Dan Bravato
Environmental Studies Open House
www.environment.as.nyu.edu
I attended the Environmental Studies program open house on Wednesday October 8th at 285 Mercer Street on the 9th floor. This address is the home of NYU’s Environmental Studies Program. The program was hosted by Christoper Schlottmann, the program coordinator, and was an open academic event for anyone interested in potentially coming into this field/major. I spoke with Dale Jamieson who is a member of the core faculty. Professor Jamieson teaches environment studies, philosophy, and law. He specializes in ethics and the environment and climate change. I spoke mostly about climate change and the 2008 presidential election with Professor Jamieson. He gave me insight into how the two perspective presidents feel about climate change in the United States and across the globe. The event was not a set up debate or conversation it was more of a chance to mingle and converse with the professors and other perspective students.
The event began with everyone enjoying some pizza and talking amongst themselves. Then Professor Jamieson started by introducing himself and then everyone in the room introduced themselves. This gave insight as to who was a professor, their specialty, and who the students were. After listening to everybody’s introductions I knew that I was interested in what Professor Jamieson had to say about climate change. I approached him and asked him if he could speak to me about climate change in comparison to the 2008 presidential election. He said that both candidates were educated and were interested in putting plans in to action to help it. He also mentioned that McCain was a supporter of the 1st ever bill on climate change but over the course of time Obama has begun to support it much more strongly than McCain. He said that McCain had somewhat backed off the subject and has moved on to other things. Professor Jamieson then went on to talk about how former US Presidents such as George W. Bush made promises in the realm of climate change but never followed through. More specifically Bush claimed he would work on the clean air act yet he never did anything with it. Jamieson continued to talk about current times and our candidates by alerting me that Palin, the GOP vice-presidential candidate, was a skeptic of climate change. He spoke more about how she has voted against it and has done nothing to better understand climate change. I then asked him about more specific issues such as global warming and the greenhouse effect. Professor Jamieson told me that climate change is the major problem and if nothing is done about it, that it will merely enhance all of the other problems. He went on to mention that climate change is a very pivotal issue and something must be done by our future President. After speaking with Professor Jamieson it seemed that I had the most knowledgeable source on climate change in the room. I then spoke briefly with some of the other people in the room but not on the subject of climate change and the 2008 election.
Professor Jamieson
I had never been to an event such as the Environmental Studies Program open house before. I have never been too interested in science, any field, for the majority of my life. I only took science classes when they were required throughout high school and the beginning of college. However, the more I learn about environmental studies, the more I believe everyone should be educated on the subject. It is a science that is going on right now that no one has an answer to. Anyone can study the elements, animals, biology and so on, but environmental studies are an unsolved problem that is effecting our generation. I think this event was a good way to get people to be more interested in environmental science, however it was on such a tiny scale. I think they need a very large event that gives students a chance to speak one on one with some of the top people in the environmental studies field. This was a good start, but there were only about 25 people at this event. I think there needs to be an event advertised to the whole university on a much larger scale. Our environmental problems are very vast and are a major problem for future generations, therefore those future generations need to be educated and aware of the problems, in order to potentially solve them. This event was so interesting to me because of how it was compared to a major issue that is going on right now, the election. It puts our environment into perspective and who is doing what to fix it right now. I also enjoyed that we as students were able to walk right up to any professor and initiate a conversation based on what we wanted to learn, rather than what the professor had to tell us based on curriculum. The ability for students to learn what they want to learn is crucial in figuring out what one is actually interested in. All and all, I think this event was a good start. However, it needs to be broadened and needs to reach the entire university. I think this also needs to be at every university, this is a problem that will affect our generation and future generations, therefore we need to be educated on it in order to fix it.
I enjoyed this experience because it forced me to do something that I would have never done otherwise. I ended up enjoying my experience and was educated on climate change and how to vote for a new president if that is one of my pivotal issues. I liked that I would never have had this experience if it was not for this assignment. It was a great experience to speak with Professor Jamieson and the other professors in the program. In the end, I think this was a very good experience and I look forward to my next current event.