By Grady Semmens

Two University of Calgary PhD students are taking their global warming expertise to the world, by becoming some of Canada’s first official presenters of former U.S. vice-president Al Gore’s famous climate change slide show.

Tara Moran and Kate Sinclair, both PhD candidates in the Department of Geography, are spending this weekend in Montreal taking part in the first Canadian training session for Gore’s Inconvenient Truth presentation.

They will be among 220 Canadians who will be taught first-hand by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
“I am really looking forward to being trained how to discuss climate change by someone who is such a passionate and engaging speaker,” Sinclair said. “Becoming a designated presenter of Inconvenient Truth will also provide us with really great resources to use when we go out into the community to discuss our research and raise awareness about climate change.”

Moran, who studies climate change in the Arctic, and Sinclair, who is examining climate change impacts in the Canadian Rockies, have both been active in giving presentations on climate change to Calgary school and community groups and plan to expand their activities this year after returning from Montreal. They are part of U of C professor Shawn Marshall’s Climate Change Research Group.

“To be invited, you have to commit to doing at least 10 presentations in the community every year, and I’m sure we will end up doing more than that,” Moran said.

The students are sharing their experiences with The Climate Change Project Canada in a blog on the U of C website at: www.ucalgary.ca/blogs.