Sat 26 Jan 2008
Global Warming Solutions and Herding Cats
Posted by mgoodwin under 1, Academia, General, Administrators, Campus News, Sustainability
Posted at 1:50 pm
Holding a big event at Williams is like herding cats. In an institution run by independent and motivated professors and administrators, getting collaboration and consensus is very difficult. That is why I’m very proud to announce plans for Focus the Nation, an event which really will capture the attention of the entire school, at least for a day.
A little background on Focus the Nation: conceived of and promoted by Eban Goodstein ’80, this day-long symposium for global warming solutions will take place at over 1500 schools, churches and businesses across the country. Held on Jan. 31st nationally, the eve of super Tuesday, the goal is to engage 5 million citizens in active and intelligent conversations about global warming solutions.
The classic problem in any sort of activism is that when you throw an event, only the people who are interested come. In order to address this age old problem, we’re going to the students. Starting in September, we embarked on a campaign to speak to every single faculty member individually and ask for some or all of class time on February 5th to discuss climate change from the stance of their department. To speak to over 300 faculty is a big project, and I applaud Meredith Annex ’11 and Martin Sawyer ’08 who have coordinated those efforts.
Its paying off. Currently over 60 faculty will use between 5 minutes and all of their class time to talk about where their passion for a better world intersects with their discipline and subject matter. And more new commitments are coming in every day. We’ve actually been surprised at how many faculty are genuinely eager to participate in an event that addresses a big issue and uses their particular strengths. Maybe it’s not that surprising after all.
With so much faculty involvement, the next step is to hold big, flashy events to bring the campus together. The first will be a town-hall style forum to discuss the college’s commitments and challenges in becoming truly sustainable. President Schapiro and members of senior staff will have a conversation with students about light bulbs, solar panels, the new library and Paresky hours. Later in the evening, for our key note address, Christopher Flavin ’77 will discuss the climate of hope and the path to a low carbon economy.
In addition, throughout the day, several panel discussions will hit on issues such as environmental justice, the growing grassroots youth movement, marketing, insurance, Williamstown and college architecture.
In short, we’re throwing a huge event. We’re taking a big risk, and trying out methods of organizing ourselves and teambuilding that are more ambitious than most groups ever attempt. After all, we’re students; we can take big risks because we don’t have that much to lose, but everything to gain. An event of this size requires coordination of a lot of administrators’ time, faculty time, and the resources of two departments (environmental studies and the Zilkha center) as well as lots of support from the president’s office.
Is it worth all this effort? Putting so much time into bringing people to talk together? Yes. Global warming is not a single problem and it will not be solved with a single solution. It will take collaboration and the sharing of resources among people with different strengths and interests, and it will provide opportunities for those who have visions of a better world to find each other, grow that vision and start building it.
For more information, see our current schedule here: (note: the williams.edu schedule is out of date, it should be fixed soon.)
January 26th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Thanks for providing us with this useful information. Questions:
1) Where does that logo come from? Is it Williams-specific? If so, who deserves credit?
2) Will you be posting a list of the faculty who are participating with class time? It would also be great to know which faculty are devoting most/all of class to the issue? (Nothing wrong with just spending five minutes at the start of class but, obviously, such a “student-announcement” type action can’t have much impact.
3) As you might expect, I am curious about the issue of balance. Will any speakers at the various events offer a critical take on either global warming or the FTN effort? I am not looking for radical skepticism, just for someone with a Lomborgian concern more money ought to be spent on things like malaria (or whatever) and less on carbon emissions.
4) Please tell me that someone will ask Morty if, speaking hypothetically, he would have a problem with trustees flying private planes to college meetings.
January 26th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Those damned trustees ought to travel by velocipede!
January 26th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
David, the idea of a balanced presentation is silly. This is a student advocacy group, not PBS. While I agree that a debate would be nice to have, and probably would do a lot to raise intellectual engagement, let’s be realistic here. Student advocacy groups don’t typically do a good job of bringing in opposing viewpoints.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Just a cheerleading session in which Hopkins Hall takes a leading part?
January 27th, 2008 at 1:15 am
“Please tell me that someone will ask Morty if, speaking hypothetically, he would have a problem with …”
turning off some of the lights at 936 Main St. (When I passed by during Thanksgiving weekend, the residence seemed fairly ablaze from so many brightly-lit rooms … truly painful to see.)
January 27th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Ronit,
Of course TNG, like every student group or faculty member, has the right to invite whomever they like, balance be damned. Consider three scenarios:
1) Standard speech organized student group. Rule: Invite whomever you like. If a student wants to hear a different viewpoint, they should invite someone else.
2) “Teach In” organized by faculty members (recent examples here and here). The rule, again, is that faculty can do whatever they want. But they ought to be prepared for more open-minded Ephs to criticize them, to point out that their “teach in” is less about teaching and more about indoctrination. If you don’t present all sides, don’t call it teaching.
3) Official campus-wide events organized by Williams College as an institution. Rule: Present a diversity of viewpoints on the topic. (Can we all agree on that?)
Now, it is not clear to me into which category we should put this collection of events. If this is just a student project, then, again, they should invite who they want to invite. (Note that, prudentially, I would urge them to invite skeptics and generate open-minded debate. That’s how you convince people who don’t always agree with you.)
One way you can tell that category 3) is the right one here is the prominent play that the College is giving the event. Note the central billing on the College’s homepage. Note that the URL (http://www.williams.edu/home/focus/FTN/) is one under the College’s control and not just a random page on WSO. Can you think of a major event on campus (perhaps excepting Commencement and Baccalaureate) with more obvious Administration support and control?
So, that is the issue. When the College puts on a major event about a public policy topic on which opinions differ, the College ought to present a fair range of opinions on the topic. In this case, Williams is not. Williams is pretending that there is only one right/acceptable answer to carbon emissions and global warming.
Call that what you will, but don’t call it “education.”
January 27th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Just to play Devil’s Advocate, is it possible David that some of the organizers see Global Warming as an imminent and unquestionable threat to human life? If so, your call to bring in opposing viewpoints sounds as silly as the idea of bringing in AIDS skeptics to speak on AIDS awareness day, or genocide sympathizers during an event to raise awareness about Darfur, or pro-rape speakers for Take Back the Night.
(I don’t believe the cases are comparable, but I imagine that some do see Global Warming as a threat to human life on the scale of AIDS and genocide, no?)
Balance is for the weak. Who needs debate when you’ve got the Truth?
January 27th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Heil, Hitler!
January 28th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Another movement: A Green Democracy for a Hot Red Future.
Clean Energy is something I may be able to relate to, providing you spell out the CLEAN part.
Climate statistics based on what science?
The attempt to create this movement is an attempt to demonstrate its credibility. This requires scientific judgement and a careful assessment of the arguments leading to a tentative conclusion of the theory’s correctness.
However, before we approach this point, what about the issue concerning the motivations of the scientists including it’s activists? Perhaps we need to examine science as a social system? We should look at scientists as an academic species to understand the basis for success within the scientific world in order to understand whether their ideas are novel, significant and more importantly, correct. What about the politics of the scientific departments? Do scientists agree on everything? Do scientists lie?
In the 1970’s scientists warned us about numerous environmental dangers none of which transpired. Has anyone considered the costs of abatement? Has anyone made a comparison of costs to benefit analysis?
Our global weather systems are shifting. Do we understand the complexities of this? Our magnetic field is moving. We have an asteroid that is approaching the earth within days which portends to have an impact within our solar system and perhaps followed by weather changes. Are we preparing for this, or just a movement of sorts, politically.
Allowing dissemblers to influence policy is a high price to pay for foolishness. They are attempting to create another crisis with which to manage your mind, body and utilize your spiritual side to transfer your equity onto their interests. Be prudent. Do your homework. Practice conservation of energy and do your duty, but at all costs do not contribute to their takings.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
“Ecosis,” or environmental predisposition towards irrational states of emotional catastrophism, has taken over our nation with its medieval madness. This nonsense about carbon emissions is overwhelming the common sense of the people and can only be attributed to those groups fond of playing into messianism and to the indoctrinal attitudes of our irrational religious mindset such as sin, guilt, and redemption. This dialectical form of disingenuous reasoning has taken the nation under its spell whose sole purpose is to create an alarmist attitude re-emphasizing the powers of the world through the Kyoto Accord in its efforts to continue penalizing Third World countries development programs.
This is about the global warming of power and carbon guilt. This dementia requires a modern Martin Luther to nail onto our international agencies doorsteps, on Halloween, The Thesis of Repudiation, accusing the scientific establishment and the globalists organizations of heresy upon heresy. A “New Reformation” must commence for the cause of truth, and to construct the foundation of ‘Reform’ upon which a new national sense of “Justice and Trust” is built.
There are serious environmental concerns, such as nitrous oxides from power plants, mtbf leaching into water supplies and other issues. The hysteria of “ecosis” is silencing intellectual argument. This self-righteousness borders the irrational hysteria associated with Holocaust denial. It is shaping itself along the lines of dogma and faith rather than science and reasoned discourse. Why the panic?
To degrade inquiry is to distract genuine methods from the real problems and the real solutions facing our nations. What are the aims of those create and frame the dialogue and present their solutions? Who stands to benefit?