26-01-2025
Educator aims to separate fact from fiction at climate-change lecture in Cresson
CRESSON, Pa. – Science and environmental educator John Frederick compared the impact of climate change to that of cigarette smoking when giving a presentation on Saturday as part of the Cresson Public Library's 'Let's Talk About It: Conversations Among Citizens Series.'
He said some people smoke 'like a chimney' and live to 90, while others have a half-a-pack-a-day habit and die at 43 from lung cancer.
'The point here is with cigarette smoking is that every cigarette you smoke slightly increases your chances of either lung disease or lung cancer,' Frederick said. 'And the same thing is true with (climate change). And I think it's an important thing that needs to be explained to people because sometimes, depending on your point of view on this, this point gets argued. An individual catastrophe cannot be solely blamed on climate change.
'But when you start looking at all the charts, and all the occurrences, and the temperature of the water, the amount of rainfall that comes out of the sky and you look at all those things, there is a correlation between global warming and warming oceans and the number of these climate catastrophes or climate-related catastrophes that we have.'
Frederick addressed six main questions during his 'Climate Change and Central Pennsylvania: Separating Fact from Fiction' lecture – how do we know climate change is happening, what are the true costs, what do people have to do with it, does it matter in Cambria County, how do we affect people far away, and can we make the issue less political and divisive?
His goal was to get two main points across to the audience.
'One of them is to try to make what people think is complicated science a little more simple and digestible, shall we call it,' Frederick said during an interview before his lecture.
'I think sometimes one of the reasons that people are perplexed or struggle with some of these things is they think the science is beyond them. … The other thing, which I think is related to that, is that some of these things ought not to be controversial or partisan and they are. I'd like to hope that maybe one of the things I can do is help us talk to each other a little bit better, more easily and with less confrontation and divisiveness.'
Frederick provided data about numerous aspects of climate change, including the occurrence of natural disasters and their economic impact.
'It's really, really difficult for me to understand how after the last few years there are still people that are saying that this is all a hoax,' he said during the presentation. 'You do not have the number of wildfires that we have had. You do not have the number of floods that we have had. You do not have the number of violent hurricanes that we have had. You do not see the significant rises in sea level, the significant amount of coastal flooding.
'This is all unprecedented stuff.'
Etta Albright, who helped organize the event, added: 'These issues, even though they're on the front pages and talked about in our political system and so forth and so on, it all comes down to it's impacting someone on someone's home front.
'We, as citizens, need to understand the facts as to what's behind this all, so that we can apply this knowledge and understanding to make the kind of changes that are needed without getting into drama and catastrophe after catastrophe for it to make sense.
'We shouldn't wait. We shouldn't wait.'
