Summer Days, Winter Nights:
Planetarium show for Middle School Children
Post-Show Activity 1
Global Warming

• If climate change is for real, it will impact different parts of the world differently. For example, while "global warming" means an average increase of Earth's temperatures, some places may actually experience colder temperatures in the future. Also climate changes may affect precipitation patterns, meaning for example that areas that have been good for farming may experience drought and other areas that have been unfarmable may become more fertile.
• Different nations have very different concerns regarding the possible impacts of global warming. For example:
  • Nations with large coastal populations may fear the effects of sea level rises or more extreme weather.
  • Some nations rely on agricultural practices that emit large amounts of greenhouse gasses? for example, rice farming in East Asia produces a large amount of methane. These countries might be unwilling to reduce their production since their citizens rely on rice for their survival.
  • Some nations have extensive forests, while others have little forest. Forested nations might claim that they are entitled to emit more carbon dioxide since their forests play such a large role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
  These are but a few examples of issues students might uncover during their investigations in this stage of the project.
• While there are many ways to address the risks of global warming, most of these solutions come with high economic costs. Job losses and higher prices for goods are but two examples.
• Nations with developing economies are opposed to solutions which freeze carbon dioxide emissions at current levels. They fear that doing this would prevent them from expanding their economies and creating a more comfortable quality of life for their citizens. They resent industrialized nations who, having polluted the atmosphere for years, now want to freeze things the way they currently are.