A group of legal and environmental experts plans to convene today to discuss the effects of climate change on people and institutions across the world as part of a symposium titled “Coping with Global Warming.”
Sean Hecht, executive director of the UCLA Environmental Law Center and symposium organizer, said the event is centered on the reality of global warming and the need to prepare for its eventual consequences.
“We’re bringing together a troupe of researchers and policy makers to have a conversation about what we can do,” he said.
“Most people are talking about how to reduce emissions that cause global warming. While we think that’s essential, there’s going to be global warming no matter what, and we have to prepare for that,” he said.
Summer Rose, an administration specialist at the UCLA School of Law who is helping coordinate the event, said the agenda includes topics dealing with ways people can “play their part in the global warming problem.”
She said scheduled panels include presentations on incentives to get people to make certain life choices, such as buying a hybrid car, as well as information on how to judge trends in the weather and natural disasters.
“It’s basically going to be people from academia and also scientists getting together and talking about what can be done, how to cope with the situation, and what things people in different arenas can do to stem the tide of global warming,” she said.
Hecht said the conference aims to benefit its audience by presenting speakers with different academic backgrounds and perspectives.
“By getting interdisciplinary researchers together … we hope to learn from one another, and how it all fits together,” he said.
“What I hope is that everyone who attends learns a lot about what problems we’re going to have as a result of climate change and what we as a society need to do about those problems.”
Hannah Shull, a first-year psychobiology student, said she would be interested in learning ways she can play a part in dealing with global warming.
“A lot of the stuff about global warming is talking in circles and nothing being done. If you’re … talking about things people can do, I think that would be good,” she said.
The event is part of an annual symposium series sponsored by the Evan Frankel Foundation, which holds conferences on timely environmental policy and governance.
Registration for the conference is already over capacity, Rose said, but Hecht encouraged students to attend anyway if possible.
Shull said she believes anything that puts global warming at the forefront of students’ minds is a good thing.
“The more people talk about it, the more they will be inclined to deal with it,” she said.
Hecht said if the event has one “take-home point,” it is the need to deal with the effects of global warming.
“Because climate change is real, because it’s going to affect all of us, in addition to thinking about ways to slow the pace of climate change we need to think about the way our lives and our world is going to change,” he said.