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Sponsored by Friends of the Moscow Library. She recently published a book on this subject. PESC tried to set up a presentation from her back at the beginning of this year but conflicts got in the way. Her talk should be interesting and perhaps controversial because she presents climate change from the perspective of geologic history. Flyer about E. Kirsten Peters talk, “The Whole Story of Climate Change.”

While the recent work of climate scientists has added
greatly to our understanding of the fragility of climate, the
public rarely hears from geologists— even though
geologists have been studying climate change for almost
200 years. The typical American has the impression that
climate would be stable if it weren’t for industrialization and
the production of greenhouse gases from smokestacks and
cars. However, geologic history reveals a ceaselessly
changing climate going back millions of years before the
modern economy.

As The Whole Story of Climate explains, several long, cold
spells have been punctuated by short, warm ones. We are,
in fact, currently living in one of the short, warm periods
that the Earth has seen many times before. There is even a
serious hypothesis worth exploring that if it weren’t for the
greenhouse gases created for millennia by agriculture we
would today be headed back into a time of bitterly cold
temperatures worthy of the mastodons and mammoths
many of us read about as children.

Elsa Kirsten Peters grew up in Pullman. She was a geology major
at Princeton and earned her PhD in geology at Harvard. She has
taught undergraduate geology at WSU and is the author of several
books, as well as the syndicated “Rock Doc” newspaper column.
She has also published murder mysteries under the pen name
Irene Allen.

In celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day (Monday, October 13), the Washington State University (WSU) Clearinghouse on Native Teaching and Learning will feature the film The Lost Fish, jointly produced by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and Freshwaters Illustrated and selected for the EcoFilm Festival.  Also honoring the memory of the late Elmer Crow of the Nez Perce Tribe, the movie explores the importance of the lamprey eel to the Plateau tribes and tribal actions to ensure that these ancient fish return to their native rivers and streams throughout the Columbia River Basin.  Share an evening celebrating the contemporary lives of Indigenous people from our region, through this film shown on Monday, October 13, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm in WSU’s Cleveland Hall Room 30W.  Please call 509-335-3478 with questions.