Climate change is happening now

Michael Charney is Co-leader of Mass Climate Action Network, (MCAN) a coalition of 17 local environmental groups including Clean Water Action, Mass PIRG, Boston Climate Action Network, and more local environmental activist groups.

Extent of the Problem

Ross Gelbspan is the Pulitzer prize winning author of The Heat is On www.heatisonline.org who has just published a second book which will be out in June, having to do with the political issues which are delaying our addressing climate change in this country, and comparing our response with that of other countries.
Peter de Menocal is Associate Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and a research scientist of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY. He is the author of numerous scientific analyses, many of which have enlightened debate on the topic of global warming.

Health impact:

Jill Stein (not confirmed) diseases, temperature stress, drought, windstorms, floods.

International Solutions

Bill Moomaw, Kennedy School, Sloan School, Woods Hole
Ellen Frank, Emmanuel College, Tobin Tax and International Environmental Law
Eban Goodstein

Climate Activism

Greenhouse Action Networ
Ross Gelbspan
Beyond Kyoto
Energy solutions: Windmills, tidal turbine and hydrogen production, geothermal, passive and active Solar energy, biofuels.

Where have these new technologies been used successfully.

Jeremy Rifkin, Hydrogen Economy
Harvey Wasserman, Windmills.

Climate Change Subtrack -- Peak Oil proposal

The purpose of this track is to discuss the realities and timing of the imminent global oil crisis, the ways in which society will be affected; examining US foreign policy as a series of "resource wars" (both overt and covert) to control the worlds' remaining energy resources; and the madness of using up this remaining "cheap energy subsidy" on military adventurism instead of a "Manhattan project" approach to develop and manufacture renewable forms of energy and a sustainable way of living.

Session 1. The realities of Peak Oil
Possible speaker: Dr. Colin Cambpell (world class expert on peak oil. A petroleum geologist. Founder of ASPO (The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas)
This session is an introduction to peak oil. -- When will oil start to run out; how quickly will oil production decliune? How do we know what we know? Including a short discussion of the natural gas situation in North America (not much better).

Session 2. The societal implications of peak oil.
Possible speaker: Richard Heinberg, author of "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the fate of Industrial Societies"
Material covered: What will be affected by peak oil: examines transportation, food production, manufacture of pesticides , fertilizers, petrochemicals, pharmecuticals, etc. What will be the affect on society of the coming oil shock?

Session 3. "The military/geopolitical implications of peak oil" or "Peak oil and US foreign policy"
Possible speaker: Michael Klare--Professor of Peace and World Security Studies--Hampshire College (Amherst, MA); author of "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict"
Covers aspects of US foreign policy as it relates to controlling the world's oil and natural gas resources--how the desire to control the world's oil has driven the US foreign policy for the last half century. What we can expect in the near future as the oil begins to run out.