The first IUS Interdisciplinary Colloquium Series began its four part series on the third floor of the IUS Library on Oct. 6.

The series will take place throughout the semester. The theme for this year’s series being climate change.

The speakers throughout the series will be scientists discussing climate change in an open format with the audience, answering questions or concerns and talking about other theories or beliefs.

Opening the series was Kyle Forinash, professor of physics, who gave a presentation on the public’s knowledge of climate change.

With a turnout of about 20 people, Forinash discussed the scientific facts of Earth’s changes, with photos and graphs, before taking questions during a Q-and-A.

Bryan Hall, assistant professor of philosophy said skepticism is encouraged.

“We are hoping that people will come who are skeptical,” Hall said. “That is one of the goals for this whole series, to get them to come into the room with climate change believers and get them talking with one another.”

Forinash said, when looking at climate as scientists, they want to get a database of information.

“We’ve got really, really good information going back 800,000 years,” Forinash said. “That’s because there is a continuous ice record for that period of time. If you go beyond that, there were times when the Earth didn’t have any ice, so you have to look at other types of data.”

There are many factors that have effects on the temperature of Earth, such as volcanoes, clouds, the sun, the orbital parameter of Earth and warmer oceans melting more ice.

Forinash said, due to 86 percent of our energy coming from the burning of fossil fuels, such as petroleum, natural gas and coal, this has resulted in carbon dioxide, methane and water becoming major feedbacks.

“The burning of these fuels is being absorbed by our atmosphere and into our oceans and plants,” Forinash said.

Kenneth Frost, psychology senior, said he agrees with the climate change theories and found the presentation to be very interesting and educational.

“I think it’s always important to know the information from the experts instead of from just what you hear,” Frost said.

Climate change theories can be expressed at the next Interdisciplinary Colloquium Series forum on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. on the second floor of the IUS Library, where questions and skepticism will be highly encouraged.

By STEVE NICHOLS

Staff

stevnich@ius.edu