In western Montana, climate change is having a major impact.
The snowpack melts earlier. The spring growing season starts earlier. Summer droughts are longer, which increases wildfire risks and lowers streamflows.
Running will introduce Hansen, whose talks are part of the President's Lecture Series at the school. Hansen's two lectures are free and open to the public.
Running encouraged western Montanans to attend Hansen's evening lecture, which is geared for the general public.
“This guy's the oracle of climate science - he's like the Alan Greenspan of economics,” Running said. “We won't get anyone of his caliber again in Missoula.
“If anybody wants to understand our best guess of our future climate, here's the guy to hear it from.”
Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, will give a seminar titled “What Determines Climate Sensitivity?” at 3:10 p.m. in Gallagher Business Building, Room 123.
His 8 p.m. lecture - titled “The Threat to the Planet: How Can We Avoid Dangerous Human-Made Climate Change?” - will be at the University Center Ballroom.
Hansen will discuss social and economic solutions to global warming, including electricity generation, vehicle gas mileage standards, and wind and solar power.
“He's really going to go through the kinds of options that society has to engage in to work our way out of this,” Running said.
Hansen has said human-caused climate change will become unstoppable by 2016 if levels of greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide are not significantly reduced.
A critic of the Clinton and current Bush administrations' stances on global warming, Hansen has directed NASA's Goddard Institute since 1981.
Reporter John Cramer can be reached at 523-5259 or at jcramer@missoulian.com
Rally against coal development planned
By the Missoulian
A public rally to oppose new coal development will take place at the Oval on the University of Montana campus at 7 p.m. Monday, just prior to an on-campus lecture by eminent climate scientist James Hansen.
Both Hansen and Nobel Peace Prize laureate and UM professor Steven Running have been invited to address the rally.
“Gov. Schweitzer has been pushing coal development since he took office,” said David Merrill, executive director of Global WarmingSolution.org. “In addition, Rep. (Denny) Rehberg, Sen. (Max) Baucus and Sen. (Jon) Tester are all pushing coal development in one form or another. As the global warming threat to Montana, indeed all of humanity, steadily mounts, it's time to leave this dirty, carbon-bearing fuel behind.”
According to Running, Montana's spring snowpack has declined 40 percent in the last 50 years, presenting an unprecedented threat to the economy, environment and even culture of the state. Furthermore, in 2006 scientists reported a link between global warming and the frequency and intensity of wildfires in western U.S. forests, especially the Northern Rockies.
GlobalWarmingSolution.org is a Missoula-based national network focused primarily on federal global warming policy.
In addition to Merrill, speakers will include state Rep. Betsy Hands, D-Missoula, Sierra Club regional director Paul Shively and MontPIRG executive director Matt Leow.
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