Day 19: Progress and Sustainability

Today was an epic day in Digby Stuart Dining Hall. All of the Fulbright students made an appearance at breakfast! That's the first time everyone has made it since the very first week! :)

Our introduction of today's session was the following:

Two centuries ago, Britain led the world towards an industrial revolution, which lifted billions out of poverty, and launched us towards a modern, interconnected planet. Since that time many societies have made significant advances using technology as a solution to problems they faced. While that strategy may be relevant for some issues, the BIG issue -- climate change -- may demand a new approach. Whilst individuals can feel powerless to change the world around them, the lead from our governments is often criticized for being too little too late. So where does that leave us and who is responsible? Has the "age of progress" now become what some call the "age of stupid?" How might we get back on track and what implications might this have for the university, as well as for the very idea of citizenship?

We began today's session, entitled "Progress and Sustainability," by going around our circle and sharing our results from the WWF Footprint Calculator (http://footprint.wwf.org.uk) that we all did yesterday evening. Basically, the calculator asks a variety of questions about our habits regarding food, travel, stuff, and home and analyzed our answers based on how environmentally-friendly, or "green," those choices are.

I think we were all surprised by our results. When I hit the "finish" button of the calculator, the screen greeted me with the phrase, "You're living as if we had 3.06 planets to support us but we only have one." As we went around the circle, we discovered that our answers ranged from 2.41 to 4.06, so there are definitely aspects that we can all work on. It was a very thought-provoking exercise.

We then transitioned into discussing the BP oil spill and looking over President Obama's address to the nation about the spill from June 15th. I really enjoyed reading the address and seeing his plan's for cleaning up the oil, what we will do to clean up the Gulf, and how we can prevent this from ever happening again. I was shocked when he said "Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil." WOW! Eye-opening. This discussion was particularly interesting to have with British people. I also felt like we are all very passionate about these subjects.

In addition to the oil spill, we looked at the interrelation between oil and globalization and how that also relates to peak oil, which is the point at which a country reaches the halfway point of the total oil available. Some research has suggested that America reached its peak oil in the 1970s, which is becoming increasingly concerning as China becomes a dominant oil consumer and challenges supply and demand issues.

We then had three former Roehampton students come in to talk with us about their role and passion for active democracy and showed us a video they made of a very peaceful protest against Roehampton's invitation to Shell to speak on campus. This was shortly after Shell's conflict in the Niger Delta and during the same time period as Shell was being put on trial. It was interesting to see some of the initiatives that have taken place at Roehampton, which showed participatory democracy. My video group was then able to have some one-on-one time with them to get more information and footage for our video!

After lunch, we watched a documentary called "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil." Basically, the film investigated how the Cubans have survived after losing over half of their oil imports after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. Essentially, Cuba transitioned during "A Special Period" from large farms or plantations and reliance on fossil-fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers, to small organic farms and urban gardens. All in all, Cuba underwent a transition from a highly industrial society to a sustainable one.

After the film and a short trip from Kirsten explaining our schedule to go to BELGIUM tomorrow (yay!!), we did a very interesting activity called "What Will the World Be Like in 2027?" Basically, we paired up and each pair got a newspaper seemingly from 2027. It was interesting because each of the different papers shared articles about what the world might be like in the future. Dayna and I got the "Control Express" paper from January 5th, 2027 and basically all of the articles had something to do with how everyone gets a certain allotment of carbon, cheese no longer exists because of a shift away from dairy farming, bananas are nowhere to be found, etc. It sparked enlightening discussion about future possibilities and what we can start thinking about in order to prevent such things from happening.

Finally, we walked around Roehampton and saw some of the initiatives happening on campus to live a "greener" life, for example an organic garden.

Also, these are painted pieces of plastic that have a solar panel on top. At night, the energy collected on the solar panel makes these pieces of art glow, as if they were painted glass. Very cool! It was such a windy day though that a couple of the pieces of plastic actually flew out of their frames and attacked Jason and Emma!

Also, along our walk around Roehampton, we were reminded of something that Louisa had told us about during the first couple of days. It's called Silent Social, and basically there is a DJ who controls two different stations that play different music. Everyone is given a pair of headphones and can choose which station they play... so essentially everyone is dancing around when really the atmosphere is totally silent! :)

We got out of class early and spent 2 hours hanging out in Bede trying to figure out what to do tonight, only to figure out that we couldn't find anything cheap to do! A tad bit unproductive, but oh well ;)

After dinner, most of us started learning the "We're All in This Together" dance from High School Musical for a little bit of Fulbright fun! Also, in other strange news, I opened my bedroom door and it seemed lighter. Come to find out, it's broken! The top part of the door frame seemingly ripped off with the hinge part? I'm not really sure. The wooden top part is what's jutting out in this picture though!