Environmental Day-Focus The Nation-ASU Tempe Az 1-31-08 Photos

ASU joins largest teach-in in U.S. history
On Jan. 30 and 31, ASU will participate in Focus The Nation, an unprecedented teach-in on global-warming solutions.

Focus The Nation has created a teach-in model centered on the three most essential pillars needed to embrace solutions to global warming – education, civic engagement and leadership. The educational initiative on global warming solutions for America will occur at more than 1,000 universities and colleges and in all 50 states.

“Arizona State University is delighted to take part in Focus the Nation,” says ASU President Michael Crow. “All of these efforts represent education at its finest. Our students have enormous power to use their education and passion to create positive change in the world.”

Focus the Nation activities at ASU include a pre-recorded web cast of the “The Two Percent Solution,” produced by the National Wildlife Federation. The web cast, which will be held at 6 p.m., Jan. 30, includes a four-minute segment on ASU’s School of Sustainability, the first school of its kind in the nation. The four-minute video will showcase what ASU is doing on Focus the Nation day and tell the larger story about sustainability at ASU.

The segment will come after a focused discussion about the “The Two Percent Solution”, a plan to reduce carbon emissions two percent every year to reach an 80 percent reduction by 2050. The discussion will be led by actor Edward Norton, climate scientist Steve Schneider, author Hunter Lovins (CEO, Natural Capitalism) and environmental justice leader Van Jones (executive director, Ella Baker Center, Oakland, Calif.)

The next day, Jan. 31, will include a range of global warming curricula presented by faculty members and guest speakers, flashlight tours at the Nelson Fine Arts Center, followed by a festival on Hayden Lawn from 11:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. Student groups will host interactive activities, continuous viewings of “The Two Percent Solution” and the ASU video, and hear the “recycled” of The Sustainabillies band.

As a key part of Focus the Nation, students, faculty and staff will participate in the Choose Your Future vote and select what they think are the top five solutions for global warming. Participants can vote online at http://www.focusthenation.org or at the event. Voting results will be presented nationally to congressional offices on Feb. 18. All students who vote on the Choose Your Future ballot will be eligible to win a $10,000 leadership scholarship for a project to be completed by end of August 2008.

For more information on ASU’s Focus The Nation events, visit http://schoolofsustainability.asu.edu/events/focus2008.php.

ASU event to open up climate talks
Terra Ganem
Jan. 28, 2008 12:00 AM
When I was a little girl, my grandpa used to lift me up to his homemade can crusher. I thought it was the coolest invention I had ever seen. After we crushed the cans, we would drive to the nearest Cash for Cans location. Any of the cash he earned was passed along to me.

From a young age, small environmental efforts like this were embedded in my thought process. I saw how being environmentally savvy was a social event because I got to do it with my favorite person; an environmental event because cans were not being put in the garbage; and an economic event, because I earned a small dividend! Although these realizations came much later, the founding principles were there.

Although my dedication to environmental action stemmed from my childhood, I still arrived at Arizona State University without any idea of what I wanted to do.

After spending time on campus, it became clear that there was a huge lack of recycling.

So, I decided that the best way I could make a difference was to jump-start a recycling club I named Ready Aware Devoted (RAD) Recycling. I held my first meeting in April 2006. No one came. I persevered and since that inauspicious beginning, my club has grown to include 45 people on the listserv, 20 of whom are actively involved.

Through my work for RAD Recycling and the Student Sustainability Coalition, I decided to organize ASU's involvement in Focus the Nation, a national day of global-warming awareness which takes place on Thursday, because in the next few years, our nation will make, or fail to make, critical decisions regarding climate change.

These decisions will have far-reaching and irreversible impacts on the lives of my fellow students and the lives of our children.

At this moment in time, our young people owe themselves at least a day of focused discussion about global-warming solutions for America.

Currently over 1,000 institutions, mostly colleges and universities, have signed on to participate, and dozens of college and university presidents have endorsed the initiative.

To maximize both education and civic engagement, ASU was the only university given the opportunity to create a video featured in the national Webcast. This video, broadcast at 6 p.m. Wednesday (go to www .focusthenation.org) includes information about our new School of Sustainability (the first in the nation) and how ASU takes a bottom-up and top-down approach to finding sustainable solutions for our campus, our region and our world.

Aside from the video, we will have student activities all day on campus Thursday. Local businesses, student-advocacy groups, along with music from the Sustainabillies and free food will make this an engaging day for students and community members alike.

We are also planning an exciting day of campus-wide discussion. Focus the Nation will be a transformative event for faculty, students, and civic leaders who must reason and work together to start solving the problem of climate change.

We are in need of your leadership in your everyday life as well.

When I look back on the decisions my grandpa made in his lifetime, I realize that he is having a ripple effect on the many generations to follow him - just from the influence he had on me.

It starts with one.



ASU junior Terra Ganem is student organizer for Focus the Nation at Arizona State University.