Note from the editors: This article was originally published in The Green Magazine back in fall of 2006, when the Focus the Nation event was more than a year off. It was prescient then, and has never been more timely than it is now. Sustainable Dartmouth, the College’s umbrella environmentalist organization, is currently brainstorming and planning ways for Dartmouth to get involved with Focus the Nation. To get involved, blitz SD.

The climate debate is no longer centered on the question, “Is it happening?” but rather “What are the specific effects going to be?,” “Are we seeing some of these effects already?,” and “At what rate do we have to curb our greenhouse gas emissions to stabilize the climate for future generations?” James Hansen, Bush’s top climate modeler and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York offered the following insight earlier this year:

“How long have we got? We have to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade, or temperatures will warm by more than one degree. That will be warmer than it has been for half a million years, and many things could become unstoppable. If we are to stop that, we cannot wait for new technologies like capturing emissions from burning coal. We have to act with what we have. This decade, that means focusing on energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy that do not burn carbon. We don’t have much time left.”

The urgency of Hansen’s claim is based on the relatively recent development of more sophisticated methods of modeling the breakup of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. These new models recognize that ice sheets are dynamic systems, not big ice cubes that simply melt from the outside in. Specifically, they account for the observation that ice sheet breakup is due, in part, to the creation of large crevasses by pools of water tunneling down to the bedrock or ocean below.

Some of the consequences these models predict are very scary, and, if Hansen has the timeframe right, it is clear that the 2008 elections will be of critical importance for climate stability. It is on this premise that Eban Goodstein, Hunter Lovins, David Orr, and others have started Focus the Nation, a grassroots initiative to foster general awareness of climate issues and to bring energy policy to the forefront of upcoming elections (visit www.focusthenation.org).

The goal of Focus the Nation is to create a day of national climate awareness, akin to Earth Day, on January 31, 2008. On this day, which is purposefully situated between the New Hampshire and Super Tuesday primaries, a huge symposium will be held at Lewis and Clark University, and ideally several satellite symposia at other institutions, at which students and faculty will ask political hopefuls and current officials questions about energy policy and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Also, the Focus the Nation website will post an online questionnaire regarding people’s general policy priorities. The hope is that it will attract mass participation and that the results will demonstrate nationwide concern about climate issues.

Participating campuses are encouraged not only to host symposia or hold events of their own, but also to start organizing a series of discussions leading up to January 31 that involve students and faculty across departments. These discussions hope to enrich people’s understanding of climate issues and enable them to pose more sophisticated questions to politicians.

Focus the Nation is now building a support base by having a series of kickoff conferences around the country. The first was held at Middlebury back in September 2006. There were approximately 100 people there, including Denis Rydjeski and Betsy Eldredge, good friends of Sustainable Dartmouth and leaders in the local chapter of the Sierra Club. The conference was informal; people were sitting in groups of four to five at small tables, and alternated between listening to speakers give presentations and brainstorming in small groups.

For example, Eban Goodstein delivered an Al Gore style lecture on the science of climate change. He started with an explanation of the Earth’s energy balance and the greenhouse effect. Then he discussed the significance and implications of historical temperature data. Finally, he demonstrated the potential impacts of global warming pollution, covering everything from the breakup of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets and the collapse of the Gulf Stream to the global migration of species and impacts on agriculture. The presentation is available on the Focus the Nation website in video, audio, and Powerpoint.

Surprisingly, since the project is primarily directed towards institutions of higher learning, there was a very large contingent of teachers from secondary schools at the conference. They were unquestionably one of the most outspoken and enthusiastic sub-groups present. Most of their questions and comments concerned what they could do at their respective schools to promote sustainable practices. In the final brainstorming session, they split off as a unit and appeared to have a fruitful discussion. Though their audiences by-and-large cannot vote, these teachers can play a huge role in reducing the environmental impact of their schools and fostering awareness in today’s youth.

Overall, from a college student’s perspective, the conference generated a lot of excitement, but did not create many concrete take-back-to-campus ideas. One could have guessed that this would be the case—after all, each campus is a little different, so the potential success of any given approach is likely not universal. However, a big part of the discussion, and rightly so, was concerned with how students can effectively facilitate inter-campus communication. To this end, Chris Klabes made a connection with Will Duggan of the Better Days Alliance (http://betterdaysalliance.org), and they will be collaborating on developing and publicizing a blog that will facilitate communication between campuses. Hopefully, this blog will indeed be established, and student interest will ensure it makes it off the ground. It is all too common for students to only be intermittently enthusiastic and proactive about maintaining inter-collegiate lines of communication. That is not to understate the potential of successful multi-campus collaboration. Indeed, students can learn from what has worked and what has failed at other campuses so they won’t have to continually reinvent the wheel.

One immediate criticism of the project in general is that it is terminal. It builds up to a single day, to one big event, and then…ends. Sure, if we can convince political candidates that enough people care about climate change, they’ll probably incorporate progressive energy initiatives into their campaign platforms. However, these promises will be meaningless unless continual pressure is placed on the politicians once they are in office. This criticism is valid, but its validity does not mean that the project is entirely ill-conceived or that it won’t be worthwhile. Creating awareness and garnering interest are always important, and certainly the students running Focus the Nation events will try to channel the momentum generated by the event, be it by facilitating involvement in the primaries or by putting pressure on their own college administrations to adapt to climate change realities.

So what should we do at Dartmouth to support Focus the Nation? Organizing periodic discussions leading up to January 2008 would be a waste of time and energy. It’s not something students would be terribly excited about, and professors would probably spend half the time discussing the merits and pitfalls of the project itself. Furthermore, the amount of new, useful insight that would be gained through such an exercise would be minimal. Instead, we should focus our efforts on making as many students as we can aware of the importance and growing salience of climate issues and on encouraging students to fill out the questionnaire on Focus the Nation’s website. Our specific projects should include doing each of the following:

1. Host an event on January 31, 2008. It doesn’t have to be huge—it could be a panel discussion with political candidates and faculty, or if that doesn’t pan out, one with just faculty. Not only would it be interesting in its own right, but it would put Focus the Nation on the map at Dartmouth.

2. Publicize the symposium at Lewis and Clark. This symposium is going to be podcasted, and, while I doubt too many students will actually take the time to listen to it, we can at least draw attention to the fact that campuses nationwide are dedicating the day to addressing the importance of climate issues.

3. Table with computers on January 31 to get people to fill out the questionnaire.
www.focusthenation.org

We have taken great strides in recent years toward making Dartmouth more sustainable. Elections are not too far around the corner; now we need to focus some of our efforts on trying to change policy at the state and national levels.