At Earthfest 2008's closing event Wednesday April 16, journalist Ross Gelbspan spoke about the severity of the global climate crisis and the recognition by citizens that a clean environment is the most important basic human right.Gelbspan has written extensively on the global climate crisis and appeared in the film Everything's Cool, which was screened at Brandeis last spring.

In his introduction, Global Communications and Operations Director Charles Radin said Prof. Laura Goldin (AMST) was leery about Gelbspan coming to speak during the screening of Everything's Cool because his sentiments are difficult to hear and the students can't handle his grave predictions. Radin explained that Gelbspan is an investigative journalist and the last to sugarcoat things.

Gelbspan began his speech by saying that he is a journalist, not an environmentalist, and that he began investigating the issue of climate change because the coal industry was paying journalists to say nothing was happening.

"I tolerate the trees," he said in reference to his feeling about environmentalism.

Gelbspan said that a recent Time magazine article on climate change warned readers to "be afraid, be very afraid," but the real message citizens need to hear now is, "Be brave, be very brave."

He said one observation he made on climate change is that it is happening in the blink of an eye and became known to the public in 1988 through an intergovernmental panel on climate change and by studies produced by NASA.

Additionally, because of lag time, carbon dioxide stays in the air for up to 100 years, and we are now seeing problems from the 1970s. Feedbacks are small changes that trigger bigger ones in other places. For example, he said, carbon dioxide and methane released into the atmosphere in Siberia can affect the climate in other places.

He also noted the sensitivity of the climate to change in temperature, and said that the earth will undergo a three- to 10-degree Fahrenheit change in the near future.

He said that due to the climate change, the rate at which sea level rises has doubled, as has intensification of hurricanes. He said that the change will decrease the human population, decrease agricultural production, increase infectious diseases, decrease the water supply and increase the number of environmental refugees. He said the change should be a top national security issue.

Gelbspan said solutions include eating locally and regionally grown food and noncarbon energy technology such as wind farms.

He outlined a plan in which $350 billion in coal and oil subsidies are redirected into clean energy, $300 billion a year for 10 years tax is implemented for clean energy to the poor and a mandatory progressive efficiency standard in which countries start at a baseline for fossil fuel efficiency and then improve 5 percent a year. Developing countries can become trading partners and this will provide a platform for a "proactive era of peace."

A negligent press, he said, is not pressing for change in the coal and oil communities, especially in the United States, a country that makes $1 trillion per year. By cutting emissions we can help people in developing countries around the world.

In 2007, Gelbspan said, the coal companies had a disinformation campaign about climate change complete with a video, and companies took similar action during the 1990s.

Gelbspan said Exxon opposed involvement in Kyoto and has its "fingerprints on climate and energy policy." Exxon has also paid groups to say climate change is inevitable, he said.

Gelbspan explained that we need to spread this message through vigorous media, but that right now we are in stage two: denial.

He also said that it is up to United States activists to push for lower carbon emission and works towards using noncarbon technology, and that while these efforts have been successful, it is too late to avert major destruction. Gelbspan said there needs to be more support for legislation on issues of climate change and global warming.

Gelbspan responded to a question by Jonah Seligman '10 saying that a real movement needs to occur to create change on the issue. He said other countries need to put pressure on the United States and bring the country to court for carbon subsidizing if it does not cut back.

Even with his provided solutions for curbing climate change, Gelbspan conceded that "we have failed to meet nature's deadlines.