Persuasive Message
Nevertheless, Dr. Stewart turned out to be an exceedingly well informed and articulate communicator of the climatic fear that is sweeping the universe.
He brought a compelling warming warning.
One of the most worrisome problems, he said, is that everybody has been lulled into complacency. We need to act. Now.
After surveying the crowd and determining that virtually all in the Rotunda Room had seen Al Gores hit documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Dr. Stewart used that script as a springboard to explain the roots of global warming.
Way It Is in Real Life
All of you remember, then, how global warming is happening. The sun is heating up the earth. The earth reflects the radiation of red light, infra-red light that comes off the earth as it gets warmed by the sun. Some of the infra-red is reflected by the atmosphere, and keeps the earth warm. That is very helpful. But if you get too much, then you have global warming.
The principles of global warming and a hot car in summertime are similar, Dr, Stewart said. If you go out to your car in the summer sun, you notice it is hot inside. The reason is, the sun has come through the windshield, warmed up the seats, and the radiation from the warm seats is reflected by the windshield and gets your car hotter and hotter.
The Downhill Cycle
This is what is happening to our planet, the professor said.
For the earths first 600,000 years, he said, our carbon dioxide was stable, and the planet was happily compatible with nature.
By Dr. Stewarts reckoning, trouble was born in 1800 when mankind started becoming increasingly reckless with precious, limited resources .
What happened was, in 1800 we began burning coal. In 1900, we began burning oil, and now, of course, we are off the charts. This is what is causing the global warming.
How Bad Can It Get?
Segueing into the body of his speech, Dr. Stewart turned to a 90-day-old document to show worst-case scenarios that the United Nations is considering in the event global warmings threat worsens. He cited numerous American cities that ultimately could be submerged by the fast rising sea levels.
We are on our way, he promised, to a totals planetary disaster. What is happening in such a disaster is that the ice melts. If you saw the Gore movie, the ice is coming off of Greenland, off of Antarctica, and it is raising the sea level.
We dont have time to go into details. But we all have seen the effects of the heat deaths in Europe, the kinds of storms that are happening, and the kind of hurricane intensity. We are in big trouble here.
Chain Reaction
We are getting a reduction in our soil moisture, which is causing crop failures around the world. In the (North and South) Poles, we have similar issues. It turns out that sunlight is reflected by shiny white ice. But it is absorbed by blue water. Therefore, as the sun melts more ice, it exposes more water, which raises the temperature of the water, which melts more ice.
Our poor friends the polar bears are in deep trouble. They probably will go extinct.
Together, Dr. Stewart and David Allgood, the state director of the League of Conservation Voters were ardent and persuasive spokesmen. They shared a cache of volatile information that was underpinned by an ocean of data, calculations, statistics, survey results and insights.
Picture Growing Bleaker
Asserting that worldwide climatic conditions have steadily and, in his view, obviously worsened during the past decade, Dr. Stewart episodically would interject an eye-catching headline.
The imminent threat of global devastation is worse than we realized, he said
Fish are being captured by mile-long nets, and we are running out of fishes
We are on our way to a total planetary disaster
The financial losses caused by weather in the last 7 years have been off the charts
How to Help
While urging his listeners to grow organic food, to replace their lawns with gardens and to minimize their driving, Mr. Allgoods message was mainly political.
His League of Conservation Voters is non-partisan. But after 20 years with the league, Mr. Allgood said there is no doubt California Democrats exponentially are more sensitive toward the environment than Republicans. Democrats can be reliably counted upon to carry environmentally friendly legislation, he said, while GOP politicians almost never can.
Legislation to Watch
The state Legislature is on summer vacation until Aug. 20. Mr. Allgood asked his audience to follow a handful of environment-related bills in each chamber, and push them along with their written and spoken support.
They are: Senate Bills 210, 220, 375, 411, 412, 456, 719, 862, 966 and 974.
The Assembly Bills are: 5, 48, 70, 118, 233, 236, 515, 548, 558, 706, 821, 828, 888, 1108, 1358 and 1470.
