The Academy Takes Action During CAD
Students and faculty participated in the Academy’s second annual Climate Action Day to learn and engage in conversations about sustainability and the planet’s rising climate on Wednesday, April 27. This year, students were required to either attend two different workshops or attend one extended workshop in the morning, replacing the regular class day schedule. The idea for the event was first proposed by Justin Landowne ’14.
The Climate Action Day Planning Committee began meeting every Thursday in the fall. English instructor and Sustainability Coordinator Jason Bremiller led the group of 20 faculty members and seven students. The goal of the committee was to initiate a campus-wide discussion about climate change and present viable, hands-on solutions that showed students how they could play a positive role in creating change.
The event included a wide variety of workshops and seminars focused on educating and making the community more aware of climate change. Some of the events included watching an environmentally-focused film, hearing hip-hop artist and activist Tem Blessed and Skyping with Exeter alumna Devi Lockwood who has traveled the world by bicycle and boat, collecting stories about water and climate change. Each workshop addressed the global crisis in different ways.
“The idea of environmentalism isn’t reaching individual perfection, it’s simply an awareness and effort to protect our environment.”
Architects John Skillern and Peter Reiss presented plans for the Center for Theater and Dance and the new field house. Both men talked about their aim to follow the criteria for these structures to be have Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, meaning the buildings are environmentally compatible, and their various ways to make the buildings more sustainable. During the workshop, Skillern and Reiss asked students and faculty to come up with a creative list of how they could incorporate more environmental friendly elements to these new buildings.
In another workshop, hip-hop artists Tem Blessed and Cita Light shared with the audience an interactive performance in Fisher Theater. Through music, Blessed hoped to raise awareness about often ignored problems existing in the environment.
Other workshops included composting and recycling practices, a presentation by Siddhartha Roy that discussed the water crisis in Flint, a trash audit where students sorted and reorganized trash and recycling and an eco-design walking tour of campus. Lower Emily Green attended both Flint workshops and stressed the vitality of future education on the topic. “Flint was something that was super detrimental to a lot of people, so I think it’s super important to educate people on the tragedy so that similar things aren’t as likely to not be fixed in the future,” she said.
Lower Lily Friedland, a member of the Climate Action Day Planning Committee, led the showing of “Cowspiracy.” The movie explains the environmental impact of eating meat and the meat industry and its significant and widely ignored role in climate change. In a similar workshop led by Evan Mallett, owner and chef of the restaurant Black Trumpet, students learned about the impact of food on our climate through an interactive cooking class.
According to Friedland several attendees of “Cowspiracy” left the movie with the desire to stop eating meat and have become vegetarians. “I think that Cowspiracy is a rare movie in that it doesn’t try to guilt anyone into considering giving up meat,” she said. “The strength in that approach is that no one feels attacked and they can take in the cold hard facts and choose their next step on their own.” She added that she hopes people became aware of agriculture’s impact on the environment.
In the local dam removal workshop, students learned about the Exeter dam’s history and its upcoming removal, which will decrease flooding and restore the river’s natural ecosystem.
For students interested in the eroding dunes along the New Hampshire coast, a three-hour field trip to Hampton Beach State Park offered the opportunity to plant marram grass and other vegetation on sand dunes to help restore and conserve the habitats that have been destroyed by coastal storms. “It was a really nice day and all my friends and I enjoyed the beach trip because we got to learn a lot and had a day off from classes,” prep Christine Baker said.
Upper Yoshiko Lynch was involved in the PLAN workshop which worked with volunteers from the University of New Hampshire. The goal of the workshop was to plan Trash to Treasure (T2T), a movement to reduce the amount of waste Exeter sends to the landfill during the end of year Dorm Cleanout. After collecting recyclable clothes, electronics and school supplies the group hopes to either donate, recycle or sell back everything to students at the beginning of school. “It is important for younger generations to be environmentally aware because what happens to the earth in the future will affect the way we live,” Lynch said. “We have to be conscientious about how we handle the environment now so that we can live on a safe, clean planet later.”
Senior David Shepley, who is co-leading T2T, believes one of the problems with conservation on campus is that there is “a stigma surrounding caring for our environment.” He explained how many students think environmentalism is a waste of time and energy. “The idea of environmentalism isn’t reaching individual perfection, it’s simply an awareness and effort to protect our environment,” he said.
Shepley also added that environmental degradation will continue to affect lives and that most of the population doesn’t feel its effects directly because they are engorged in technology and urban societies. “In the belief that we can never really throw something ‘away,’ T2T is trying to pull off a zero waste dorm cleanout,” he said. “We’re educating the community, including ourselves, which is important above all.”