As everyone else on campus prepares for Fourth Week, EC385 has scattered. The COP is over, though at the moment there is no formal rulebook (the entire point of the conference). While negotiators from throughout the world continue to work, everyone else observing the conference has left.
While most of my posts have had a negative tone, I would like to formally state that does not mean I had a bad time. Quite the contrary, while some moments were hard- it was an incredible experience to be able to attend such an international conference. We were told before we left that the COP would be an emotional rollercoaster, though it’s difficult to know what that means. A conference? You think, no way could that be emotional. And yet, being confronted with the realities of climate change for 10 hours a day, reckoning with the vast inequalities, trying to determine what is true in all the noise, and experiencing sensory overload is emotional.
My Freshman Year Experience class at CC was called: “It’s Getting Hot in Here: the Science and Politics of Climate Change”. I have been thinking about climate change since my literal first undergraduate class and that has not changed since. I think the first paper I wrote was called “No One Gives a Shit About the Environment: Why the Economy and the Environment are Uncoupled in the American Mind.” Yes I swore, yes that’s who I am as a person. I am now a double major in Economics and Environmental Policy because I do really believe that solving climate change stretches the boundaries of typical areas of academia. That belief was cemented at the COP.
I know that each other student on this course has such an academic and personal reason for wanting to attend as well, though I only know my own story.
It was hard for all of us to know how to move forward from this experience in a meaningful way. I think that all we can do is pressure the institutions of which we are a part to be better.
The Colorado College Student Government Association passed a resolution last week urging the administration to sign the “We Are Still In Pledge.” This is a group of businesses, higher education institutions, states, and cities that are committed to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, even as the United States has pledged to leave it. This is a good first step but we can do better as an institution- more meat-free meals in the dining halls, pledging to not only be carbon neutral but also fossil fuel free.
So what can you do? Plant trees, go vegan 2 days a week, write to your city councillor, ask your family to buy you carbon offset credits for the holidays. What you cannot do is give up hope, because as soon as we stop believing that we can have any effect, positive change stops. Stay hopeful. Stay vigilant. Stay angry.
