SC3 Full Version (Warning: Dull Reading)

When I got home from the amazing Student Climate Change and Conservation Congress (Sc3) I had to write down everything immediately. A shorter, more concise description with pictures will be on the other blog.

Student Climate Change and Conservation Congress was held on Sunday June 22 to Saturday June 28 at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepardstown, West Virginia.

I arrived in Dullas airport and saw another asian looking kid. I assumed he was going to the same place so I approached him and learned that he was the other Canadian going to the conference.

I met a bunch of people at the airport. We went to a sandwich shop for lunch. Then took a shuttle to NCTC where we talked, played some icebreakers and took a selfie. We got to NCTC, received our room cards, a water bottle, a folder with a schedule and map and a t-shirt. We went to our rooms to unpack, then were given a tour of the main areas: The Auditorium (for our guest speakers), the Roosevelt Room (a room dedicated to the FDR and his conservational efforts and used for meetings), the cafeteria (with some amazing food), Instructional East (for our group sessions and workshops) and the recreational center (with a large gym and exercise machines). We also met our dorm room groups. I was placed in Murie 1. I tried saying hi to everyone and talked to people.

We were invited to the auditorium for a pre-evaluation, then introduced to Peg Watson, Steve Chase and Pete Dominick.

On Monday, we woke up early for Yoga with Pete's wife which was super cool. We went outside and did a lot of poses, then ended with shamaste. Our first activity was in the gym. It was Open Space Technology with Nick Stanger. We started out by picking out random animals. Then, we had to split into random groups and try to make that animal with our bodies. We then had an open microphone where we wrote on cards and tried to answer the question "What does it mean to be a global citizen". Once we had covered a wall with cards, we had to organize them into groupings.

We then went over to Instructional East where we divided into the groupings. We were encouraged to talk about them and to adhere to the "law of movement". We were to go from group to group such that we could pollinate ideas.

We also had a careers fair which gave out a lot of free swag. We then heard from Jay Slack from the Services. His talked about his modules with the NCTC online training.

We also heard from Dr. Mamie Parker from the US Fish and Wildlife Services who talked about the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens and the four cancers: criticizing, complaining, negative competing and comparing.

Next we had standup with pete and we heard from Curt Meine who told us stories of his work as a conservationist travelling around the world. He told us a story of receiving a lotus flower from a boy in Myanmar.

Later, we had a campfire where students played guitar.

Tuesday, we had our group photo and service learning projects. I had gone to another forest to remove the Autumn Olive, an invasive species. We took a van to the area, met some of the volunteers who were part of the Potomac group and split into groups. Each group received a spade, a saw and a pair of clippers and we spent the morning pulling and cutting the plants. For lunch, we met and ate with some kids who were part of a summer camp.
We had another OST meeting slot, except we were expected to lock-in to a specific group. We heard from Tom Butler who talked about extreme energy and the wild. He talked about net energy, anthropocentrism, distributed energy economies, contraception for overpopulated areas and the population media center.

We had another OST group meeting.
We heard from Pete and Doug Brinkley. Doug talked about FDR and the story of how he contracted polio while in the wilderness. He returned to some healing springs to recover and got straight back into politics. He understood conservation through a personal connection

On Wednesday, we went for the river trip. Mike the River guy gave us a speech on changing the world and he told us: There are three types of people, those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those who wonder what happened. I chose a single kayak for the Potomac River while others chose a canoe, a tandem kayak or a single kayak. We stopped for a lunch break and ate the packed lunches that were given to us. Halfway through, we were told to lie down and absorb nature. When I got up, my kayak flipped and I lost my glasses and water bottle. I paddled to the dock and hoisted my kayak onto a truck. We stopped to take a photo on the bridge. Pete was super cool about it and kept asking me if I was doing okay. Afterwards, during his presentation, he talked about how he wasted a lot of time being worried about the weather and he also gave me a shoutout for keeping my calm during the river trip. Afterwards, we had a dorm group check in where we talked about stuff.

We had our first OST Mini-Circle meeting. We talked about economic and health incentives for the environment, bringing families together, bottom up change, giving out candy and other stuff.

We then heard from Pete and then Amy Larkin who spoke about the Global Reporting Initiative and Integrated Reporting. Deforestation caused a shutdown of the government. Governments are measured by GDP and GNP, however it’s only a simple measure of financial transactions. It does not consider whether the money is used for recovery or compensation. KPMG noted that in 2008, $2.15 trillion was lost due to environmental damage. CFCs were replaced by HFCs which are a greenhouse gas. Greenpeace made an alternative and started to aggressively market it. Accountants are important because they need to consider the long term costs (called externalities) and build the environmental recovery costs into any financial statements. Pollution cannot be free or subsidized, government plays a role to catalyze clean tech/growth while prevent environmental disaster.

environmentaldebt.net

Accurate use of language? Pay the cost of going green to other countries. Global climate treaty: subsidies for developing countries.

Documentary “In organic we trust”. Natural Capital Project.

Change the tax code so that environmental solutions are free. Climate change disclosure... carbon tax?

The march for the environment is on september 21. We need “radical” ideas!

Thursday

I went to two workshops, one was greening up events and the other was creating green buildings.

Recycling, Compost and Landfill.

“The world is not your ashtray... keep your butts to yourself!

People are more efficient when they are living together. When a network is at capacity, a little change will affect the movement by a great deal. Such as when a road has 95% drivers, removing 2% increases the flow much better. The energy code has a comparatively low standard so most buildings can meet it with effort but a high platinum rating is still hard to achieve. LEEDS Certification is the leader.

Start early, discard old thinking, set firm green goals, set reasonable budget and don’t compromise the goals or budget.
A green building will affect its inhabitants positively. People cost more than the actual facility so it’s a no brainer to have a (non toxic) green building.

We then had Stand up with Pete and saw a film by Ian Cheney. His film was titled “Truck Farm” and chronicled his journey of creating a small farm on the back of a truck and taking it to visit various agriculture-related areas. He went to a roof farm, a farm converted from a baseball field, a farm on a barge, a school, a window farm, and apartment farm and some others. The interesting aspect was that he would narrate the story by singing a really quirky, whimsical song. This really enhanced the more boring parts as the narration was random and often very funny. There was also a stop motion animation of little figurines on the truck farm and pictures of kids making farms in random objects. Another interesting aspect was that the credits were shown alongside the people dancing. In this manner, the audience could see exactly who did what in the movie. He noted that this was not an answer to sustainable agriculture, but it helped to get people thinking about it. www.wickedelicate.com

We then went to the Roosevelt Room to listen to Travis Book and an open mic. Shana also played (for the first time) one of the songs she wrote.

On Friday, we had a keynote by Amy and Forrest McCarthy. They talked about professional residencies we can do for conservation. During one of these trips, she realized the birds were burrowing in the outhouse drains and were dying from suffocation or infection. She initiated the creation of a new cheaper cap to install in all of these outhouse vaults. In Mongolia, the looked for wolverine scat, fur, etc to determine how many were there. Wolverines indicate how the climate is changing because they are bio-engineered for cold places. They key takeaway was what do we really need, what can we share, then how do we incorporate innovation? Reduce, reuse and recycle. The National Science Foundation.

We had two last meeting slots and then our presentations. My group was Community Engagement and we were third to present. We started by having Jessica scream “I am the change” from the back of the auditorium. As people turned to look, I ran down and started screaming “We are the change” and slowly tried to get everyone to say it. I realized that the judges would think I was weird for wearing sunglasses so I made a funny: “If we work together, our future will be so bright, we will all need shades” Then we talked about a lot of the speakers and their messages to us. We ended with our giant Earth ball and I said “the weight of the world is in your hands, what will you do with it” as I passed it to someone in the audience. The judges gave us some negative comments such as how they didn’t see an action plan or any real community engagement.

At night we had another fire ring ceremony with Juan Martinez as the guest speaker. We got into our groups and Jessica gave us each a rock from the Potomac river. We then had a fireside memory thing where we were encouraged to talk about our memories of the camp. I was feeling particularly courageous so I stepped up to go first. I said some generic cheesy stuff about meeting wonderful people and such. Then a whole lot of other people went up, and some even went twice.

It was our last night so my roommate, Nathan Martineau the bird guy and I decided to stay up for as long as we could. We got Isaiah to come over, then went over to Ding Darling to play cards and stuff with a bunch of people. We came back and invited some girls from upstairs, then took a picture and sent it to Pete. He responded within minutes. We got four hours of sleep.

Saturday was the last day and we all felt a bit sad. I took a lot of selfies with people. We watched a short trailer for “Love in the Tetons” which told the tale of Juan and Vanessa's love story. We saw two awards be handed out to faculty members. I gave out as many pins as I could. We got our stuff and left on the bus. On the bus ride we sang songs and Liam and Jack played songs.