Climate Change

This is the basic conversation to introduce a Climate Action in your community. Use the Conversation template with the following additional steps incorporated:

• After a video (links below) list the impacts of climate change on Ireland – 2mins:
  • sea level rise – up to 70,000 homes at risk
  • more intense storms and rainfall events
  • increased likelihood and magnitude of river and coastal flooding
  • water shortages in summer in the east
  • adverse impacts on water quality
  • changes in distribution of plant and animal species
  • effects on fisheries sensitive to changes in temperature
• The following images from the EPA show the breakdown of Irelands emissions and projections. They give an indication of where change is needed most:

• Ask people what interests them most when considering what can be done about climate change. Here are some popular topics to prompt the conversation:
  • Food systems
  • Biodiversity 
  • Water
  • Waste
  • Energy 
  • Transport
• When everyone gets together and each group facilitator lists 3 actions from their group, ask people what they want to do next. The following suggestions are in the presentation:
  • Select a topic for another workshop
  • Investigate how an action works elsewhere
  • Start or join an action group based on feedback

That’s all you need to add to the Climate Conversation template. Pick from the following resources to incorporate into your workshop if you don’t have anything else in mind.

This short video from Henrik Kniberg is a sweet and pragmatic summary of climate change – what the problem is, why, and what you can actually do about it: (17mins)

Greenhouse gases are trapping the suns heat inside our atmosphere. “The carbon cycle” provides basic background about rising atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases. From World Meteorological Organization: (2mins)

Irelands Citizens Assembly deliberating “How the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling Climate Change” was presented “The Science of Climate Change” by Dr. Conor Murphy, Maynooth University in 2017: (19mins)

See Met Éireann’s work on Climate Change

This video from Ecoeye broadcast in 2017: ‘Climate Change and Me’. Host Lara Dungan explores the reality of climate change in Ireland and what the future holds for the people, flora, and fauna of our beautiful isle. It starts with a 15 minute focus on flooding and coastal erosion: (25mins)

3 great articles “What is climate change“, “10 facts about climate change” and “How does climate change affect Ireland” are on SpunOut.ie, Ireland’s youth information website.

Another video from Ecoeye, broadcast in 2019, interviews some members of the Citizens Assembly who deliberated on “How the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling Climate Change” and follows up on some of the information they received: (24mins)

National Geographic explain what causes climate change and what the effects are. Learn the human impact and consequences of climate change for the environment, and our lives: (4mins)

This presentation from the Citizens Assembly “How to be a leader in tackling Climate Change”. Prof. Andrew Kerr, Executive Director, Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation and Prof. Of Climate and Low Carbon Innovation, University of Edinburgh presents the Scottish experience: (18mins)

What’s the difference between weather and climate? From NASA kids: (2mins)

NASA have a whole YouTube channel dedicated to climate change. Have a look through for something that appeals to you. The following are particularly popular:

This temperature anomaly is a measure of how much warmer or colder it is at a particular place and time than the long-term mean temperature, defined as the average temperature over the 30-year base period from 1951 to 1980. Blue areas represent cool areas and yellow and red areas represent warmer areas. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies: (36secs)

Here is an ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe: (3mins)

Earth’s global surface temperature in 2019 was the second warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1880 and 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (0.98 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1951 to 1980 mean, according to an analysis by NASA: (33secs)

We have the technology and know-how to solve climate change, we just need to scale it up. Here are 10 signs of incredible progress in 2018. From the Years Project: (3mins)

Credit “Blue Marble” Image and caption adapted from NASA’s Visible Earth catalog. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Centerl Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation). Data and technical support: MODIS Land Group; MODIS Science Data Support Team; MODIS Atmosphere Group; MODIS Ocean Group. Additional data: USGS EROS data Center (topography); USGS Terrestrial Remote Sensing Flagstaff Field Center (Antarctica); Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (city lights).

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