Progressive Democrat Issue 41: NATIONAL ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

This comes from the Union of Concerned Scientists:

The National Association of Environmental Law Societies (NAELS) will be holding a series of "Campus Climate Neutral" events this fall and winter. For each event, they are seeking a local scientist that is willing to give a short presentation (15-20 minutes) on climate change science and likely local impacts. The events will range from larger "summits" to smaller events. In general, NAELS estimates that the audience for each speaker will be from 25 - 100 people.

Below is a list of confirmed and potential locations. NAELS is currently working with event participants to finalize dates. If you are interested in speaking at one of these events, please contact Jean Sideris at ssi@ucsusa.org.

FALL, 2005: OCTOBER - NOVEMBER
AK: University of Arkansas - Fayatteville School of Law, Fayatteville
CA: University of California, Santa Barbara
CO: University of Colorado, Denver
CT: Yale University, New Haven
DC: Georgetown/American U Washington College of Law, Washington, DC
IL: Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent Law School, Chicago
IN: University of Indiana, Bloomington
MA: Boston College Law School, Newton
ME: University of Maine School of Law, Portland
MI: University of Michigan School of Law, Ann Arbor
MO: Washington University School of Law, St. Louis
NC: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
ND: University of North Dakota, Grand Forks
NM: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
NY: Pace Law School, White Plains
OH: University of Toledo School of Law, Toledo
OR: Lewis & Clark School of Law, Portland
TN: University of Tennessee, Knoxville
TX: South Texas College of Law, Houston
VA: University of Virginia School of Law, Charlottesville
VT: Vermont Law School, South Royalton
WA: University of Washington Law School, Seattle

WINTER, 2006: FEBRUARY - APRIL
FL: University of Florida, Gainesville
OR: University of Oregon, Eugene


** PRESENTATION MATERIALS
UCS has a series of ready-made powerpoint presentations on climate change that are available to SSI members. These materials include:

The Findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report.

Confronting Climate Change in the Gulf Coast Region

Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region

Climate Change in California: Choosing Our Future


**COMMUNICATING CLIMATE CHANGE
Materials related to the "Talking Climate Change" trainings that SSI held in 2002 are available. These workshops were intended to provide new insight on public perception of climate change that would help SSI members reach the public, the press, and policymakers on the issue. The material presented in the workshops was based upon research, which shows that scientists are critical "messengers" on the climate change topic, but that scientists often talk about the issue in exactly the wrong way. The SSI web site have a series of audio files from these workshops.

The audio files are a compilation of the three workshops. The largest of the files contains the presentation from the third workshop. The remaining, smaller, audio files contain select questions from all three of the workshops. Among the topics addressed in the workshop were;

* what the general public really thinks about the climate
issue;

* what climate science information people understand ... and
what still causes confusion;

* why it is so important that scientists speak out about
climate change;

* how scientists and others can reshape the national climate
change debate;

* how you personally can be most effective in motivating
your audience to do something about the problem

The recordings can be accessed through the SSI web site. You can contact me to get the necessary information to access this website (there is a username and password...I can give it to you if you are signing up to talk).