Webcast film advocates gradual reduction in pollution levels

By PATRICK DONLIN - pdonlin@sungazette.com
Many global polluters don’t want to adjust their lifestyle or business plan to accommodate the environment.

They have a choice to make: Develop slight pollutant reductions now or completely overhaul how they operate later.

Such global warming solutions were sought Thursday at Lycoming College by students, staff and visitors who watched a Webcast shown across the nation.

Broadcast via the World Wide Web, “The 2% Solution” was scheduled to be sent to over 1,750 institutions, mostly colleges and universities, according to Mel Zimmerman, a Lycoming College biology professor.

The program viewed helps encourage global warming reductions advocated by Focus the Nation, a project of the Oregon-based Green House Network.

“They’re looking at an 80 percent reduction of greenhouse gasses by the year 2050,” Zimmerman said. “If we do have a goal like that, let’s look at how we can reduce that by 2 percent each year.”

Like other environmental activists, Jack Miller of the Lewisburg chapter of the Sierra Club, is convinced factories need to halt unnecessary emissions. But there’s even more dangerous toxins lurking.

If the oceans warm enough, Miller said, there are tons of methane gas on the ocean’s surface that can rise and poison the sea level and higher altitudes.

Methane gas, according to Miller, is a greenhouse gas several times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Infusions of out-of-area input were available during the Webcast, making for a truly global event.

Examining historical carbon dioxide emissions, U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-South Carolina, noticed a spike during the industrial revolution of the early 20th Century and another today.

“This is a significant challenge we face,” Inglis said. “It’s a real problem. It is of human making and it is up to us to do something about it.”

A lack of political will and a lack of social awareness dually contribute to the global warming problem, Focus the Nation Director Eban Goodstein said.

Following the current trend, the planet will warm 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit during the lifetime of the students watching, according to Goodstein.

Lowering such a warming trend will not only stabilize the climate, Goodstein said, but it will also produce jobs.

“There is truly gold in green,” Florida Gov. Charles Crist said.

Days of an “eco-apartheid” must end, Van Jones, president of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights said about ecological “haves and have-nots.”

Low-income residents need to be provided with solar panels now, Jones said, so they can save on their energy bills.

“We have an opportunity to fight poverty and pollution at the same time,” Jones said.

Construction of energy-efficient buildings creates millions of new jobs, according to Jones. In some areas of the country, such construction materials need to be manufactured. In other pockets, construction companies are looking for workers.

There’s more to cleaning the environment than just the economy, according to University of Central Florida sociology professor Penelope Canan. Being environmentally-conscious also is a moral issue, she said.

Encouraging interaction, Zimmerman said anyone can cast their votes for most alarming environmental issues by visiting focusthenation.org.

To think globally, one must act locally.

President of the Lycoming Environmental Awareness Foundation, Jennie Yuda, a senior biology major and environmental science minor at Lycoming College, encouraged her fellow students to participate in the second annual “Recycle-mania” held here.

Students living in on-campus dorms will, through LEAF’s friendly competition, vie to deposit the most recyclables.

Separate bins for plastics, glass and aluminum have already been placed at the dorms and the recyclables will be collected periodically until April 15, Yuda said. She said each dorm’s score will announced, as part of the campus’s Earth Week celebration, within days of the final collection.