to me," he said.

When he returned to Futuna 10 years ago, the setting was transformed with telephones and electricity. Instead of catching fish on the reef, frozen fish was being shipped in.

"That started me thinking. What is the right way of living? What is too much?" he said.

Another stop was on the leeward side of an uninhabited island and he hiked to the windward side.

"I came to a beach that was littered with thousands of light bulbs, from small ones to florescent tubes," he said.

Crews on passing ships changed bulbs and toss the used ones overboard.

The pile of bulbs reflected the "slow-drip" environmental problems the world faces now rather than the dramatic, high-profile catastrophes like the Exxon-Valdez oil spill of 1989, when 10 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Prince William Sound after a tanker went aground.

Another example of slow drip are the several drops of gasoline that fall when filling up a car that migrate to a drain when it rains. Those drips accumulate and amount to 1½ times the Exxon-Valdez every year.

"It's spread out. It's still consequential, but it's invisible," Revkin said.

Revkin's visit was a result of the university's association with the newspaper. WestConn's "Concepts of Biology" class for non-science majors relies on The New York Times science section as part of its curriculum.

WestConn biology professor Thomas Philbrick said The New York Times sponsors one lecture a year.

This is the second year of the series called "Science at Night," which provides public presentations on timely science issues.

"The real audience I'm after are the high school students and people interested in science who don't want to take a science class," Philbrick said.

"In our science department, we have very good teachers, a strong academic program and good research opportunities for students and faculty. But we are not very good at showing the regional community how good we are and what we have to offer."

Revkin has written three books, including "The North Pole Was here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World."

At the end of the night, Revkin called himself a despairing optimist, as Nobel Prize-winning scientist Rene Dubos once described himself.

"I have children and I want the world to be a healthier place. I think things should happen at a community level except solving the technology problems," Revkin said. "There will be losses (to the planet) but we can resolve this. We're incredibly adaptive and creative."

Contact Eileen FitzGerald
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or (203) 731-3333.