Climate Change

Rotary International (RI) is a global network of 1.2 million people who do good around the world. At the RI Convention (RICON 25) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, there were about 20,000 Rotarians from 140 nations and they heard about the urgency of dealing with climate change from Dr. Katharine Hayhoe during the opening plenary. Except, of course, Dr. Hayhoe spoke mainly about fossil fuels, while briefly mentioning deforestation.

After her plenary speech, Dr. Hayhoe came to the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group (ESRAG) hub at the House of Friendship and answered questions from the audience (see photo above). She did answer a question about the impact of animal agriculture, but claimed that it was less than 25% of the problem.

After her Q&A session, Scott Nelson, a member of the Plant Rich Diet Task Force of ESRAG, offered her a copy of my book, “There IS a Planet B.” She read the text on the cover of the book and refused to accept it, saying that it was bad science, the author is not a climate scientist and that she is the climate scientist.

Scott relayed this to me after Dr. Hayhoe left the premises and I readily admitted that I have a PhD in systems engineering, not climate science.

Engineers solve problems while scientists test hypotheses.

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