Through various events across the Tempe campus on Thursday, thousands of students, faculty, staff and community members will gather to discuss ways to curtail global-warming.
The events are part of a national teach-in on global warming solutions that is sponsored by the Global Institute of Sustainability and the Undergraduate Student Government for students on the Tempe campus.
Nationally, the teach-in will connect more than a million Americans in a solutions-driven global-warming dialogue during the first 100 days of Barack Obama’s presidency.
Lauren Kuby, manager of events and community engagement at the Global Institute of Sustainability, said she expects thousands of students to participate in Thursday’s various events.
“Hundreds of universities around the country will be talking about global warming,” she said. “We feel like there is tons of evidence, so it’s time to focus on solutions.”
Students will be encouraged to sign a petition asking the Arizona Corporation Commission to increase its renewable energy-standards to 20 percent by 2020.
“It’s part of the tool kit that needs to be developed,” Kuby said.
Participants will watch webcasts and documentaries, meet noted environmentalists and learn more about sustainable groups and clubs on campus.
Global health freshman Benjamin Lang said he thinks it’s important for Obama to begin fighting for sustainability as soon as possible.
“The inaction that has happened in the past several years is incredibly important, and Obama needs to set the tone for the changes he’s going to make,” he said.
Lang lives in a sustainable residence hall — Sustainability House at Barrett, the Honors College — and participates in a sustainability club.
“I think in today’s day and time, most people want to be sustainable, but a lot of people don’t gives themselves to it,” he said. “Obama needs to start now — he only has four years to do it.”
USG Vice President of Services Terra Ganem said she has worked last to organize the (throughout over the six months).
“We’re looking to gain members [in our sustainable groups] and synergize the ones we already have,” Ganem said.
Now a non profit leadership and management senior, Ganem started a recycling club her freshman year after discovering ASU didn’t have recycling bins.
Though no one came to her first Rad Recycling meeting, the group now has over 150 members and is still growing.
“When I was a little girl, like three years old, my grandpa used to lift me up to his homemade can-crusher and we would crush cans together,” Ganem said. “It taught me the benefits of caring for the environment from a really young age.”
Kuby added that ASU is moving in a more sustainable direction pretty quickly.
“We have this perfect consonance of grassroots and top down [activism], and we’re meeting in the middle,” Kuby said, referring to the fact that both ASU students, from the bottom, and administration, from the top, are fighting to make the University more sustainable.
Ganem said the event would hopefully “put a bug in people’s ears” and allow students to realize the difference they can make.
“It’s time to curb global warming and start making renewable energy the focus,” Ganem said. “It’s time to make things happen.”
Reach the reporter at tessa.muggeridge@asu.edu.
