UW Oshkosh will be hosting an event, ‘Climate Change: Crisis or Not? What is the solution?,’ a title a UWO professor views as problematic.

The event is sponsored by Freedom of Expression, a fund of the UW Oshkosh Foundation, and features speakers Robert Bryce and Steve Nieland.

In a press release from the university the event will be a, “discussion in which presenters will discuss differing perspectives on climate change, what can be done to address the situation and the role economics, available resources and differences of opinion play in developing solutions.”

Dr. Jim Feldman, of the UWO environmental department, said that climate change is an undeniable crisis.

“There is absolute scientific evidence and policy-making certainty that climate change is a crisis,” he said. “The climate is changing because of human activity and it’s going to be bad. It’s going to cause dramatic dislocations for people around the world and potentially in Oshkosh.”

Feldman said that hosting this event on campus is a hindrance to recent campus efforts to address its role in climate issues.

“The university has made really important decisions with climate change in mind,” he said. “[UWO] has committed to … limiting our fossil fuel output by 2030. We’ve put sustainability as part of our education plan and our strategic plan. Having an event that calls into question whether climate change is a crisis or not really undermines that work.”

Some of the engineering efforts put out by UWO are the eight Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Buildings, as well as the installation of a variety of renewable energy installations.

In 2018, UWO launched the Sustainability Institute of Regional Transformations which focuses on outreach to the community and students, offering learning opportunities to support sustainability initiatives.

He said discussion about climate change is important going forward, but it should be centered around how to address issues rather than whether or not there is an issue..

“I’m open to a huge range of perspectives, but there simply isn’t debate about whether climate change is a crisis or not,” Feldman said. “The title of the panel implies that there’s debate. That perpetuates the politically motivated idea that climate change is not a problem. There are political beliefs that are less likely to be supported on campus and this should be one of them.”

Feldman said that since a significant majority of experts say climate change is a problem, the university shouldn’t expend resources on debating whether it is or not.

“When 99% of all climate scientists agree this is a problem, we shouldn’t be giving time to the idea that says it’s not,”he said. 

He said that he still is open to hearing what the panel has to say, but it should be based around addressing problems as opposed to denial.

“I don’t know what they’re going to say at the panel,” he said. “I’m trying not to jump to conclusions that I necessarily disagree with everything. If what they’re saying is we cannot scale renewable energy fast enough and we need to use nuclear energy instead, that’s the range of divergent political and policy events that is really appropriate to debate; it’s the title of the panel that I’m concerned about.”

He said that there are better ways to address these issues on campus when hosting these events, and that the sponsors of the event should have gone through academic channels.

“If the group had reached out to the sustainability experts on campus, we would have said, ‘let’s come up with an event that brings the campus together to talk about important issues where there’s a range of opinion,’ instead of an event that seems to undermine the work we’re doing on sustainability,” he said.

In response to the upcoming event, Feldman encourages students to attend and ask thought-provoking questions in a professional manner.

“I encourage you to go and ask good, respectful questions,” he said. “In some times and places disrupting events like this has happened, but I’m not advocating for students to go and disrupt this event; I think that would be inappropriate.”

He said that he still is open to hearing what the panel has to say, but it should be based around addressing problems as opposed to denial.

“I don’t know what they’re going to say at the panel,” he said. “I’m trying not to jump to conclusions that I necessarily disagree with everything. If what they’re saying is we cannot scale renewable energy fast enough and we need to use nuclear energy instead, that’s the range of divergent political and policy events that is really appropriate to debate; it’s the title of the panel that I’m concerned about.”

‘Climate Change: Crisis or Not? What is the solution?,’ will be hosted in the Culver Family Welcome Center on Wednesday, April 26 at 6 p.m.