Thinking globally and acting locally
By: Ken Goodlet
Posted 17 November 2008
Amongst the student, staff and parent community at St Paul’s are many who, from many different perspectives, appreciate this fragile blue globe in the dark immensity of space and wish to protect it for our children and grandchildren. A valuable contribution to the putting together of this article has been made by both the FUTURUM compilers and Year 11 student Sarah Richardson. Here, five Year 12 students present their take on green issues, the first being 2007/08 Dean Astley, School Captain:
I’m interested in making a contribution, however little, on the global front. Many of us hoped that in our last year at the school, we could make the whole school run green, but have backed away a little and tried to achieve as much as we can. Halfway through Term 1, we decided to get a move on and, with William Bleads and Callum McDonald pushing it, began bin recycling in the staff rooms. As School Captain, I felt this was a legacy we could leave the school. It is going okay. I come from a position of seeing it, not just as an economic opportunity, but a moral obligation to do something for the environment. I see some people as acting as if we can rape the planet and move to Mars. I feel that God means us to stay here. Like our body, the earth is a gift, so we should take care of it. We start in a small way, one step at a time. But Al Gore gave us a warning: while it is human nature to wait and connect the dots, there comes a time when you wished you had connected the dots earlier!
William Bleads, along with Callum McDonald, Ashley Cameron and Brianna Walsh, are prefects who have been assigned the environmental portfolio. William says: As environmental portfolio facilitator, I organised a brainstorming meeting over the recycling bins proposal and the idea of having messages relayed electronically on screens around the school. These are not the full picture of what needs to be done; they are symbolic acts. My favoured option is an audit which is expensive, but it is the way to find out from someone who knows what we need to do to get going. It is difficult for us as students to promote such ideas because we don’t really know how the school works on the decision-making level. We talked to the grounds staff who were happy to pick up on the idea and took the bins around. As the school has trouble committing itself financially to the expense of extra bins, we’re looking at the possibility of a trolley to wheel them around. We do what we can, putting some strain on our studies; but this issue is important enough to me to carry that stress. I don’t come at the climate change thing from a stewardship perspective; I consider that using resources at an unsustainable rate to be short-sighted; rationally ridiculous.
Callum McDonald sees it this way: If we are going to win support from students, we must show progress. One problem is that many students are not using the bins properly. My perspective on the whole thing is that such exercises as turning lights off for an hour is actually counter-productive; it encourages a ‘feel good’ reaction which leads to nothing. We need to tax the carbon footprint, such as in the replacement of plastic bags – people will then act out of self-interest for good climate change ends. We should not simply expect developing countries, who are resentful of the progress we have made in the past with fossil fuels, to take up the climate challenges; we should provide them with money to use solar energy. Such things as solar power should start in a small way – in schools like ours which provide models for the wider community. Climate-damaging sources of power are only going to be reduced when the demand for them is no longer there.
Brianna Walsh took this view: Recycling can be done more efficiently. I believe that more research should be put into how to create and dispose of materials in a more environmentally friendly way. These targets may seem out of reach as a mere student at school, but simple things can be done such as creating a recycling system at home. For example, my family owns chickens, and so the chicken coop also functions as the compost heap. Not only does this reduce the wasted food we throw out, but the chickens also love it. I think that raising a greater awareness of the impact on the environment as a result of pollution is important. Students who have this awareness can act upon it in simple measures such as picking up rubbish in the playground, or using both sides of the paper when printing assignments.
Ashley Cameron has been actively participating in making our world greener: I try to raise awareness through my environmentally-based artworks, which show my objection to littering and pollution across the planet. In addition it’s easy to reuse old water bottles, or use waste paper to take notes. It is also important that our school be involved in the process. We are currently investigating purchasing solar panels (plans are through government grants) as well as placing water tanks and recycled water within the toilet facilities, and using television screens to display the student notices each morning. Being a prefect within the environmental portfolio has given me the opportunity to aid the development of much-needed ‘greening’ within our school community, as well as expanding my own awareness of the issue both within the school, and in the wider community.
