On September 9th, I attended the “Climate Change: The Good, The Bad, and The Wicked” conference, held at Texas State University and organized by the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. The conference was headlined by keynote speaker Michael Mann, the scientist who published the famed “hockey stick graph” in 1999 that shows a long period of stable global temperature followed by a rapid increase beginning in the second half of the twentieth century. Mann’s talk put our current climate situation in context of the last eight hundred thousand years of earth’s history and noted that we are in an unprecedented period where human activities have taken over the natural cycles that have governed the earth systems in the past. Because of this, we are seeing extremes in our weather, from heat waves to rapidly intensifying hurricanes. Mann pointed out that the causes of climate change are systemic, not individual, and that the best thing individuals can do to mitigate climate change is to vote for candidates and policies that center climate mitigation as a priority.
Medical anthropologist Rose Jones, of the Texas Tree Foundation, spoke about the effects of extreme heat on the human body. Extreme heat, like we have seen in Texas and around the world this summer, affects every system in the body, from the endocrine and cardiovascular systems to the brain. Jones cited research which shows that during heat waves, visits to emergency rooms spike and the incidence of bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety also show a marked increase. Violent behavior also becomes more of a problem in extreme heat, which Jones says exacerbates already challenging conditions in un-airconditioned Texas prisons. Jones said that official estimates of seven-hundred to ten-thousand deaths per year due to heat related causes in the US is likely an underestimate and called for better methods for collecting empirical data about heat-related illness and death.
In a panel dedicated to climate solutions, Suzanne Scott of the Nature Conservancy cited research which found that regardless of political affiliation, 80% of Texans want to protect our land and water. She stressed the importance of getting the message to people and naming specific ways to take action, whether it is voting or contacting legislators. A specific area the Nature Conversancy worked on last session was to educate representatives about the benefits of conservation easements. Even though these easements are on private land, they provide significant benefits to the public through improved air quality, preservation of natural spaces, and protection of our aquifers. In a state where much of our natural space is on privately held land, conservation easements are a useful tool to ensure environmental quality, Scott said. In response to Scott’s comments, the moderator, Andrew Sansom of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, stressed the importance of the upcoming Texas Ballot Proposition 14, Creation of the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund Amendment.
The overall impression I took away from the “Climate Change: The Good, The Bad, and The Wicked” conference was that climate change poses a serious threat to the wellbeing of Texans and people around the world, and that it is not too late for us to effect real change. Michael Mann said that any reduction in carbon emissions improves the kinds of weather extremes we have been noticing. Through grassroots organizing, pressure on the legislative process, effective education, and through cooperation among many stakeholders, it is still possible to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change.
