Yay for actual intellectual academic discussion!
Tonight the cornell college republicans showed The Great Global Warming Swindle, and we had an excellent intellectual, calm, and productive discussion afterwards that really made my night. I loved all the things people brought up about how the movie was flawed and misrepresented things, and I loved people bringing up all the things it left out. I'm so glad Julia, BC, and I spent so much time watching the movie and understanding what was wrong with its claims before coming to the discussion. I liked that people asked questions that we were (I felt) satisfactorily able to answer. I loved too that Julia made the first comments and really set the mood for the discussion. I think Julia brought up a lot of really well-said points (I saw the powerful debater in her) and showed wonderful graphs from our class. A picture is worth a thousand words. I'm surprised that I even agreed with what Gabe had to say a lot of the time! who'da'thunk. I am SO glad Megan Regal could be there too, she's so knowledgeable, and that so many of our friends showed up to check it out.
My favorite moment though was after I'd mentioned that their information on the Medieval Warm Period was inaccurate, we were talking about natural growth and shrinkage of Alpine glaciers, and Ashleigh turned to me with a little smirk and said "You seem to know a lot about the medieval warm period, what about the glaciers then? Do you know anything about that?" I kind of think she either
A) didn't expect me to know enough about it to be able to discuss the activity of mountain glaciers in the period hoping to make me admit that I really didn't know, or
B)perhaps she wanted to hear me say that glaciers melted in the MWP too like today, but
C) she might have just been asking out of curiosity.
Either way, it was really perfect because I DO know about some specific glaciers and could talk about their retreat during the MWP that we can see because of drainage canals and mines built during the period, the glacial readvancement during the LIA which covered said canals, and compare it to their severe retreat (and in the case of some swiss alpine glaciers- total disappearance) today. I felt proud because I never really considered that what I was researching was ever going to help me in an every-day life kind of way.
I need to become a better public speaker though. When I was explaining the canals, my hands were shaking and my ears were hot cause I get nervous. I know that I know what I'm saying quite well, I'm just always worried that it will come out wrong, or come out stuttered, and make me look dumb. I'll have to rehearse my symposium presentation a lot. But I'm still proud that I could handle a direct question and answer it so completely without stammering.
My favorite moment though was after I'd mentioned that their information on the Medieval Warm Period was inaccurate, we were talking about natural growth and shrinkage of Alpine glaciers, and Ashleigh turned to me with a little smirk and said "You seem to know a lot about the medieval warm period, what about the glaciers then? Do you know anything about that?" I kind of think she either
A) didn't expect me to know enough about it to be able to discuss the activity of mountain glaciers in the period hoping to make me admit that I really didn't know, or
B)perhaps she wanted to hear me say that glaciers melted in the MWP too like today, but
C) she might have just been asking out of curiosity.
Either way, it was really perfect because I DO know about some specific glaciers and could talk about their retreat during the MWP that we can see because of drainage canals and mines built during the period, the glacial readvancement during the LIA which covered said canals, and compare it to their severe retreat (and in the case of some swiss alpine glaciers- total disappearance) today. I felt proud because I never really considered that what I was researching was ever going to help me in an every-day life kind of way.
I need to become a better public speaker though. When I was explaining the canals, my hands were shaking and my ears were hot cause I get nervous. I know that I know what I'm saying quite well, I'm just always worried that it will come out wrong, or come out stuttered, and make me look dumb. I'll have to rehearse my symposium presentation a lot. But I'm still proud that I could handle a direct question and answer it so completely without stammering.