Picture a hot, asphalt surface in the middle of Summer. An ant drags a fallen leaf across this hot, black desert. The sun is shining brightly and nearly countless quanta of energy hit the leaf and ant each second, but the ant and leaf stay intact.
But find a simple magnifier - a curved piece of glass about 6 inches across - and focus a square foot of light. Focus the power of those billions of photons into one razor-sharp point. And the ant and leaf are toast.
This is the potential power of focus.
Focusing the Nation
On January 31, 2008, more than 1800 groups came together across the US - a country many global citizens consider to be the world's worst climate-offender - to learn more about the myths, realities, and threats of - and more importantly solutions to - global warming.
In churches, elementary school classes, college lectures, community centers, and city halls, people gathered for Focus the Nation (FTN). The largest teach-in ever was an attempt to focus on one of the most complex problems our species has ever faced - how to slow down a rapidly-changing global climate that threatens more than 50% of the planet's species, including us.
But building a lens to focus the efforts of 1800 groups, or 300 million Americans, or 6 billion global citizens is much more difficult than molding glass. The silicon, oxygen, and other atoms in glass react predictably and consistently to heat and pressure. We humans are anything but predictable. Our ideas, interests, values, religion, and passions can be so different.
Which is why it is was wonderful to see inspired climate champions take time out of their busy lives to Focus!
Focused Students
Down near the nation's capital, at the University of Maryland, a very spirited group of law student volunteers - the Maryland Environmental Law Society (MELS) - were excited to be a part of the school's first annual student-run conference on climate change. These future attorneys, judges, politicians, CEOs, EDs, and professors teamed up with the local graduate community to focus the energy of well over 100 graduate students and leaders in the community at large: http://www.law.umaryland.edu/focusthenation2008
The conference took place in the prestigious University of Maryland moot court room, which stayed full for the entire duration of the event: 9:30 - 5. Being student-run, the students had pressure to throw down a high class and professional event. Patience, MELS Legislative Chair Andrew Gohn, and the MELS did just that and gained respect for their organization with key players at the law school and in the broader environmental community.
According to law student organizer and U of MD and MD NAELS rep, Patience Bosley-Burke,"The panelists were fantastic and brought perspectives from government agencies, international climate groups, national conservation groups, grassroots organizations, and even industry. Professionals from organizations like the EPA, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, MD state government, and green industry shared their broad base of knowledge - facilitating great discussion."
Lunch for those attending came from a local, sustainable deli. The cups, plates, and forks were all biodegradable, and all the aluminum cans were recycled. As Patience noted, "Even our banner was made from recycled soda bottles and intentionally doesn't include a date so that it may be reused for future events."
Patience and the MELS were excited about the event, but even more excited about the potential outcome. According to Patience, the event was designed "not just to do something, but to do something that's going to matter."
And it worked!
According to Patience, "For days following the conference, students and faculty alike stopped students in the hall to tell them how motivated the conference had made them. Our message was to impress upon people that they are not free from the effects of climate change and to show how they contribute to the problem. In the end, the intention was not to give a doomsday declaration, but to inform people and motivate them to become part of the solution. I believe we achieved just that!"
Asked why she and the MELS took on this massive challenge of focusing a community, in addition to their insane law school work load, Patience simply noted that, "we don't really have a choice. Change has to be made now, and we happen to be the ones that have to make it. It isn't wholly a burden on our generation because it also presents us with the option of changing the way society thinks about its place in nature."
"The most prominent lesson that climate change has taught is that we can and do have an effect on the environment in which we live. The planet offers us many things, but it is not unlimited. The real success would be to change the way people think from being apart from nature into being a part of nature."
Focusing the Fenway
An Acela ride up the Coast, in the area that started the very Revolution that gave us a Washington, DC in the first place, Wheelock College put on an event to Focus the Colleges of the Fenway (COF).
Wheelock College, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences , Massachusetts College of Art + Design, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Emmanuel College, Simmons, and the Medical Academic Scientific Community Organization (MASCO), now make up a complex physical and social system that fronts the Fenway.
The diversity of these institutions is both an incredible asset and, no doubt, a difficult, complex, administrative project. But while this complexity may be overwhelming to some, Ellen Faszewski - Director of Environmental Science Programs for Colleges of the Fenway - is proving up to the challenge. Last week, as part of Focus the Nation, Ellen brought together a diverse group of campus champions, professionals, politicians, and concerned environmental citizens to talk about the role of the Colleges of the Fenway in stopping global warming. When asked why she took on the even in addition to her Director, Faculty, and personal roles, Elen noted that, "U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has described climate change as 'the defining challenge of our age' and the time is now to address this issue."
And within the COF, Ellen is working with other campus leaders to try to mobilize a powerful network that can tackle the challenge from any number of angles. Focus on the strategic strengths of each institution in the COF consortium, and you have a social and physical "system" that helps women, children, families, and the community. It is a system that brings together engineers, managers, MBAs, educators, designers, artists, and health care professionals. A system made up of more than 11,400 undergraduate students, it comprises more than 16% of the total Boston population of undergraduates attending four-year colleges, 700 full-time faculty, and 2,300 course offerings.
According to Ellen, "the event brought together members of the COF community as well as the Boston community. The event provided opportunities for not only the sharing of information from political, sustainability, and global viewpoints, but also for initiating networking opportunities among attendees. By examining this global issue through an interdisciplinary lens, we are engaging students, faculty, and community members from all disciplines and professions."
Sustaining Focus
While these two FTN events, and the more than 1800 other events across the country, showed the power of focus - channeling the collective energy of more than 1800 groups, for 10 hours, on January 31 - the real test will be how we keep these collective fires burning every day for the next year and for years to come.
But together we are strong! With the support of 11 US Senators including Barack Obama, 27 US Representatives including Climate Committee Chair Edward Markey, 9 Governors including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and numerous Mayors and state politicians, citizens got inspired. And by capturing and focusing this inspiration - this vibrant human energy - even as participants return to their day to day lives, we can keep the heat on!
In Maryland, the FTN event (both the planning and organizing and the event itself) is helping to drive a campus wide initiative at the graduate schools in Baltimore. A petitioning process is going on now in conjunction with a "climate neutral" feasibility study that will be presented to the Board of Regents this semester. MELS is coordinating with the graduate school environmental coalition and its efforts to turn the University of Maryland System carbon neutral.
In Boston, as a follow up to this event and other COF inititatives, Jan Henderson (MASCO) and Claire Ramsbottom (Director of the COF) have organized a meeting of those from the colleges who are interested in core information and the potential for collaborative planning as they strive towards a greener COF community. Four of the COF college presidents have signed the President's Climate Commitment and are currently developing their plans.
In an encouraging sign, Wheelock College President Jackie Jenkins-Scott actually asked those assembled to hold Wheelock's feet to the fire in meeting its pledge to go climate neutral. This top-down support, combined with faculty and student actions, and community interaction, will help pave the long road to climate neutrality.
2008: The Year We Focused
- 24 States, accounting for more than half of the electricity sales in the US, had instituted policies that require electricity providers to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy resources.
- 712 US cities, in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, representing a total of 77,457,882 citizens - more than 1/5 of the US population - had committed to meeting the Kyoto Protocol targets.
- 489 colleges and universities had committed to aggressively reducing their carbon footprint to zero.
- More than 7000 buildings were registered with the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) program.
All this energy needs is a focus!
So the challenge of the 21st century will not be to stop global warming. That will be the outcome. The challenge will be to find a way to tie together the interests and passions of diverse groups of human beings - in households, neighborhoods, campuses, cities, states, and nations.
And though the issue is different, we face the same basic problem that has plagued generations - how to create massive, species-wide change. As JFK put it, speaking about creating a more fit America in 1961, "what we must do is literally change the physical habits of millions of Americans--and that is far more difficult than changing their tastes, their fashions, or even their politics."
Focus founders, Eban Goodstein and Chungin Chung have already announced the next Focus the Nation on Thursday, February 5, 2009.
By then, I am challenging my organization's 200 environmental law student groups to do all they can to push their campuses, campus towns, campus counties, and states towards climate neutrality. I hope you all will do the same for your nation, states, counties, cities, campuses, offices, houses, and lives.
So even with elections, ski trips, Spring Break, and March Madness on the horizon, please continue to be the lens that focuses our efforts. In other words, stay focused!
And by next February we will make our 2007 accomplishments seem like a cautious first step towards a Modern Industrial Revolution that will change the world!