2008 Woodie Awards
Global Warming Expert Offers Challenge
McKibben Tells Students to Rethink Priorities
Alex Pons
Issue date: 9/27/07 Section: News
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In order to promote a cleaner and more environmentally friendly campus, this past Monday, American environmentalist Bill McKibben gave a lecture to the Colgate community on how a healthier planet is possible if change starts at the individual level.
As a professor at Middlebury College, McKibben is a leader in his field and frequently writes about global warming and how alternative energy can help. During his visit to Colgate, McKibben combined his personal views with his expertise into what audience members considered an insightful and inspiring lecture.
In his speech, McKibben admitted that looking back a year ago, he felt a great sense of desperation since little to no legislative action had been taken despite a major increase in media attention towards global warming. Because of this, Mr. McKibben and several colleagues decided to organize a protest march to Burlington, Vermont that eventually drew over 1,000 participants. In fact, the walk against carbon emissions drew so much attention that even politicians were compelled to sign a pledge to push for legislation to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 if elected into office.
McKibben pointed out that when so many politicians argue that more research needs to be done to support global warming, the power of a simple protest appeared to cancel out any doubt and help the government move in the right direction.
The walk for environmentally friendly legislation was not only successful but turned out to be the biggest anti-global warming demonstration ever to be held on American soil. This fact inspired McKibben and a handful of Middlebury students to create a website called Stepitup07.org where communities from all around the country are able to connect and organize anti-global warming demonstrations in their own community. The result was that over 1,400 demonstrations were planned to take place all over the nation.
Twenty years ago, McKibben wrote the first book about global warming targeted towards a general audience, and McKibben said that the only thing that has changed since then is the severity of the danger that global warming will bring. McKibben quoted statistics that suggest further temperature increase of five degrees, and when a change of only one degree has already brought so much devastation in the form of hurricane Katrina, increased ice melting and severe heat waves, one cannot image what our world would look like if these predictions are valid.
As a professor at Middlebury College, McKibben is a leader in his field and frequently writes about global warming and how alternative energy can help. During his visit to Colgate, McKibben combined his personal views with his expertise into what audience members considered an insightful and inspiring lecture.
In his speech, McKibben admitted that looking back a year ago, he felt a great sense of desperation since little to no legislative action had been taken despite a major increase in media attention towards global warming. Because of this, Mr. McKibben and several colleagues decided to organize a protest march to Burlington, Vermont that eventually drew over 1,000 participants. In fact, the walk against carbon emissions drew so much attention that even politicians were compelled to sign a pledge to push for legislation to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 if elected into office.
McKibben pointed out that when so many politicians argue that more research needs to be done to support global warming, the power of a simple protest appeared to cancel out any doubt and help the government move in the right direction.
The walk for environmentally friendly legislation was not only successful but turned out to be the biggest anti-global warming demonstration ever to be held on American soil. This fact inspired McKibben and a handful of Middlebury students to create a website called Stepitup07.org where communities from all around the country are able to connect and organize anti-global warming demonstrations in their own community. The result was that over 1,400 demonstrations were planned to take place all over the nation.
Twenty years ago, McKibben wrote the first book about global warming targeted towards a general audience, and McKibben said that the only thing that has changed since then is the severity of the danger that global warming will bring. McKibben quoted statistics that suggest further temperature increase of five degrees, and when a change of only one degree has already brought so much devastation in the form of hurricane Katrina, increased ice melting and severe heat waves, one cannot image what our world would look like if these predictions are valid.
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