General Meeting - Climate Change

Consensus, Confusion, and Conspiracy: A Skeptic Looks at Global Warming

Global Warming. To some, it is the single greatest threat ever faced by humankind. Others dismiss it as just the latest manifestation of environmentalist’s leftist political stranglehold on the halls of academia and objective science. Why do scientists talk of a “consensus” on climate change when there is so much obvious disagreement about global warming? Why are so many alarmists painting images of a future apocalypse when we know that greenhouse gas concentrations and temperatures have been much, much higher throughout Earth’s history? Making sense of and forming an informed opinion about climate change science is a path fraught with obstacles and many dead ends. How is the lay person to cut through all the rhetoric and propaganda on both sides?

Alexander Glass is Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Earth and Ocean Sciences in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University where he teaches courses in physical and historical geology, oceanography, paleontology, and global climate change. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in geology/paleontology and has the "odd distinction" of being a globally-recognized expert on fossil brittlestars. Although active as a paleontologist, his primary passion is science education and the study of pseudoscientific movements. As an earth science educator he regularly speaks to audiences about anti-evolutionism, global warming, the nature of science, fossils, geological history, gas fracking, and sea level rise. Alex lives in Chapel Hill with his wife Jennifer (also a geologist) and his two sons Adam (16) and Kyle (13).