Doing Something About the Weather (I mean, the Climate)
Eban Goodstein is an economics professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR. He contacted us about a new project he is involved with called Focus the Nation (www.focusthenation.org). Very briefly, Focus the Nation is a major educational initiative that will coordinate teams of faculty and students at over a thousand colleges, universities and high schools in the United States, to collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion centered around the theme of “Stabilizing the Climate in the 21st Century”. The project will culminate January 31, 2008, in the form of one-day, national symposia held simultaneously on campuses across the country. Working from a firm a base in educational institutions, Focus the Nation will also incorporate participation by religious, civic and business organizations, and has the potential to organize thousands of institutions and, with sufficient effort, millions of participants across the country to focus national attention for a day around a serious discussion of climate stabilization. The goal is for Focus the Nation to become the “Earth Day” catalyzing event that turns the national conversation about global warming from recognition coupled with despair, towards determination to build a clean energy future.
A two-page description of the project is available at www.lclark.edu/~eban/FocusNation.pdf; they will be launching their web site in late July, with a kick-off conference at Middlebury College in Vermont on September 23rd. Prior to any serious organizing, there are already faculty at around 20 schools committed to involvement, and two College presidents endorsing.
Dr. Goodstein will be in the Madison area on Monday, July 17th, and will give a presentation on the Focus the Nation project at noon in 175 Science Hall. He has given similar talks recently at the environmental studies departments at UC Boulder, the University of Denver, and the Institute for the Environment at UC Berkeley. Come hear more about this project! [Listen to the talk here.]
Filed under: Environmental News, Faculty & Staff News, Of Student Interest by Andrew Wetzel | Comments (0)