Dr. James Hansen, the grandfather of climate change science, will present “Energy and Climate Change: How Can Justice Be Achieved for Young People?” at 7 p.m. Friday, April 29, at Creighton University in Omaha.
The talk will focus on the inter-generational injustice of climate change and the harm climate disruption poses to our children and grandchildren. The free event will take place in the Mike and Josie Harper Center on campus, 602 N. 20th St.
Hansen is an internationally renowned climate expert, described by the Washington Post as “the world’s most famous climate scientist.” He is the former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is credited with having detected 35 years ago that the burning of fossil fuels was creating a greenhouse effect and warming the planet.
“Threats posed by human-made climate change are coming into focus as early stages of climate impacts are already beginning, including practically irreversible effects of sea level rise and species extermination,” he said. “Other impacts include increasing regional climate extremes, which involve stronger heat waves, droughts and fires, on one hand, and heavier rainfall, more extreme floods and stronger storms on the other hand. These climate changes can create grave injustices of today’s adults to young people and future generations, of developed countries to developing countries, and of humans to all other species, if climate change is not mitigated via rapid reductions of fossil fuel emissions.”
Hansen will be in Omaha to speak at the 2016 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting on Saturday, April 30, in support of the shareholder resolution dealing with the risk climate change poses to the company’s profitability. He also will address a Saturday rally organized by Bold Nebraska in front of the CenturyLink Center during the shareholder meeting lunch break.
Bold Nebraska spearheaded the opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline through the state. Referencing Warren Buffett’s invocation of “Noah’s Law” in his 2015 Shareholder Letter (“If an ark may be essential to survival, begin building it today, no matter how cloudless the skies appear.”), the rally participants will appeal to Buffett to lead the construction of the “Climate Ark.”
- Natural Resources
More details at: http://go.unl.edu/evkh