Published Work - Le Provocateur

Assumption presents Sun Come Up - News - Le Provocateur
Published in October 17, 2012 issue of Le Provocateur  

Campus Ministry and the Social Justice Committee teamed up to bring the topic of Global Warming and Climate Change to the student body. the organizations opened up a showing of the film Sun Come Up to the student body on October 3 in the Tinsley Campus Ministry Center.

Following the film, Professor Richard Warby, Visiting Assistant Professor of Natural Sciences, gave a presentation regarding the topics of global warming vs. climate change vs. greenhouse effect to better the students knowledge of the current problem going on in the world.

Sun Come Up is an Academy Award Nominated film that shows firsthand the hardship of facing climate change. The Carteret Islanders, a community that lives on a remote island in the South Pacific Ocean, are forced to leave the land that they have always known and learn to call a new place home.

The ever-changing environment, due to global warming and climate change, is threatening lives on the island the Carterets inhabit. They experience a food shortage and have to make the painful decision of whether or not to fight for their lives on the island, or to move to the mainland where they are hated by the Bougainvilles. These people are losing their culture, their way of life and their identity.

The Carterets also try to build relationships with the people they are at war with in Bougainville, 50 miles across the open water. The Carterets are facing fewer tress, more pollution and global warming and are forced to make relationships with the Bougainvilles in order to have a place to live.

Warby jump-started his discussion by proposing the question, "Did they movie have a happy ending?"

The audience came to the consensus that is was a happier ending than it could've possibly been because the Carerets started the slow process of their new move over to the mainland.

Warby's first concern was to make sure the students understood that global warming, climate change and greenhouse effect "should not be used interchangeably and mean different things. Global warming is an aspect to climate change."

One thing that people often argue about is whether the climate is, in fact, changing. According to the statistics it is changing. Over time, global temperatures from the 1900s to the 2012 have become serveral degrees warmer.

"We see very small incremental changes and do not always see the bigger picture of what's happening," said Warby. "The rate at which we are experience change in temperature is getting faster and faster."

The Earth's surface is heating up and greenhouse gases are responsible for trapping the heat. "By the end of the century, New York temperatures will be like the temperatures in Georgie, and New Hampshire will have temperatures like the Carolinas," predicted Warby.

"More frequent heat waves in the Northeast are expected to increasingly threaten human life," according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. "Farms and fisheries will likely face increasing problems with productivity, potentially damaging livelihoods and the regional economy."

Last October's snowstorm shows that the climate is drastically changing.

"The snowstorm we had in October last year is a direct effect of climate change and global warming," said Warby. "As a scientist, I don't believe in coincidence."

Why do we care though? "It is not that we necessarily get less rain, it's just the manner in which we get it," said Warby. "It's the intensity at which things are happening. Waters that were once frozen with methane will melt, the methane will go into the atmosphere, and therefore we will get higher temperatures. It all goes in a circle."

Statistics show that during this year, the sea ice in the Arctic was at its smallest area in record. According to the EPA, humans are largely to blame for the change in the climate.

"The choices we make today will affect the amount of greenhouse gases we put in the atmosphere in the near future and for years to come," said the EPA.

"Sun Come Up is a great movie combining both Catholic social teaching and the effects of global warming on humanity; showing the need for all people to realize that they are a part of a greater global community," said junior Colleen Putzel. "What we do affects the world we live in and we need to be conscious with our actions."