Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
Thursday, September 15, 2011

CIRES provides venue for worldwide climate event

CIRES main campus building was one of the 24 locations across the globe to host Al Gore’s “24 Hours of Reality” event yesterday evening.

A multimedia presentation — created by Gore, Nobel Laureate and former Vice President of the United States, and delivered by a presenter trained by Gore — was broadcast live online as part of the “24 Hours of Reality” project. The presentation told the stories of local people living with the impacts of a changing climate. Similar presentations screened each hour over 24 hours from twenty-four locations across the globe—such as New York, London, Mexico City, Jakarta and Tonga.

The project’s founders stated its mission was to: “Bring the facts about the climate crisis into the mainstream and engage the public in conversation about how to solve it.” Leading the presentation in Boulder was John Zavalney, an award-winning teacher who has worked in the Los Angeles public school system for more than 20 years. Zavalney, now at the San Pedro Science Center in Los Angeles, CA, became interested in climate change during his long career as an educator and has been involved in a variety of environmental education programs.

CIRES provided the venue to allow an outlet for one perspective of the climate debate; however the opinions, positions or statements expressed by the Climate Reality Project and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the scientific perspectives of the Institute’s researchers.

The event was by Climate Reality Project invitation only because of space restrictions, but invited members of the local public attended.