U.S. congressmen and local officials joined with non-profit organizers and university professors to lead an environmental awareness discussion in Cabot yesterday, seeking to escalate public attentiveness to global warming's threats during this election year.
The three-hour Focus the Nation event culminated with a panel composed of U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone and Massachusetts State Senator Jim Marzilli (D-4th).
Capuano, who represents Boston and Cambridge, stressed the need to appeal in different ways to each demographic when speaking about global warming. "Environmentalism has to be relevant to the average person to get their attention," he said.
Curtatone, meanwhile, spoke of the positive impacts that local governments can have on the environment. "What is happening around climate change is you've seen a lot of innovation at the municipal level," he said.
Tufts was one of over 1,400 institutions that participated yesterday in events put on by the environmental movement Focus the Nation. The participation of Reps. Capuano and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who spoke to the Cabot Auditorium audience via Web feed, made Tufts one of 41 schools to have U.S. congressmen attend their Focus the Nation events.
Focus the Nation is the brainchild of Lewis and Clark College Professor of Economics Eban Goodstein, who took a two-year leave of absence to travel the country and build support for the initiative.
The movement is meant to move climate change higher on voters' lists of important issues this election cycle.
"The idea is that if you start a surge of attention to climate change, then hopefully people will be thinking about that when they're electing their officials," said Tina Woolston, the project coordinator at Tufts' Office of Sustainability.
Representatives from non-profit organizations opened the Tufts event, which was scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. but started late. Adam Markham, the chief operating officer for the non-profit Clean Air-Cool Planet, spoke alongside Wood Turner, the project director for Climate Counts.
Markham praised Tufts for its environmental awareness. "Many people look at Tufts as a place that has been a leader in reducing greenhouse emission," he said.
During the panel discussion, Curtatone talked about Somerville's efforts to open more green space through the creation of parks, gardens and playgrounds. He also spoke about making the city more pedestrian-accessible and expanding public transportation with the opening of a T stop in Assembly Square and the expansion of the Green Line to Tufts.
In his presentation, Markham talked about the climate change awareness that spread through New Hampshire before last month's presidential primary. Seventy-five local energy committees have been formed across the Granite State to help communities address issues such as making heating systems in public schools more energy-efficient or introducing biodiesel in public buses.
Capuano emphasized the importance of recognizing that environmental issues appear differently to different groups of people and brought in his perspective as a self-proclaimed "city guy."
He explained that for many people in his district, preservation of large tracts of land out west is meaningless if local parks are unusable, and he chided environmental activists for being too idealistic.
"My biggest fight with environmental activists in D.C. has been that they're unrealistic," Capuano said.
Capuano also stressed the importance of compromise and told a story about an interaction he had in Congress with a colleague from Alaska. When lawmakers were considering passing a bill that would legalize drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, Capuano told the Alaskan congressman that he would agree to the drilling in return for support for more stringent Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.
Although the Alaskan lawmaker did not sign on to the deal, Capuano reminded the audience that unless environmental leaders are willing to make some sacrifices, change won't come.
Capuano's colleague, Markey, addressed the auditorium from a Democratic retreat near Washington, D.C.
Markey, who chairs the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Climate Change and has helped push numerous energy bills through Congress, urged the collegiate generation to rise to the challenge of global warming.
Markey, who represents Medford and Arlington, called global warming "one of the greatest moral issues of all time."
He urged audience members to immediate action. "Today is an important day, because our planet is sick, and there are no emergency rooms for a sick planet," Markey said.
After the panel event, a poster session in the Hall of Flags featured work from Tufts students and organizations.
Representatives from the Medford Clean Energy Committee handed out information about their work which has included helping to put a wind turbine in McGlynn Middle School.
Several professors from various disciplines at Tufts also took time in class this week to discuss climate change or encouraged their students to attend Focus the Nation events on campus.
