imagine worcester

Virginia Swain interviews Gary Gardner, World Watch Institute Director of Research. Gary spoke about the Earth's atmosphere now warming at the fastest rate in recorded history, a trend that is projected to cause extensive damage to forests, marine ecosystems, and agriculture. Human communities are also threatened by climate change as seas rise, storms become more intense, and episodes of drought and flooding increase. The scientific evidence is now compelling that recent climate change is caused at least in part by human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, which has driven atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to their highest levels in 420,000 years. Worldwatch publications have increased public understanding of the risks of climate change and provided guidance on effective policies to reduce dependence on the fossil fuels that cause it.

Dr. Peter Gray, Evolutionary Biologist and environmentalist, speaks of his work with Wastewatchers: A Support Group for the Planet. Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology at Boston College..He is currently working on a book about the lifelong nature and functions of human play, tentatively titled Born to Play. His own play includes not only his research and writing, but also long distance bicycling, kayaking, and back-woods skiing. His Psychology Today, blog, Freedom to Learn, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/bloggers/peter-gray

Jonathan Alexander is an Anna Maria College student who attended the United Nations Course on Reversing Climate Change for a Sustainable Peace in February 2008. He speaks of his empowering experience in the course that gave him a new sense of mission in the movement towards a sustainable culture of peace and the reversal of global climate change