Focus the Nation

 

            On Thursday January 31, hundreds of students and faculty joined in Cal Poly’s Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions conference. We all came together because we care about our planet and want to make changes in the way we live our lives. There may not be a fix-all solution to global warming, but there is a point where people begin to realize enough is enough. Many of the speakers presented their positions with great concern for the environment, and plans to help save our planet.

Many of the students in the audience, including myself, had a desire to learn about global warming solutions. I am currently completing my sustainable environments minor, but I know that my knowledge on global warming is limited to architectural related solutions. I wanted to see how I was affecting global warming outside of architecture. I attended two seminars, one on agricultural solutions, and the other on business solutions. During the first speech of the agricultural seminar, one of the main problems of global warming was how pests were affecting crops. I was shocked that their solution was prevention. I guess I was expecting to hear how to reverse the affects of global warming or how we can slow it down, but it was more of an adaptation to what is actually going on. This tone continued throughout the rest of the agricultural seminar. The agricultural community realizes global warming is affecting them here and now and they need a viable solution.

During the business lecture, I heard more solutions that dealt with the future of industry and how it needs to change to sustain our planet. Dr. Kate Lancaster highlighted one individual in a business model, Ray Anderson of Interface Flooring. She talked about how the company completes the loop of a products life cycle. I was very impressed by this concept and researched it further to find out how their company tries to have as little waste as possible. Typically it takes 32 trucks of materials to produce one truck of product, and Interface is leading the charge by trying to become a zero waste company focusing on biomimicry. It is very encouraging to see successful companies taking the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) into account.

It certainly is a welcoming site to see businesses try to be as sustainable as possible, however not all “sustainable companies” are doing what Bill McKibben would ask from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. How much is enough? I find that many businesses are trying to sell products that are greener than others. However I believe that this only works if the consumer chooses to recycle the product after its use. Many consumers are caught up with the sustainable movement as the trendy thing to do. These people are buying products with excessive packaging without paying attention to where the products are coming from, they do not recycle, and they think that it is ok because they are using a reusable cloth bag. That is not how it works, and those people are not doing as much as they think they are to help save the environment.

We are living in what Leonardo DiCaprio calls the “11^th Hour.” We have a very serious problem ahead of us, and we need to make the changes right now. A few days ago Exxon Mobile declared they had a $40.6 billion dollar profit on the year, yet the government is still subsidizing these types of corporations. All I ask is, Why? I agree with Christopher Morello, that we need the government to move these subsidies to making “green” profitable. We need to focus our attention on how to make the cheap, environmentally damaging, option become unavailable for businesses and make them want to switch to the environmentally sound solution.

I fully support the notion that we need to make a change before things get even worse, but I find myself in a predicament. On one hand, I want to change what I buy so that I am buying sustainable products, but on the other hand, after reading parts of Walden, I feel that buying sustainable products are essentially falling into a consumer trap. I question myself, do I really need these things? I am not sure yet, however I know from listening to the many speakers that there are certainly a lot of other ways in which I can live my life that will help out the planet. I am very glad to have attended Focus the Nation because it not only has changed my ideas and thoughts but it has changed the ideas of so many others. In order to for change to occur we must change the way we think.