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UC works with Vox to launch video series on climate change

Xinhua, April 21, 2017 Adjust font size:

The University of California (UC) and Vox Media, a U.S. digital media company Headquartered in New York City, launched a video series Thursday on climate change.

The new series, known as Climate Lab, of six episodes, is available on the UC Climate Solutions website and Vox's YouTube channel, and intends to answer a question: Why are humans so bad at thinking about climate change?

Conservation scientist M. Sanjayan, a visiting researcher at the University of California, Los Anegeles, hosted the series and talked about his approach toward the question and its answers, including what has worked successfully to address the issue of ozone depletion.

The first episode looks to psychology and social relations to unpack the reasons why humankind has been slow to respond to what Sanjayan calls the biggest challenge of our lifetimes, as compared to other serious, but not as overwhelming, challenges like the hole in the ozone layer, which is now well on its way to full repair.

Ozone depletion, caused by chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), an organic compound that contains carbon, chlorine, and fluorine, produced as volatile derivative of methane, ethane, and propane, was a hot topic in the 1990s and now is expected to be healed by around 2050.

The series features top U.S. experts in the fields of climate research, renewable energy, and sustainability, and showcases those at UC and other institutions and organizations discussing the ways people can harness known and emerging technologies to address climate change.

The experts found that among messages about saving money, impacting environment and children's health, the health message seemed to be most effective prompting U.S. consumers to reduce energy consumption.

"Climate change is the biggest issue of our time," Sanjayan was quoted as saying in a news release. "It can seem overwhelming, but in Climate Lab, we meet some amazing people from all walks of life who are breaking the problem down and actually making a difference. We hope to inspire viewers to transform the planet by taking some of the ideas in this series and spreading it across the world." Endit