Global warming on agenda at SACPA

UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE PHILOSOPHY PROFESSOR KENT PEACOCK GUEST SPEAKER

Are hurricanes, typhoons, killer heat waves, droughts, floods and wildfires caused by global warming?

At today’s regular weekly Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs session, speaker Kent Peacock, presenting “Hell, High Water and High Hopes,” will attempt to shed some light.

Peacock, who joined the University of Lethbridge in 1996, has special interests in professional ethics, environmental issues, logic and foundations of physics.

He’ll discuss that climate scientists are careful to explain that one cannot attribute any particular storm or wildfire to climate change alone. Climate is complex, but the fact is: there is more heat than there used to be in the atmosphere and oceans and all that heat has to go somewhere. Is the human species doomed? Peacock will say reports of our imminent extinction are greatly exaggerated. But there is no hope of getting through our present ecological bottleneck without acknowledging the reality and the seriousness of the self-induced survival challenges our species faces today.

The speaker will sketch some of the reasons why he thinks we still have a good chance of seeing our way out of this jam, with special reference to priorities here in Alberta.

Today’s SACPA session runs from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Country Kitchen Catering.