Former RCHS valedictorian shares in Nobel Peace prize glory

by Peter Jakey– Managing Editor

Rogers City has a connection with this year?s Nobel Peace Prize. The prize was shared between Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for their work on climate and environmental issues. Susann Nordrum, a 1982 Rogers City High School valedictorian, was a member of the IPCC and, as such, is a laureate of the prestigious award. She is the daughter of Ernest and Susan Blake of Rogers City. ?It was definitely very exciting,? said Nordrum. ?In the first email it was good to hear that the IPCC had won, and then the second email was from the people I had worked directly with saying ?this means that you are also sharing in this prize.? ?

AS AN EMPLOYEE of Chevron, Nordrum was selected by the American Petroleum Institute and the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association for nomination by the U.S. State Department to help prepare the IPCC 2006 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. ?I served as a lead author of the chapter on fugitive emissions from oil and natural gas,? she said. She also contributed substantially to the chapter on carbon dioxide capture and sequestrations.

?If you think about greenhouse gas emissions, you need to count how much emission you have,? she said. ?It becomes, how do you count something like that? How do you count how much carbon dioxide is going up a stack? How much is coming out of the tailpipe of your car? We basically had to devise scientific methods for estimating

it.? Nordrum graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from Michigan Technological University in 1986 and went to work for Chevron that summer. She married Louis Nordrum, who earned a chemical degree from Montana State University in 1989, and lives in Corte Madera, California with their three daughters.

THE WORLD Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environmental Programme established IPCC in 1988. About 2,000 scientists worldwide are at the moment involved in the panel. They have already published three assessment reports about climate change in 2007, and are about to publish the final report.

Gore?s documentary ?An Inconvenient Truth,? which has won an Academy award, is credited with having an impact on people?s environmental awareness.

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