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.
- Sign up on Moodle for a date to present.
- 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.
- 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.