Final Examination Harvard Hall, Room 202 3:15 to 6:15 pm Wednesday, August 5, 2009 remember, Review Session Sunday, 2 August 2009 3:00-5:00pm, L01, 53 Church Street Distance Students: Please send hardcopy of paper to: Prof. T.C. Weiskel, ENVR S130 c/o Harvard Extension School 51 Brattle Street Cambridge, MA 02138

Following Session 6 or 7, please complete a Course Evaluation Form. This helps us understand how we might best improve the course in the future. Thanks, very much.

Congratulations + many thanks...

Hello Summer School Climate Enthusiasts,

    Our Harvard Summer School course on climate change will come to an end with the submission of your research papers and the completion of the final examinationon Wednesday, 5 August 2009. We wish to congratulate you in advance on completing such a concentrated and intensive study of the full range of climate-change related material that we have tried in this short seven weeks to bring to your attention. A summary reference to all the video sessions that you will be responsible for is included here for your convenience in a list of Sources to Review. In addition, of course there are the web pages (Sessions 1-7) provided for each of the Summer School sessions.

    When we planned this Summer School session, there was no way that we could have anticipated how timely and intense the climate issues would be over the time period of the course itself. In effect, you have taken this course just when climate concerns are reaching a crecedo of public interest and attention. In a sense, you are to be congratulated simply for making sense of what has occurred in the last two months. Your performance so far -- and no doubt your papers and your final exams -- have and will demonstrate that you have achieved a great deal more than that.

    You will recall that just the week prior to the start of our course the White House issued on June 16, 2009 the most comprehensive and up-to-date summary of the impact of climate change upon the United States that had ever been assembled by any administration in the history of this country. We began our course eight days later, on Wednesday, 24 June, and by two days after that on Friday, 26 June, the United States House of Representatives passed H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 -- the first major piece of United States legislation to address climate issues.

    As if that were not enough, the international dimensions of the climate issues became immediately apparent as President Obama met with G-8 leaders in Italy and the American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, began a diplomatic initiative in Asia. She returned for an extended diplomatic mission to India to co-host a special diplomatic gathering with Chinese diplomats in Washington D.C. on 27 July 2009.

    In the meantime, both scientists and diplomats -- including Rajendra Pauchauri, Head of the IPCC, and the Honorable Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations -- have warned that the steps taken so far in preparation for the meetings of December 2009 international gathering in Copenhagen are not sufficient to stabilize global climate. Moreover, warnings of the urgency of acting now have increased.

    In addition, civil society groups have continued to press the case for more aggressive climate action both within the United States and abroad, and in some areas the struggle between carbon-intensive and alternate energy solutions is becoming quite pronounced. All the while, private, "closed door" initiatives -- like that undertaken by Connie Hedegaard, the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy -- are continuing with a target of overcoming substantial differences between the global "North" and the "South" before the December 2009 Copenhagen meetings.

    All of this -- as you have observed -- has occurred since we began this course, seven short weeks ago. We venture to say that there is no other university course in the world on climate issues that has been as timely and immediately relevant as this one has been; yet it is apparent that even this course is necessarily incomplete because of the rapidly evolving nature of climate issues in our culture and the world.

    For this reason, we hope you will all consider this course as only an introductory course to what we feel should become an enduring interest and commitment on your part to climate issues. You are, of course, welcome to take related courses that the Extension School offers on environmental ethics and environmental justice. In addition, we hope you will keep in touch with climate issues through the publically available material of the Cambridge Climate Workshop, the Cambridge Climate Research Associates (CCRA) and their continuing videoblog - Eco Views & News.

    Perhaps best of all we hope you will consider organizing "climate workshops" of your own -- wherever you are and whatever you do -- in order to enable the people you can reach to start reflecting upon and responding to the massive global adjustments that are likely to face us all in the coming years. Please feel free to draw upon any material made available through the course support webpages as something you can borrow and build upon in any such efforts you may initiate.

    Thank you very, very much for your extended interest and attention to these matters.

    Please do keep in touch, and let us know of your endeavors in this realm.

    Profs. T. C. Weiskel & W. R. Moomaw