DeKALB | David Goldblum doesn’t claim to have created the Internet, but he and former vice presidential candidate Al Gore do have something else in common.

Goldblum, an assistant professor in the geography department, led a question-and-answer session following a viewing of Gore’s 2006 movie on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” on Thursday.

The Northern Star held a question-and-answer session of its own, asking Goldblum about the myths and facts surrounding the hot topic.

Northern Star: How real is global warming?

David Goldblum: We won’t exactly know for another 100 years. But chances are pretty high that it does exist, since we have experienced some of the hottest years on record in just the past few years. There is the changing of the atmosphere, which has made for a warming climate. There are a handful of scientists that are skeptical about global warming that we see in the media, but just guessing, it’s probably only a 500/1 ratio.

NS: What’s going to happen when global warming takes full effect?

DG: It’s hard to say exactly what’s going to happen, since it’s hard for scientists to predict what will happen. There’s a lot of different models, all of them different from each other, with slightly different answers in each. Most likely, it will be 15 to 20 degrees warmer. In the lifetime of students, they will see a lot of warmer summers/years.

NS: What will Northern Illinois/DeKalb look like in that time?

DG: Farmers will have to start planting different crops, because what they have been planting won’t be able to grow eventually around here. Farmers will have to adapt and they have that adaptability. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2080, they have predicted that around Illinois, it will be very warm year round and there will be drier summers, according to some computer models that I’ve seen.

NS: What do you think of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”? Is it a good expert movie to watch?

DG: Al Gore did a great job summarizing the ideas, facts and figures for that movie. All the science is up-to-date. Gore is an expert, since he’s been in government for a really long time. You can see all the political frustrations that are involved, and Gore wants the government to get over its political paralysis and start figuring out what to do.

NS: What are your thoughts on NIU’s progress being an environmentally friendly campus? What more could NIU do?

DG: For being a small university, NIU has made an effort in doing so, with replacing windows and having a fleet of hybrid vehicles. I think that NIU’s fleet of hybrid vehicles is phenomenal. There’s a lot more that could be done, but it’s very expensive to do. NIU is making sure that all the easy things are being done, while looking at the cost.

NS: What can we do to prevent global warming?

DG: People will have to make a drastic change in behavior for that to happen, like burn less fossil fuels. We all must buy green (environmentally friendly) products to make it work. But humans don’t think about the long-term; they only look at the present and their own immediate futures, like retirement. And not everyone saves for retirement. We must get people to overcome the inability to see the threat.

NS: Some good tips on being environmentally friendly?

DG: For people living in apartments and houses, what they can do is buy those low energy bulbs, simply just turn off the TV and computer when not in use, and also buy those power strips and plug all the electronic appliances into that strip and turn it off at night. That will save money and energy. People have to look at the long-term cost of running their cars as well. There’s a lot of cost involved with that, meaning the environment and also politically.

For students interested in learning more about global warming and its impact on the planet, Goldblum suggests taking GEOG 253, Environment and Society.