Students, faculty, and administrators gathered together on Friday, Feb. 13 to seriously discuss “meeting global warming’s challenges” and creating tangible forms of action to create a more sustainable community.
Professor Deborah Goodwin has been a long time advocate for environmental issues. She was instrumental in planning the discussion, along with Director of Johnson Center for Environmental Innovation Jim Dontje, Associate Professor in Education Michele Koomen, and Director for Leadership and Community-Based Service Dave Newell. Many professors found that class discussions about climate change resulted in helplessness rather than empowerment.
“The students were discouraged. Where’s the hope in this? What is it that we are doing when we simply teach students about global warming and not teach them tools for engagement and advocacy? We need to do more than just talk about the problem; we need to lead students to solutions,” Goodwin said.
The discussion was not all about students, though. Various groups around campus talk about sustainability in different ways, so this discussion intended to bring together these groups to address the issue as a whole, rather than in separate factions.
“We wanted to put together a larger conversation on campus and bring together as many people as possible. It was an authentic community conversation, not just people lecturing,” Goodwin said.
These groups have addressed climate change in separate ways. This conversation is intended to reach as many of these groups and combine resources and ideas to act.
“We need to do more than just talk about the problem; we need to lead students to solutions.” —Deborah Goodwin
“There have been sustainability initiatives at Gustavus. The question is ‘how can we move all of this forward?’ Our goal is to make sure that information gets processed quickly and gets turned out into the community with an action plan,” Goodwin said.
One part of the conversation revolved around simply why people came to the discussion that day. It brought up ways that could encourage others to take action by reflecting on why these individuals had stake in the environment.
Sophomore Biology Major Carolyn Del Vecchio attended the discussion and brought up several reasons for prioritizing sustainability.
“There are going to be people after us that we need to think about. What are we going to do for them?” Del Vecchio said.
Linnaeus Arboretum Director and Naturalist Scott Moeller provided insights for the conversation regarding global warming in the past years.
“I’ve seen a real evolution of this conversation from fifteen years ago where you couldn’t even talk about this without people getting angry to the point now where this discussion is happening. But there’s still not a lot of action. I’m hoping for us to figure out a way to turn this corner to mass educate everybody about what a serious problem so that we can have a global conversation about what we are going to do to fix this,” Moeller said.
Moeller says one reason sustainability is so important is because it affects not only humans, but other organisms that do not have voices to protest.
“It’s not just about us. All plants and animals that are on this planet with us that have nothing to do with how we’ve changed the environment—well, they matter too. It’s frustrating to see humans making all the decisions based on what’s best for us and what’s going to make all the money for us. We forget all the other living things that we share this planet with,” Moeller said.
The meeting hopes to bring the conversation to action. Education and discussion are parts of creating change, but it cannot stop there. Climate change has been a topic on campus over the years, but the results and discussions that occurred often were not taken further.
“We forget all the other living things that we share this planet with.” —Scott Moeller
“There is a history of these conversations but afterward, where does this information go? We are basically a group of people who are tired of talking about these issues. We want to do something,” Goodwin said.
Action can be expected to increase sustainability on campus and in the surrounding communities. It really came down to some envisioned improvements for Gustavus’ future.
“I hope that we can be doing a lot more on this campus and we have a lot of potential,” Del Vecchio said.
All input and suggestions are encouraged. Sustainability is not just an issue for certain isolated groups to address.
“If you’ve got a great idea that you want to bring to the conversation, feel free to email us,” Goodwin said.
Information regarding future discussions or action can be found by contacting Deborah Goodwin.
-Laura Isdahl