Presentations - In the News

Each of you will:

• find a news story from the last 6 months with a climate connection.
• You'll make a ~5 minute presentation at the beginning of class of the story and some context.

More guidelines and suggestions below...

Presentations so far...

• Fast Fashion - Emilia
• Lithium companies fight over water - Andrea
• Venice - the new Atlantis - Giacomo
• Wilson's Phalarope and the Great Salt Lake - Sophia
• China & US - Mely
• Endangered Animals - Estefania
• Climate Change and Coral Reefs - Salena
• Climate change and insurance prices - Areli
• Netherlands farmers - Claire
• Agriculture and Greenhouse Gases - Olivia
• Effects of heat on the 2024 Paris Olympics - Abby
• Extreme Heat in Texas - Cinthya
• Collapse of an Atlantic current - Paulina
• What's going on in the Amazon? - Laney
• New Years resolutions for 2023: "the more exciting prospect is the return of our natural systems to a state of true abundance"
  
• 2023 temperature record (NYTimes): Average was 1.48 C above "pre-industrial average". Context: 2015 Paris Agreement (COP-21) countries agreed to keep long-term temperature increase below 2.0 C, and ideally below 1.5 C.

  
  In addition to continued $CO_2$ emissions from burning fossil fuels, which are the long term cause of global warming, 3 short term factors contributed to warming the planet in 2023:

  • The 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai.
  • The (natural) El Niño phase of the ENSO warmed the eastern Pacific more than usual.
  • Ironically new regulations aimed at reducing air pollution from fuels burned by ships contributed.

  
  

The presentation itself

Your presentation should take 3-5 minutes. Count on taking some questions for 1 or 2 minutes.

Typically you will make a few slides:

• Pictures and diagrams are great!
• Your audience can read! So you should avoid reading what you already have on your slides.
• So Use text on your slides, then you you don't have to say the things which are written out leaving you to have more time to talk about something else.
• You should certainly use text to: Give the sources of your facts / pictures / diagrams; To display an important message that you want your audience to remember; to give extra details about your topic that you don't need to talk about.

1. Sign up on Moodle for a date to present.
2. Assemble some links / pictures on, for example, a Google Doc or Google Slide. E-mail / Share the link (and viewing privileges) with your instructor ahead of class, who will bring it up on the classroom computer.
3. Come 5 minutes early to class to make sure everything is ready to go.

Where to find stories?

They're all over the media these days--and you may already some favorite sources! Some of my favorite climate news sources: (Good writing, high-quality sources and fact checking)

• NYTimes | CLIMATE, GC students can get free access to NYTimes.
• Environment 360 | CLIMATE.
• Inside Climate News.
• The Conversation | environment

Add some context

• Look for another article or two on the same topic as your story to get another perspective.
• Find a graph or other data visualization to add context. OurWorldInData.org is particularly rich.