Global Climate Change: Engage on Campus

Whether you're the leader of a Student Pugwash chapter or a student interested in organizing a climate change event, you can benefit from the ideas below! Want to learn more about organizing Student Pugwash events on your campus?
Email contact@spusa.org.

Movies/ Documentaries
Speaker List
Other Ideas

Movies

A.I.: In the not-so-far future the polar ice caps have melted and the resulting raise of the ocean waters has drowned all the coastal cities of the world. Withdrawn to the interior of the continents, the human race keeps advancing, reaching to the point of creating realistic robots (called mechas) to serve it. One of the mecha-producing companies builds David, an artificial kid which is the first to have real feelings…. [A.I. is] a futuristic adaptation of the tale of Pinocchio, with David being the "fake" boy who desperately wants to become "real". (Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database.)

The Day after Tomorrow: A climatologist tries to figure out a way to save the world from abrupt global warming. He must get to his young son in New York, which is being taken over by a new ice age. (Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database.)

Waterworld: Centuries of global warming have caused the polar ice caps to melt, flooding the earth as civilization is left adrift. The inhabitants of this once-flourishing planet cling to life on incredible floating cities, their existence constantly threatened by Smokers--bands of marauding pirates who roam the featureless surface of Waterworld. For the survivors, one chance remains: a solitary hero, known only as the Mariner. Battling the Smokers and their ruthless leader, the Deacon, the Mariner sets out with a beautiful woman and a mysterious little girl on a search for a new beginning. (Synopsis from Yahoo! Movies.)

Documentaries

An Inconvenient Truth: From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, An Inconvenient Truth, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. (Synopsis from the website for “An Inconvenient Truth.”)

Too Hot Not to Handle: Over the past century, consumption of carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) has risen to staggering levels, especially in the United States, where five percent of the world's population is responsible for 25 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. Too Hot Not To Handle offers a wealth of chilling evidence that the greenhouse effect is intensifying and the Earth is warming faster than at any other time in human history. (Synopsis from HBO online.)

Global Warming: The Signs and the Science: Filmed in the United States, Asia, and South America, this wide-ranging, compelling and accessible program brings the reality of climate change to life and offers viewers inspiring examples of people who are making a difference in their own communities...The documentary also looks at evidence that human activities are provoking an unprecedented era of atmospheric warming and climatic events: more drought, wildfires and flooding; polar melting; more powerful storms; and more variable weather. Tropical diseases are moving north; childhood respiratory illnesses are skyrocketing; and in the last three decades more than 30 diseases new to science have emerged. (Synopsis from PBS Online.)

Suggested Speakers

• Ramon Alvarez
  Scientist
  Environmental Defense (Austin, TX)
  
• Caspar Ammann
  Climate Scientist
  National Center for Atmospheric Research (Colorado)
  
• David Blockstein
  Senior Scientist
  National Council for Science and the Environment (D.C.)
  
• Joshua Bushinsky
  State Solutions Fellow
  The Pew Center on Global Climate Change (D.C.)
  
• Andrew Dessler
  Associate Professor
  Texas A & M
  
• Brenda Ekwurzel
  Climate Scientist
  Union of Concerned Scientists (D.C.)
  
• Peter Frumhoff
  Program Director, Global Environment Program
  Union of Concerned Scientists (Northeast)
  
• Henry Kelly
  President
  Federation of American Scientists (D.C.)
  
• Robert O. Lawton
  Professor of Meterology and Oceanography; State of Florida Climatologist
  Florida State University
  
• Amy Luers
  Climate Impacts Scientist
  Union of Concerned Scientists (West Coast)
  
• Michael Mann
  Professor; Director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center
  Penn State University (Midwest)
  
• Craig Schiffries
  Senior Scientist
  National Council for Science and the Environment (D.C.)
  
• Gavin Schmidt
  Climate Modeller
  NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NYC)
  
• John Weiner
  Director
  National Energy Information Center (D.C.)

Other Ideas

• Climate Project Training Program
  In the fall of 2006 Al Gore, along with a team of scientists and educators, will be training over 1,000 individuals to give a version of his powerpoint presentation featured in An Inconvenient Truth. You can apply to be one of them!
• Help scientists predict climate change!
  Join in the research at climateprediction.net by putting you computer’s idle time to good use.
• Eat Ice Cream. The creative Student Pugwash chapter at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute planned an ice cream social so they could cool down while talking about global warming.
• Join the Challenge! Campuses across the US and Canada are running and winning clean energy campaigns on their campuses and more are joining the fight every day. Check out the Campus Climate Challenge website to find out more.
• Contact Student Pugwash for help. The great part about being involved in Student Pugwash is that you have professional national office staff who are ready to help you plan events. Email contact@spusa.org to learn more about being involved in Student Pugwash.
• Support climate legislation. A number of environmental advocacy organizations are tracking climate change legislation. Check out the organizations on our links page to find out what you can do to help.