UW-Platteville professor Rich Waugh will be on the discussion panel at a free showing of An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary on global climate change on Oct. 3. After the film there will be a panel discussion with four local environmental experts, including Waugh, at the Sinsinawa Mound Center near Dubuque.

“Global warming has been badly and intentionally misrepresented,” Waugh said. “It’s a very serious problem that requires an appropriate response from society. It’s imperative that people start making conscious choices to act, it’s not good enough to go along like we always have.”

Solar heat can be captured by carbon dioxide and other gases raising temperatures on earth, according to www.climatecrisis.net, the film’s official Web site. By burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests, we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere causing temperatures to rise, according to the Web site.

“This is an inter-religious attempt to educate people [about climate change],” Bobbi Gillot, coordinator of neighborhood and youth programs for the Sinsinawa Mound Center said. The center is the motherhouse of the Sinsinawa Dominicans, an order of preachers and teachers.

The showing is part of an effort including over 4,000 congregations across the country to heighten awareness of environmental issues.

“It’s a national connection with people of all faiths,” Gillot said. “We understand reverence for the earth and life, and realize we do have a responsibility to take care of it.”
Climate change will be ‘rough,’ Waugh said. Europe will get colder. The United States will become hotter. Climate models show that Wisconsin’s climate will become like north Texas, hot and dry. Tropical diseases will be able to expand northward. There will be more intense hurricanes and El Niños. Low lying areas will flood due to rising sea levels. Many species will become extinct because they won’t be able to migrate as fast as the climate is changing.

The documentary mixes facts about global warming and future predictions, with the story of former vice president Al Gore’s crusade to stop global warming, according to the film’s Web site.

“We can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue—rather, it is the biggest moral challenges facing our global civilization,” Gore insists on the film’s Web site.

Stopping global warming “boils down to lifestyle changes,” Waugh said. “These can be very drastic, such as stopping driving, or a gradual transition to a less damaging energy source.” He suggests people modify their driving habits and consumer purchases to minimize consumption of fossil fuels.

The other panelists include Todd Swift, a former professor of engineering and physics at Loras University who now works on developing renewable energy resources; Christie Trifone, the river outreach person for the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque; and Charles Winterwood, a retired pediatrician and Dubuque chair of the White Pines Sierra Club.

“The truth is out there about what we need to do,” Gillot said.

The free film and discussion will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m. at the Sinsinawa Mound Center located at 585 County Rd. Z, off Highway 11, about 5 miles northeast of Dubuque.