The Climate Change Speaker Series comes to Wilmington

Casey Auch | Layout Editor | @Caseyvauch

A double rainbow towered above Satellite Bar & Lounge as guests gathered Wednesday evening for the Climate Change Speaker Series. The first event of many was a screening of “How to Let go of the World and Love All the things Climate Can’t Change,” a film that dives into the effects of climate change in twelve different countries. In his film, Oscar nominated director Josh Fox, acknowledges that it may be too late to put an end to some of the greatest consequences of climate change.

The screening was organized by Sierra Croomer, an intern at Wrightsville Beach Scenic Tours and a student at UNC Wilmington. Her mentor at Wrightsville Beach Scenic Tours, Joe Abbate, shared his idea of presenting a film screening and speaker series, and it became her job to make it happen.

The film screening and speaker series is an effort to spread awareness that individual acts to reduce the amount of energy use do make a difference. “What we do today will absolutely make a difference tomorrow,” said Croomer.

Dr. Steve Emslie, a UNCW professor in the Biology and Marine Biology departments, began the series by explaining climate change as a complex issue. “There have been times in the past where there has been more CO2” in the atmosphere, Emslie said. Scientists are more concerned with the rate of increase, than the amount. According to the UN, 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000.

Emslie emphasized the economic effects of the sea level rising locally, warning that the next big housing crisis would be beachfront housing in twenty years. Later, in the film, viewers learned about the disastrous effects of Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York City as well as the impact rising sea levels is having on coastal communities like ours.

Next in the series was Mack Coyle of Coyle Industries and Clean Energy.  Emslie introduced Coyle as a “solar genius” because of his portable solar containers, designed and manufactured by his local renewable-energy business. Defining equity as “a fairness on how we share the world and its resources,” Coyle highlighted its importance as resources dwindle. “We have to demand equality and equity to halt this environmental degradation,” Coyle said.

The film introduces “some terrifying facts that are not taken seriously” Croomer said in an e-mail interview. A reviewer in the New York Times sums it up in his one-word assessment of the documentary: tough. After nearly an hour of environmental degradation from oil spills in the Amazon to the melting ice caps in the Poles, Fox lightens the mood with a series of cat videos.

Having volunteered for Alliance for Cape Fear Trees, Croomer was particularly fascinated by the problems associated with the Hemlock woolly adelgid, a small pest native to Asia responsible for the staggering decrease in eastern Hemlock trees. First reported in 1951, the Hemlock wooly adelgid has spread up and down the East Coast, now established in 16 states from Maine to Georgia.

According to the film, the hemlock tree is a keystone species, defined by the National Geographic Society as “a plant or animal that plays a unique and crucial role in the way an ecosystem functions.” As winters warm, the Hemlock woolly adelgid moves increasingly more north and more widespread, causing scientists and environmentalists like Josh Fox to worry.

Following the partial screening, local poet and writer Jon Wolf, performed a satirical skit in which he called customer service in attempt to return the broken Earth that he was given. He described the monkeys on Earth creating “black sludge” and limiting freshwater supply. The audience laughed when the woman on the line offered Mars as a replacement, a planet unfit for human (or monkey) existence.

The sentiment of Emslie’s final statement echoed throughout the night’s event; “Change starts at a personal level,” he said.

The next event is at Ironclad Brewery on Octpber 20 at 7pm at which speakers will address how to reduce the human carbon footprint and the second half of the film will be played.