Daneille's Story: Eco Center Talk

Danielle Criddle

Terry Chapin Environmental Talk

The ecology center’s last seminar of the school year was held on Wednesday night and the speaker was Dr. Terry Chapin.
Chapin is a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and talked of the problems with predicting how predicting global climate change is trickier than it has been in the past.
“We’re likely to see considerable warming in the next century,” Chapin said.
Chapin’s research is mainly based out of Alaska and deals with the social-ecological aspects of trying to face global climate change.
The focus of many researchers right now is on sustainability which Chapin says that is like “going back to the way things were.”
The old way of thinking is “the future is going to be like the past,” said Chapin.
He stated that he thinks that in today’s society it is becoming increasingly difficult to predict the future outcome of today’s problems based on how they have been dealt with in the past.
Chapin brought up some of his research in Alaska that he has done involving the native people and their ties with the ecosystem.
“There is a close connection between vegetation and native Alaska people,” said Chapin.
His research in this field has been on how to tackle the problem of a changing landscape with connection to the native tribes of Alaska.
“I think we might need to move to something known as an ecosystem stewardship,” he said.
This system would take into consideration: future of change, social-ecological benefits, biodiversity and it would incorporate disturbance.
This would allow the native people of Alaska to sustain the ecosystem that they have always had and that their cultural identities are dependant upon.
Fire is now a major problem in Alaska due to the thawing of permafrost as well as other factors and is resulting in less species diversity in the forests.
“There are both challenges and opportunities in how we deal with these things.” Chapin said.