Students and professors at Lyndon State College are about to take a trip of a lifetime: attending the People’s Climate March in Washington, DC.

Local 22 My Champlain Valley meteorologist Torrance Gaucher ’14 reports:

The journey is more than walking and chanting through the streets of Washington.

“Climate scientist and scientist as a whole kind of just been fed up, and had decided that we need to be as loud as we possibly can. Really what is the point of doing the science if nobody is paying attention,” said Janel Hanrahan a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Lyndon State College.

Improving Public Communication About Climate Change

One of the biggest hurdles for Dr. Hanrahan and her students is communicating the science to the general public. “Our goal is to communicate the science with the general public to inform them about facts, about climate change,” said Atmospheric Science student Celia Fisher. The Climate Consensus group did just that Monday speaking to a full room of students in Danville. They engaged the audience with analogies they could comprehend.

“In terms of our climate,” says Atmospheric Science student Francis Tarasiewicz, “we have a lot of CO₂ in the air, but the temperature is not going to immediately respond. It takes a little while. So we relate that to an oven, where you preheat it to 400 degrees. It doesn’t immediately warm to 400 degrees.”

Moving Forward Following the Science

The group leaves this Friday and will attend the People’s Climate March this Saturday, the 29th.

“If we want to keep moving forward we want to make sure we are leaders in the world. We need to make sure we are following the science and right now we are just not,” said Hanrahan.

Fore more information on how to better understand climate change, please visit www.theclimateconsensus.com