The Tripod

People in all sectors of the Trinity community often refer to Trinity students as apathetic and not socially active or aware. However, this past weekend Trinity College brought 50 students to Power Shift, a conference on climate change that was hosted at the University of Maryland in College Park. Students came from states all over the country, ranging from Alaska to Florida, from Virginia to Connecticut. Trinity stood out this weekend as one of the few colleges who brought such a large delegation of students despite the College's comparatively small size.

A total of approximately 6,000 students attended the conference, which consisted of discussion panels on Saturday, keynote speakers such as Nancy Pelosi and Ralph Nader, workshops on Sunday, and a lobby day on Monday. Saturday's panels ranged from discussions on how climate change will affect presidential candidates in 2008, to the role of campuses in the climate movement, to discussions on what people of faith are doing to end climate change. One panel discussed the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, which President Jones signed last summer.

Also on Saturday were the state breakout sessions, where students from states and regions met together to share success stories and tactics to work to stop climate change on their campuses. This was particularly helpful as students were able to discuss potential ways to deal with the challenges involved in creating a more green campus.

Interspersed between panels was a speech from Ralph Nader, delivered to a packed audience of students. Nader encouraged this audience of students to take the lead in stopping climate change, directing their attention to the power of corporation and its negative effects on climate change. The audience responded with cheers to Nader's motivational comments such as, "Let it be said that your generation refused to give up on itself and will be known as the generation, perhaps the last generation, who had to give up so little in order to achieve so much because the price and the cost are going to go up."

Saturday evening's keynote speaker, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, gave a speech to an overflowing auditorium. While Pelosi spoke fairly well, the audience was far less responsive than they had been with Nader in response to Pelosi's predictable, though supportive speech.

On Sunday students had around 100 workshops to choose from, involving how to promote action on students' individual campuses, case studies of already effective programs at other colleges, and the power of the media and art in promoting environmental awareness and action. While Trinity was unable to attend lobby day on Monday, many Trinity students still attended the legislative briefing for lobby day, which educated students on the legislature that is currently in the Senate and the House concerning environmental issues. The conference culminated in lobby day on Monday, where students met with their representatives and senators to encourage them to support plans such as an 80 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Power Shift was by far the most inspiring three days that I have ever spent during my time at Trinity. I truly believe that the information and knowledge that the conference experts and speakers brought to the 6,000 students at the conference will be dispersed among the students' respective colleges. Through movements such as these, the youth of America can rise to the challenge of our generation: coping with and defeating climate change.

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