Social Action: Tonight: Climate Change and Fresh Water Supplies, Lincroft

[Sarah Klepner]

How Climate Change Could Affect Fresh Water Supplies

Will Be Explained at 6 pm, Monday, Nov. 27

At Brookdale Community College

Contact:  George Moffatt, Program Chairman, Jersey Shore Sierra Group, 732-544-1726, gmoffattgt...@aol.com or Dennis Anderson, Chairman, Jersey Shore Sierra Group, 732-970-4327

November 27 – Professor Daniel Van Abs of Rutgers University will describe his research at 6 pm, Monday, Nov. 27 at Brookdale Community College, Lincroft, on how climate change could adversely affect fresh water supplies and what that could mean for mankind.

Dr. Van Abs, an Associate Research Professor for Water, Society and the Environment in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, recently detailed his finding in a paper, “Climate Change Adaptation in the Water Supply Sector.”

His work is important because until recently, popular attention has focused on the obvious problems of climate change, among them rising sea levels, changes in world-wide animal habitat, and shifts in regional temperatures that will adversely affect food production and distribution. However, little public attention has been paid to how climate change will affect fresh water supplies, which in turn will affect how we live.

For example, 96.5 percent of Earth’s water is salt water, leaving only 3.5 percent as fresh water. However, only 0.75 percent of the Earth’s fresh water is readily available for us to drink (or just 2.6 percent of all Earth’s water), since the rest is locked up in glaciers and mountain ice. This very small amount of available fresh water is threatened, unfortunately, since warmer temperatures are melting the glaciers and mountain ice, which then eventually will be lost as they flow into and mix with the saline seawater. To make matters worse, much of the available fresh water worldwide is polluted, although estimates of how much widely vary. Dr. Van Abs’ research looks at this very important problem.

His talk is open to the general public, the BCC Environmental Club and students, the Jersey Shore (Monmouth) Sierra Group, and other environmental organizations.

His talk is part of BCC’s “Science Monday” environmental lectures, which are hosted by BCC’s Environmental Club to inform students and the community on the importance of strong environmental protections.

A pizza and subs buffet begins at 6:00 p.m. in Warner Student Life Center (SLC) Twin Lights Rooms I and II, and the meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.

To get to Brookdale’s Lincroft campus, take Parkway Exit 109 to Route 520 West (Newman Springs Road, which becomes E. Main Street at the Lincroft campus). Take the traffic circle into the campus and follow the signs to the Warner Student Life Center (SLC) and parking lot 7, where the meeting will be in the SLC Twin Lights Rooms I and II. Use parking lot 7.  As you walk eastward towards the building complex, Warner is on the left. If lot 7 is full, use parking lots 5 or 6. A campus map is at http://www.brookdalecc.edu/PDFFiles/MAPS/MAP_04_08.pdf