About 6,000 people visited Reynolds Coliseum Monday morning to hear former President Bill Clinton speak.

Clinton’s speech, “The Way Forward,” focused on getting students and citizens to act on topics such as climate change, health care, recycling, and hunger.

The Speech

“We need doers,” he said.

Clinton called interdependence the fundamental fact of the 21st century.

“We should be trying to build up the positive forces of national and international interdepence,” he said.

Clinton explained the interdependent economy of the U.S. took more people out of poverty in the last 20 years than had before in history.

“Then, in five months, we saw $27 trillion in wealth disappear,” he said.

Clinton reiterated America’s importance in the interdepent economy.

“That [$27 trillion] is twice America’s annual GDP and since we are 22 to 24 percent of the world’s income, that means that the world lost about half of it entire annual income,” the former president said.

He explained unstability in the world as well.

Clinton told the audience the worlds larget democracy, India, shares the sub-continent with Pakistan.

“You have the terrorist attack in Mumbi, and you sit and hold your breath hoping these two nuclear powers don’t fight each other over what happened,” Clinton said.

In his speech, he also touched on the closing of the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, something President Barack Obama has pledged to do early in his administration.

“We learn now that a very high percentage of the people released after being detained as suppected terrorists turn out to have been terrorists, and they have gone back signed up and put themselves in countries of operation in the hope of blowing up innocent civilans,” Clinton said.

He stressed terrorists pose a very real threat to stability.

“These faithless actors cannot be easily retaliated against and can make this unstable system more unstable,” Clinton said.

The former president addressed the cost of education in America.

“The cost of education is above inflation, and the median wage is below inflation,” he said.

Climate Change

“Most people recoginize that we put enough green house gases in the air, and we need to do something about it,” he said.

Clinton said he spent a lot of time thinking about this topic.

“We just can’t keep doing this folks,” he said.

Barry Olson, the assiciate director of University Housing, later in the day said housing has been trying to do their part to fight global warming.

“The biggest thing we are doing is water coservation,” he said.

Olson explained that in the residence halls, low-flow shower heads and airators in the sinks have created a 30 percent decrease in water consumption.

Another step Housing is taking is to introduce low-flow toilets in the residence halls, Olson said.

On top of water conservation, Olson said Bragaw, which is 50 percent LED lighting, uses 62 to 70 percent less energy from lighting than it had before.

Brian O’Sullivan, the Transportation Department program manager, relecting on Clinton’s speech, said transportation doesnt have an explict climate change program.

“We don’t have a long-term stategy, but we are working with the sustainability office,” he said.

Health Care

Clinton said the health care crisis needs a solution.

“The president is going to have the chance to solve the problem that American citizens have run away from, and that other countries have already figured out: how to provide affordable health care to all Americans,” he said.

The president said Obama won’t face the same probems he did.

“I had a Congress that denied there was a health care crisis,” Clinton said.

He said the American people are spending 16 percent of their income on health care. clinton emphathised no other country America competes with spends more than 11 percent of its income, and they all still have better care than we do.

“So what will we do? Cover everybody and spend 19 per cent? Getting this right is very important,” he said.

Later Monday, Jerry Barker, the associate vice chancellor for Student Affairs, said we need more community based medical providers, which the Student Health Center is.

“We are more preventive focused here,” he said.

Barker said full time students pay $233 per year for the services of the Health Center.

“At the Health Center, we give primary care which is cheaper than specialized care,” he said.

Barker said he feels that the style of clinic the Health Center is is a model the government should look into implementing nationwide, though it may not be possible right away.

“Medicine is a big business, like the auto industry, it’s very hard to change,” he said.

Sustainability

The former president has a lofty goal: to close every landfill in every major city in the world.

“Landfills should be a relic of the past, there should be no more of them in North Carolina anywhere in the world,” he said.

Also speaking later in the day, Matt Peterson, the sustainabilty chair for Inter Residence Council, said IRC will be doing a Waste Audit on a dumpster near a residence hall.

The purpose of the audit is to see what students throw away, Peterson, a junior in environmental science, said.

“We are going to dump the dumpster and sort through its contents to find recycable objects and seperate them from actual trash and find the ratio of waste to recycables in the dumpster,” he said.

According to Peterson, N.C. State is competing in Recyclemania, a contest between 400 university’s to see who can recycle more.

“Last year we finished very high, but this year we want to be in the top ten,” Peterson said.

Peterson is also the Hall Council President of Metcalf residence hall where there is a passive program called Metcalf Goes Green.

“Metcalf Goes Green is a program that has tips throughout the building focused on sustainability,” he said.

Hunger

After Clinton’s speech, John Coggin, a senior in communication, received State and Stop Hunger Now’s annual President William Jefferson Clinton Hunger Leadership Award.

“It’s our job — Clinton says it’s up to us to fix things,” Coggin said after the event.

He said he hopes Clinton’s speech gets people inspired to help stop hunger.

After Coggin’s acceptance speech, Clinton took the stage again to talk about hunger.

“Sixty-five percent of all people eligible for food stamps don’t use them,” he said.

Clinton also said 35 million Americans go hungry every month.

Stop Hunger Now aims to feed those people with food drives and events.

“Last year, we held the Million Meal Challenge, a coordination of triangle area schools, and East Carolina University,” Coggin said.

Coggin said State students packaged 4,000 meals to be shipped to Haiti, Cuba and Afghanistan.

He also said State students help fight hunger every day.

“On a daily basis, students at State are fighting hunger by volunteering at food banks and taking alternative break trips,” Coggin said.

Vansana Nolintha, a senior in design, introduced and presented the award to Coggin.

“It’s really great to hear first hand the focus on issues at State, and all the things State works for lined up with what Clinton said in his speech,” Nolintha said.

The “How Movement’

The president asked students to think about this moment in history.

“What kind of world are we in and what can we do to make it better?” he asked.

Clinton said the way to improve the world is for citizens to actively seek solutions to problems.

“We need a ‘How’ movement in America,” he said.

He explained that there the shortage of people with solutions to problems is coming to an end.

“More and more people are saying they have the best how to fix a problem,” Clinton said.

Chancellor James Oblinger agreed.

“I just whispered to the president that N.C. State is a how-to university.”

Clinton said that in today’s world, it is easier than ever to find solutions to problems with the internet.

“When I took office in ’96, there was a total of 50 Web sites, today the internet grows at 50 sites per day,”