Response # 7

Since I first started my journey at Goucher I have felt that the environment is something that is important to this campus as a whole. This is something that inspired me to join the GreenHouse and involve myself in more of the action side of sustainability on campus. Since joining, the Goucher environmental movement has a very different light to me. I still feel that people are interested, but sometimes it seems like that is as far as it goes. Last semester I spent a good bit of time trying to recruit students to live in the GreenHouse and it turned out to be an extremely difficult task. People showed interest and then backed out at the last minute. I feel like this happens a lot with these students groups. If you look at the mailing lists for both GCAG and Ag Co-op there are a lot of people on those lists but less than half go to the events and meetings. My question for Mr. Cortese is how do we get past this barrier? How do you convince people that this issue is worth your time and effort? Furthermore, for those who are part of these groups how do we get members interested in doing something different and interesting? I feel like so many people just rely on the ideas of a coupe extremely motivated members instead of trying to be innovative themselves. I can only imagine what would happen if there were more people being creative about creating this sustainable campus.

On the more administrative side of things I also feel that students environmental ideas are not given the priority that they should be. As someone who has dealt with this side of things I and the greenhouse have been turned down on multiple occasions. However, the college still loves to promote us to the outside world because we make the college look good. To me this can be very frustrating. I feel that the administration should be more open to student ideas if they are going to promote the student groups to the degree that they do. I honestly have no idea how this issue can be solved, especially since the bond between the students and the administration is so sensitive.

Ultimately I think this campus has a long way to go to becoming a sustainable community. I think we need to get more student action and not just the same small group of people. I think that the student groups that are already established really need to work together more in order to create a stronger sense of community and hopefully get more people involved in each groups events. Furthermore, I think that the bridge between the academic side of campus and the residential side of campus needs to be breached. I think that the classroom is one of the best places to get students motivated to do things. I really hope that this new environmental studies program can start melting these two sides of campus together. With these changes I think Goucher could be on it's way to becoming a very sustainable community.

Respone # 6

After reading the IPCC report and watching Everything's Cool I have become aware of how simple words can affect the overall tone and message of a document. I was completely shocked to see that someone in politics was adding and changing words to make climate change seem like more of a debate. Even if the document is stating serious concerns the use of the word "maybe" would obviously leave the reader confused and questioning the legitimacy of climate change. On the other hand, the IPCC report used words that suggested the probability of an issue and addressed serious concern when needed. It was very evident what was important and what was not. Although, I was surprised to see all of the data presented in italicized words. I have read many different scientific reports and I have never seen word usage like that. Generally that kind of data is expressed in a very quantitative way, which I find to be more accurate and informative. I am sure that this was avoided because the IPCC report is not intended for only scientists, but as a science student I felt like that was missing.

Despite the qualitative presentation of data I thought that the IPCC was a necessary and enlightening report. I especially liked all of the graphs. The most interesting graph to me was SPM.5. This graph projected global surface warming depending on a variety of projected GHG emissions over the next 100 years. I found the projections that had a slight increase in the next 50 years and than a gradual decrease to be the most intimidating and powerful. I feel this way because I am very doubtful that the change needed to decrease GHG emissions will occur any faster than this. In this situation there will be an almost 2 degree increase in temperature causing major changes to occur. At that point it will have been too late to fix all that has gone wrong and life has we know it will be extremely different. Despite this negativity, there is hope. I think that climate change needs to be brought to the people in a more appealing way that will cause the majority of Americans to believe climate change is important and fixable. In order to do this we need to better understand the general public and what they understand about climate change. Furthermore, I think that often times the issue is overwhelming which causes people to avoid it, but if people were educated on the issue and understood how small changes can go a long way I do think change would begin to happen. If the general public were to not only agree on the issue but also feel passionate about change the government would have no choice but to change.

Ultimately, the government would fear the people instead of the people fearing the government.

Response #5

Reading Speth's Red Sky at Morning really hit home for me. As I was reading about poverty, economic growth, and globalization I felt very selfish. I looked around my room and realized how much crap I have. There are very few things in my room that I can say I know where this came from, how it was made, what resources were consumed, and how it's creation affects the environment. I truly care about the environment and do a lot of things to live my life with this in mind, but even so I am still a part of the destruction of the environment. I will guiltily admit that I do enjoy buying things. I love just getting new pens or even just buying a pair of running shoes. The idea of something new and "clean" just makes me feel better. I was trying to figure out why I have this reaction to new things and realized that I am not thinking about the bad associated with it. My new and "clean" object consumed a certain amount of energy, used some source of water, added emissions to the air, and could have polluted a water source. Furthermore, there are millions of people on the other side of the world who are trying to survive let alone buy a pair of running shoes. All of these things seem so far away when I am looking at my soon to be purchase and I can imagine this is the same or most likely worse for a lot of americans. It is even harder to change this because it is such a huge part of the society we live in today. I would say the more you have the more you are respected by people. Of course I disagree with this statement, but this is a very difficult attitude to avoid having in your life. With this in mind how is it possible to get past this attitude? I think the best thing for anyone is to connect with the natural world on a deep level and connect with those in other parts of the world who are less fortunate. If you can see these things and connect with them it might be easier to put the pens down at the store and say there is more to this life. Furthermore, I think it is important to be educated. Understanding what goes into making something could potentially change how one feels about it. Of course this is all on a personal level and consumer changes are most likely going to happen with government policy changes.