Climate Change – From Antarctica To The Campaign Trail
John Blackstone is a CBS News correspondent based in San Francisco.
When I was asked to prepare a report on how the candidates’ positions on climate change would impact voters, I remembered one voter who cares deeply about global warming. I first met her in January while I was on assignment in Antarctica. Jean Pennycook studies penguins there, and she has seen the devastating impact on penguin colonies when glaciers melt more rapidly than anyone has seen before. I decided it was time to check in with Pennybrook again.
When she’s not in Antarctica, Pennycook teaches environmental science at Awhanee Middle School in Fresno, Calif. I sat in on a class where she talked to students about the science of global warming and about the real-world results she has seen first hand down in the Antarctic penguin habitat. The most significant thing she sees in this presidential campaign is that – after eight years of the Bush Administration pretty much denying that global warming is caused by human activity – both parties' nominees accept the scientific conclusion that climate change is real. While she hopes that will bring new sense of urgency at the top in Washington, she continues to work from the bottom up, telling students that doing things like saving energy at home is a step toward saving some penguins at the other end of the earth. She asks them the kids: "are you willing to turn out the lights in your room to save the penguins?"
Some people are doing much more than turning out the lights. John Fiscalini is a California dairy farmer who was shocked when people started pointing fingers at agriculture as one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases. He discovered the truth: Manure from his 3,000 cows produces huge ...
(CBS)
When she’s not in Antarctica, Pennycook teaches environmental science at Awhanee Middle School in Fresno, Calif. I sat in on a class where she talked to students about the science of global warming and about the real-world results she has seen first hand down in the Antarctic penguin habitat. The most significant thing she sees in this presidential campaign is that – after eight years of the Bush Administration pretty much denying that global warming is caused by human activity – both parties' nominees accept the scientific conclusion that climate change is real. While she hopes that will bring new sense of urgency at the top in Washington, she continues to work from the bottom up, telling students that doing things like saving energy at home is a step toward saving some penguins at the other end of the earth. She asks them the kids: "are you willing to turn out the lights in your room to save the penguins?"
Some people are doing much more than turning out the lights. John Fiscalini is a California dairy farmer who was shocked when people started pointing fingers at agriculture as one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases. He discovered the truth: Manure from his 3,000 cows produces huge ...
