Students who attended Polar Palooza not only learned about global warming but also saw a 3,000-year-old cylinder of ice and tried on coats and boots worn by Arctic researches. The traveling lecture series discussed climate change and the effects of a warming world to a group of more than 200 people Friday evening at Independence Park Theatre and Cultural Center. “It’s like a traveling road show,” said Geoff Haines-Stiles, Polar Palooza project director. “It’s not just a lecture. We try to make it fun as well as informative.” Haines-Stiles said Polar Palooza is stopping in 25 communities where they often present the lecture for multiple groups. Mike Castellini, associate dean of the school of fisheries and ocean science at University of Alaska Fairbanks, said the Earth is a system that responds and adapts to changes. “What happens in the poles actually impacts the rest of the planet,” Castellini said. “And what happens in the rest of the planet actually impacts the poles.” Castellini said rising temperatures have caused ice in the North Pole to melt, which is affecting polar bears and seals who depend on the ice to live. He said without the ice, both species do not have a livable habitat. “There is even some discussion about [polar bears] becoming endangered because of the ice [melting],” Castellini said. Charles Bentley, emeritus professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, showed the audience the 3,000-year-old piece of ice. He said he studies ice core samples, which are drilled out of glaciers, because they provide information about variations in temperature and carbon dioxide levels from thousands of years in the past. “It was really cool to see a piece of ice that was thousands of years old,” said Jacob Anderson, petroleum engineering senior. Jackie Grebmeier, biological oceanographer and research professor at University of Tennessee, shared pictures of animals – such as crabs and worms – that live under the ice. She said whales and ducks rely on such animals for food. Grebmeier said the annual sea ice minimum, the level of ice retracting toward the North Pole in summer and early fall, has remained at a steady 5 percent decreasing rate during the past 20 years – until 2007, when a dramatic drop not predicted to occur until decades in the future occurred. She said they are trying to figure out why the change happened. Richard Glenn, president of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium, spoke about living in Barrow, Alaska, the farthest northern village. Glenn said his hometown hosts many researches coming to study the Arctic. He shared the traditions of his people, such as dances, and showed a video of a cellar used as a freezer. He said traditional foods – like caribou and blow head whale – are stored in the underground cellars where they stay frozen year-round. Leigh Stearns, researcher at University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, said rising temperatures have accelerated the rate at which glaciers are melting. “We knew that glaciers changed, but we always thought at a glacial pace that they responded slowly,” Stearns said. “But we’re seeing that they’re responding very rapidly to climate change.” Phil Bart, LSU professor of geology and geophysics, studies the changing sea levels. He said climate change has the ability to drastically rise sea levels, which could place much of Louisiana’s coastline underwater. He said land would not be the only thing lost, but that the economy as a whole would suffer if Louisiana lost significant portions of the coastline to rising sea levels. Marshall Shepherd, University of Georgia geography professor, said hurricanes are a mechanism to move heat and hot air toward the poles and away from the equator. He said rising temperatures may cause more hurricanes to occur. This year has been an above average year in number of hurricanes, although most of them have not made landfall, he said. Shepherd said the debate in politics is moving from if global warming is a reality to what should be done about it. He said this is an optimistic sign that steps may be taken to prevent further damage to the ecosystem. Robert Starnes, political science and history junior, said he was at Polar Palooza with the Environmental Conservation Organization. He said they were collecting signatures of voters who are committed to voting in a pro-environmental stance. “We have to learn about the problems we’re going to be facing 10 to 15 years down the road,” Starnes said. Castellini said students can make a difference by doing small practical things – like riding a bike instead of driving or bringing a reusable water bottle to class instead of a new bottle every day. He said the most important thing students should do is educate themselves and learn about the impact of climate change on the environment.
—-Contact Nicholas Persac at [email protected]