Professors from four different departments spoke about advocating for environmental sustainability in politics as part of a discussion panel on Thursday, after President Donald Trump’s administration lifted the temporary freeze that was placed on Environmental Protection Agency grants.
Professors shared their experiences in teaching students about social and ecological activism as well as the steps to take in order to bringing about change. How individuals and groups can effectively address political barriers to environmental sustainability was also discussed.
Nora Haenn, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, advised individuals and groups who are interested environmental sustainability and participating in the political arena to begin with joining existing groups.
“Join an existing group to make your life easier and also to pool forces, and don’t wait for the perfect answer,” Harmon said. “There is none. The only way to get past political barriers is to start working on them little by little.”
Panelists discussed the role of the uncertainties within the scientific community in environmental policy-making. Jean Goodwin, professor in the Department of Communication, spoke about climate change in North Carolina and the reason why it is difficult to know what will happen in the future.
“We still have to make policies about what to do next year, the year after that, ten years from now and the science, unfortunately, doesn’t tell us what’s going to be happening here in North Carolina in 10 years,” Goodwin said. “The more science you have, the more complicated things are, the more uncertainties there are, the more possibilities for different fields to study the same thing, and then they disagree with each other, because people from different fields look at the same thing from different perspectives.”
Bill Kinsella, professor in the Department of Communication, added that there is more to this issue than science alone, and there are more factors at play that need to be considered.
“If you ask about the role of science in environmental controversies, well, I think it varies from one controversy to the other,” Kinsella said. “In no case is science really the bottom line, these to me are political questions before they are scientific questions. The role of science is to provide information that citizens can use and leaders can use to make good decisions. I see the political piece as primary and the scientific piece supportive to that.”
Students who attended the panel discussion expressed their interests in multiple topics, including energy, fracking and its health effects, water resources and water quality.
Evan Grant, a freshman studying engineering, is particularly interested in issues surrounding energy and was involved the Climate Reality Project fall 2016. He attended the panel to learn about ways to involved outside of campus.
“I was surprised by how much they focused on the bipartition aspect to this issue,” Grant said. “Much of the discussion was focused on how to be bipartisan and how to acknowledge the validity of other points, and I think that is important going forward in this discussion.”
