On April 5 Georgia State hosted one of five National Campus Leadership Council’s Climate Change Summits.
Former Student Government Association (SGA) President Sebastian Parra announced that the university’s bids to claim the host position had been secured in February.
The one-day summit took place in the Senate Salon of Student Center East and included city and company officials who spitballed ways to address environmental challenges facing the city. Georgia State’s Sustainable Energy Tribe (SET) organized the summit with the help of biology lecturer Michael Black.
Environmental leaders present discussed how students can encourage their peers to partake in the climate change fight, and how to reduce the carbon footprint of colleges and universities.
A panel discussed sustainability issues such as recycling, how their companies help the climate crisis on a national and global level, and how students can get involved. The panel included speakers Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, Atlanta’s sustainability expert, Coca-Cola North America Vice President of Environment, Sustainability, Safety and Technical Information Bruce Karas and Jairo Garcia, the city’s sustainability management analyst.
Mustafa Ali, senior advisor on environmental justice at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took the stage to encourage students to take a stand in the fight for sustainability and environmental inequality by listening to the sustainable needs of their community.
“Trying to make sure that we are getting to the benefits that people are asking for is one of the keys to bridging the gap of environmental inequality,” he said. “By defining environmental inequality is how the problem is going to be resolved.
Ali announced the launch of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council’s first ever Climate Justice Youth Work Group, which will allow young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 to take part in the climate change discussion. The Climate Justice Youth Work Group will be able to “provide advice and recommendations to the Environmental Protection Agency, and even into a broader context of climate justice issues,” he said.
Undergraduate and graduate students from multiple Atlanta-based colleges and universities such as Emory University and Morehouse College also joined the discussion by analyzing environmental and sustainability problems on Georgia campuses such as the overuse of buses and cars in the city.
President of Georgia State’s SET chapter, Justin Brightharp, responded to an audience question about the green-alternative to driving, cycling, in Atlanta.
“The city is moving in a position to where people are starting to bike more,” Brightharp said. “Around our campus, we have barriers now between the cars and the bicycle lanes. We have two-lane bicycle lanes going up Peachtree Center,”
Rev. Dr. Gerald Durley, Civil Rights and environmental justice activist compared the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s to the climate change fight today. “This is a moral and ethical question,” he said. “The reason I call [climate change] a civil rights issue, is because everybody has a right to clean water. Everybody has a right to toxin-free air.”
Durley said that one must be willing to stand for what they believe in.
“It is about sacrifice and risk and talking to business people about how cost-efficient wind, solar, and alternative energy is. They know the detriment they, [business people], are doing to the earth,” he said. “It comes down to the Benjamins.”
Durley also told attendees of the importance of educating peers about environmental issues. He said the world needs leadership and “critical people” for climate change to happen. “Leaders never desire to lead. Leaders serve.“ he said. “God isn’t doing all this. We’re doing all this. Those who remain are those who make a difference.”
“We are at a critical point,” the reverend said. “You need people that are passionate about it.”
The Climate Change Summit also had guest speakers from Citizens Climate Lobby and Beyond Coal who also spoke on the impending climate change crisis.
SET said they will be encouraging students to participate in Earth Week with many different interactive activities and continued discussions and hosted by Georgia State’s Office of Sustainability. Other activities will included a Sustainable Art Expo, street festival, and booths for students to learn more about sustainability from environmentally-friendly companies.
On Earth Day, the Office of Sustainability and the University Housing Green Team will be finishing off Earth Week with an Earth Day fair in the Piedmont North parking lot. Food trucks, a movie night, glow party, and giveaways are to be apart of the celebration to encourage students to get involved in the climate change talk.
