Hackett joined forces with Al Gore in the former vice president's initiative to raise awareness about -- and action to slow -- global warming.
Hackett Environmentalist Joins Gore In Global Warming Fight
FORT SMITH -- Robert McAfee of Hackett joined forces with Al Gore in the former vice president's initiative to raise awareness about -- and action to slow -- global warming.
With about 250 other would-be regional messengers for Gore's nonprofit The Climate Project, McAfee attended Gore's Dec. 1 to 3 training session in Nashville, Tenn.
At the session, McAfee said he learned global warming statistics and what's at stake if it continues unchecked; he was armed with Gore's slide presentation based on his book and film, "An Inconvenient Truth;" and he was taught presentation and recruitment techniques.
McAfee is not the only Arkansan involved as a The Climate Project messenger.
Brent Robinson of Fayetteville, the executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Museum Foundation, and former state senator Kevin Smith of Helena were classmates. The McAfee-Robinson- Smith trio has discussed coordinating training sessions, McAfee said.
They're in good company. Their classmates include conservation district representatives; teachers; public administrators; an Air Force master sergeant; a Glacier National Park ranger; pastors; retired bankers; marketers; Rapid City, S.D., City Attorney Tamara Pier; the founder of the Flying Karamazov Bros. Comedy Theatre Troupe, Howard Patterson of Portland, Ore.; Colliers International Senior Vice President Lea Park of Atlanta; retired naval officer and Boeing manager Scott Palmer of Mission Viejo, Calif.; and high school students.
According to Gore's literature, The Climate Project is a movement to educate and challenge people and governments into taking action against global warming. The project's first goal is the training of 1,000 lecturers who will hold presentations in their regions. The sessions are being held in Nashville and Sydney, Australia, through January. Those sessions are already filled.
"And the most remarkable thing is Al Gore did the training himself -- eight hours on Saturday," McAfee said.
Australia and the United States have not signed the Kyoto Protocol limiting carbon emissions -- a major global-warming culprit. The treaty went into effect in February 2005.
Gore plans future training sessions in the United Kingdom and India, McAfee said.
McAfee said each trainee commits to doing 10 training sessions a year, and he hopes to do more. The presentations focus on small steps that individuals can take to help slow global warming -- replacing a single light bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, for example, reduces the carbon dioxide load added to the atmosphere by about 150 pounds a year, he said.
According to the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and Hadley Center in the United Kingdom, since 1860, average global temperature has increased 0.6 degrees, following a steep climb about 1940 and another steep climb beginning about 1980.
According to an October report by Sir Nicholas Stern, the former World Bank chief economist, carbon emissions have already caused a half-degree Celsius rise in global temperature. If no action is taken to reduce emissions, there's a 75 percent chance that global temperatures will rise 2 to 3 degrees over the next 50 years and a 50 percent chance they'll rise by 5 degrees Celsius, he said. A 5-degree increase could drop global domestic product output by 10 percent, he said.
Stern said melting glaciers would increase flood risks; crop yields would fall, especially in Africa; extreme weather patterns would increase, possibly reducing global domestic product by 1 percent; and up to 40 percent of species could face extinction.
To stabilize global warming, he said, carbon emissions must be stabilized over the next 20 years, then drop up to 3 percent afterward. Stern said an international response is needed to make the necessary reductions.
The Climate Project message is three-pronged, McAfee said:
* Global warming is a fact.
* We caused it.
* We can fix it.
"It is a message of hope because so many people think of global warming as doom and gloom," said McAfee, who is no environmental novice.
Educated in climatology and physical geometry, in the fall of 1995 McAfee spearheaded the founding of the Arkansas Environmental Association at the then-Westark Community College. He resigned this April.
The group works statewide with teachers, state park officials, business and industry and others to educate about environmental programs. He was awarded the association's first-ever Robert McAfee Environmental Award.
The science part of it is a natural fit; but, because he'll be communicating to nonscientists, he found the communication skills taught in the seminar especially valuable, McAfee said. He holds a master's degree in climatology from the University of Wisconsin.
He is climate change messenger for nonprofit, Hackett-based The Peaceable Kingdom and Thinking Like a Mountain Institute. The Peaceable Kingdom promotes safe water worldwide. Its Thinking Like a Mountain Institute advocates conservation and protection of the freshwater ecosystem.
Asked about opposition to The Climate Project's message, McAfee said it all comes from people involved in groups like the oil, coal and other carbon-based industries.
Wal-Mart is a big supporter of the program and sent about 20 people to become trainers, he said.
Except for the 300-slide PowerPoint presentation based on Gore's movie, McAfee and the other volunteers cover their own costs. "It's a labor of love," he said.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/01/02/news/122506trglobalwarming.txt
FORT SMITH -- Robert McAfee of Hackett joined forces with Al Gore in the former vice president's initiative to raise awareness about -- and action to slow -- global warming.
With about 250 other would-be regional messengers for Gore's nonprofit The Climate Project, McAfee attended Gore's Dec. 1 to 3 training session in Nashville, Tenn.
At the session, McAfee said he learned global warming statistics and what's at stake if it continues unchecked; he was armed with Gore's slide presentation based on his book and film, "An Inconvenient Truth;" and he was taught presentation and recruitment techniques.
McAfee is not the only Arkansan involved as a The Climate Project messenger.
Brent Robinson of Fayetteville, the executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Museum Foundation, and former state senator Kevin Smith of Helena were classmates. The McAfee-Robinson- Smith trio has discussed coordinating training sessions, McAfee said.
They're in good company. Their classmates include conservation district representatives; teachers; public administrators; an Air Force master sergeant; a Glacier National Park ranger; pastors; retired bankers; marketers; Rapid City, S.D., City Attorney Tamara Pier; the founder of the Flying Karamazov Bros. Comedy Theatre Troupe, Howard Patterson of Portland, Ore.; Colliers International Senior Vice President Lea Park of Atlanta; retired naval officer and Boeing manager Scott Palmer of Mission Viejo, Calif.; and high school students.
According to Gore's literature, The Climate Project is a movement to educate and challenge people and governments into taking action against global warming. The project's first goal is the training of 1,000 lecturers who will hold presentations in their regions. The sessions are being held in Nashville and Sydney, Australia, through January. Those sessions are already filled.
"And the most remarkable thing is Al Gore did the training himself -- eight hours on Saturday," McAfee said.
Australia and the United States have not signed the Kyoto Protocol limiting carbon emissions -- a major global-warming culprit. The treaty went into effect in February 2005.
Gore plans future training sessions in the United Kingdom and India, McAfee said.
McAfee said each trainee commits to doing 10 training sessions a year, and he hopes to do more. The presentations focus on small steps that individuals can take to help slow global warming -- replacing a single light bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, for example, reduces the carbon dioxide load added to the atmosphere by about 150 pounds a year, he said.
According to the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and Hadley Center in the United Kingdom, since 1860, average global temperature has increased 0.6 degrees, following a steep climb about 1940 and another steep climb beginning about 1980.
According to an October report by Sir Nicholas Stern, the former World Bank chief economist, carbon emissions have already caused a half-degree Celsius rise in global temperature. If no action is taken to reduce emissions, there's a 75 percent chance that global temperatures will rise 2 to 3 degrees over the next 50 years and a 50 percent chance they'll rise by 5 degrees Celsius, he said. A 5-degree increase could drop global domestic product output by 10 percent, he said.
Stern said melting glaciers would increase flood risks; crop yields would fall, especially in Africa; extreme weather patterns would increase, possibly reducing global domestic product by 1 percent; and up to 40 percent of species could face extinction.
To stabilize global warming, he said, carbon emissions must be stabilized over the next 20 years, then drop up to 3 percent afterward. Stern said an international response is needed to make the necessary reductions.
The Climate Project message is three-pronged, McAfee said:
* Global warming is a fact.
* We caused it.
* We can fix it.
"It is a message of hope because so many people think of global warming as doom and gloom," said McAfee, who is no environmental novice.
Educated in climatology and physical geometry, in the fall of 1995 McAfee spearheaded the founding of the Arkansas Environmental Association at the then-Westark Community College. He resigned this April.
The group works statewide with teachers, state park officials, business and industry and others to educate about environmental programs. He was awarded the association's first-ever Robert McAfee Environmental Award.
The science part of it is a natural fit; but, because he'll be communicating to nonscientists, he found the communication skills taught in the seminar especially valuable, McAfee said. He holds a master's degree in climatology from the University of Wisconsin.
He is climate change messenger for nonprofit, Hackett-based The Peaceable Kingdom and Thinking Like a Mountain Institute. The Peaceable Kingdom promotes safe water worldwide. Its Thinking Like a Mountain Institute advocates conservation and protection of the freshwater ecosystem.
Asked about opposition to The Climate Project's message, McAfee said it all comes from people involved in groups like the oil, coal and other carbon-based industries.
Wal-Mart is a big supporter of the program and sent about 20 people to become trainers, he said.
Except for the 300-slide PowerPoint presentation based on Gore's movie, McAfee and the other volunteers cover their own costs. "It's a labor of love," he said.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/01/02/news/122506trglobalwarming.txt
posted by presgore19 at 8:46 AM
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