Ken Cloke brought up some interesting points during his presentation on climate change. I want to thank him for speaking about the issue. I’d also like to thank the Werner Institute at Creighton University for engaging the public in such vibrant discussions.

The fact remains that I still have doubt as to whether or not many of the things Ken talked about should be focused on. Yes, I believe climate change is a relevant issue. I believe it is an issue that we need to deal with right now. Unfortunately, I think it is such a relevant issue that I fail to see how we have time to begin to organize grassroots efforts around the subject. Ken knows just as well as anybody else that the majority of people have some understanding of the issues surrounding climate change. I don’t want the government to have to spend time educating people on climate change. That’s going to happen at the grassroots level anyway. I know because it’s been happening. Whether we listen to Al Gore or occasionally run across a news story about climate change we’ve been getting educated on subject time and time again. I’m not sure it’s possible to keep up with the weather and not believe something isn’t right. I don’t want to get off point, but what I’m getting at is that people are (in general) well aware about the issue of climate change. With that said, we need to move on to the next step. We don’t have time to organize a grassroots movement when the issue at hand is getting out of control.

Ken wants us to believe that mediators are needed for nations to agree on what to do. I’m all for mediation; don’t get me wrong. I’m not for mediation of climate change at a grassroots level. If you want to spend the next 30 years trying to make sure you have everyone on board, then by all means have at it. There is a reason we had the Copenhagen Climate Conference. The hope was that nations would come up with legally binding agreements that would affect all of the nations around the world. It’s similar to the awareness the United Nations has implemented against nuclear weapons. What can we come up with that everyone will have to abide by? That is a solution that Ken should be focusing on. Grassroots campaigns are great. When talking about global issues we need more than the mom and pop mediation session that Ken wants us to engage in.