Week Nine: Sustainability at CSB/SJU

The differences in the sustainability offices at CSB and SJU has always made me shake my head in wonder. I understand that technically we are two institutions that have some joint and some separate departments. But the disparities between the two when it comes to sustainability don’t make any sense to me. If there is any area where we can accomplish more by pooling our efforts, it is sustainability!! And my feelings about this are not a reflection upon the people who hold the positions, but the way the two institutions have structured the offices. By not having a director to report to, help with institutional memory, or offer a long term vision for the program, SJU severely limits what their fellow can accomplish. By committing to hiring a director of sustainability, SJU could make great strides towards their carbon neutral pledge and increase the interest and action in sustainability from SJU students. While the fellows have accomplished great things, they are limited in their scope and influence on campus. The sustainability efforts at SJU deserve a full time staff member.

Week Seven: Inequality and Development

In our discussions about the Jessica Barnes chapter about water issues in Egypt, the ideas of scales and agency really made sense. The farmer who doesn’t have enough water to grow his crops today or next year may be less worried about climate change because it doesn’t seem to be effecting his day to day existence (even if in some way it is). He is more worried about just plain survival rather than the longer term health of our planet. It made me think about Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs – basically that humans are motivated to achieve certain needs and that lower level basic needs, such as biological and physiological needs like air, sleep, food, and safety needs, need to be fulfilled before one is able to move on to higher level growth needs, such as love, esteem, and self-actualization. We often talk about this in educating young people – if they are coming to school hungry or not knowing where they will sleep that night, it is difficult for us to ask them to learn things like math or science. The idea of thinking about climate change along different scales and then the resulting agency or ability to act upon issues, is a very similar scenario. It is perhaps unfair of us to ask those who are living a day to day existence to step back and think about how their actions are contributing to climate change. 

Week Five: Climate Skeptics

I’ve spent part of this week just not understanding why we even have to waste time and energy trying to convince those who are climate change skeptics or contrarians what is happening is real. I feel like spending time strategizing how to convince them somehow validates their opinions. But then I hear a story on NPR that partially gives me hope, about a republican businessman who is putting a lot of money behind lobbying the Republican party to change their view on climate change. A poll done by his organization ClearPath found that 56% of Republicans believe in climate change and that humans play a role in it. But then as the story reports, while most of the Republican candidates for president agree that climate change is happening, few have explicitly said they will combat it if elected and a few still deny it is happening. I just don’t understand why people will take a position on something simply because of their political affiliation and not on its own merits.

But seeing in the same story that almost 75% of young Republicans feel the government should limit greenhouse gases makes me feel like the message is getting out to those need it most. I also was a firsthand witness to the power of educating youth about climate change this week, as I helped to organize the Youth Energy Summit (YES!) Fall Summit this week at SJU. Our theme was ‘Say YES to youth-led solutions to climate change’ and Climate Generation gave a wonderful keynote about climate change. One of the coaches who brought a group of high school students sent us this quote from one of the students who attended, "My view was drastically changed from the beginning to the end of this presentation.  My parents have always said this is a hoax.  This is really important!" That is our audience we need to focus on!!

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/30/444457034/the-republican-businessman-who-wants-the-gop-to-address-climate-change