A Primitive Society: Dr. Jerry Schnoor discusses climate change

Jerry Schnoor is one of my two bosses as the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research. He's a pretty big deal. Last year, Iowa's governor Chet Culver hired him to chair the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Council.

In the video above, he speaks at a symposium on climate change and human rights at the University of Iowa back in February. He gives about 50 lectures like this one a year.

He hits all the right notes: He startles you without harping on doom-and-gloom fearmongering and presents tangible solutions to energize his listeners. He also wins points for his a-DOR-able use of the phrase "OMG."

Here's one quote I particularly love:

We have a Spanish company named Acciona Energy in West Branch, Iowa, just to the east of us. If you talk to them, they are very worried about climate change, but they see that as the central mission of their company -- to help mitigate it. And they're excited about it, they're enthusiastic about it, and their facing it with a challenge mentality, like how we say 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.' The challenge of putting a man on the moon. That's how they see it -- in SPAIN. Why can't we see it like that? What is wrong with us? What happened to the can-do American spirit?

This is my final video for CGRER until the job starts again in August. Starting Friday, I begin doing video work for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.