Tulane University will host its first ever Climate Action Day, beginning at 9 a.m on Tuesday, Jan.30, in the Kendall Cram Room of the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life.

The day-long event will feature keynote speakers and panelists whose work highlights the dangers of climate change and its lasting effect. In addition, representatives from campus and community organizations will be available to speak about their projects and proposals for potential solutions and plans related to addressing climate change.

The idea for Climate Action Day began with a group of faculty, staff and students from various departments and organizations who wanted to create an event that emphasized the challenges of climate change and what the Tulane community can do to help.

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Courtesy of Recycle Tulane

Descriptions of the event's Keynote speakers

According to Liz Davey, director of the Office of Sustainability, the event was inspired by a day-long event held 10 years ago when the Tulane Reading Project was Elizabeth Kolbert’s book “Field Notes from a Catastrophe.”

“As climate change is such an interdisciplinary challenge, the idea is to bring together and focus thinkers from across university on climate change for one day,” Davey said. 

The event is free of charge and runs along the regular schedule of classes so that students may come and go as they please. Many hope to give students a chance to see how they can become more involved in creating real life change.

“It’s really important to take into account all of the negative factors that climate change has but how do we use those to motivate people to create that change and to create that positive force for good,” John Alexander, director of Sustainability for Tulane’s Undergraduate Student Government, said. “…Why not utilize that to give people those experiences, to direct them in their future, towards a career or future life focused on creating positive change in the world through climate change?”

TOMORROW IS TULANE CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION DAY! If you can’t make it in person but would like to watch the Livestream check out the link below. We’ll be recording all day!https://t.co/zuHQG1Sm8t

— Green Tulane (@GreenTulane) January 29, 2018

For the future, organizers see the event as a precursor to new connections that will deliver new waves of action to combat problems that pose a threat to the environment.

“The outpouring of support for this event from many community partners is truly encouraging, and this collaboration between Tulane and the community … is a special strength of Tulane,” Thomas Sherry, Department of Ecology and Environmental Biology professor said. “However, we can and must all do more.”