2008 Woodie Awards
HSU focuses the nation
David Garrison
Issue date: 1/23/08 Section: Campus
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The purpose of Focus the Nation is to hold a discussion about climate change. The hope is that it will prompt politicians at all levels of government to pass laws that will make the world a cleaner, healthier, and safer place. Over 1,450 colleges and communities will link up via the internet on Wednesday. Bound together, they want to get the word out that global warming is real and that there are solutions.
"We want this world to be a healthy place when we get older," Kristen Olaya-Gierman said. "We don't want to see this problem get worse."
Olaya-Gierman, 22, is the Focus the Nation club president for Humboldt County. She is also a geography and Spanish major at Humboldt State. She said that there will be a teach-in on campus that day. Volunteers will form panels,which will give ten-minute presentations on climate change. Afterwards there will be a 25-minute discussion about solutions to the problem. On a national level, it's a big event.
Pockets of people throughout the country will participate. They will unite twice on that day. Between 12pm and 1pm, there will be a rally on the quad at Humboldt State. Across the nation, other rallies will be held at that hour.
From 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. there will be a Web broadcast. Olaya-Gierman said it is important to have a nationally choreographed event. The purpose of the Web-cast is to connect independent groups to amplify their voices. "The internet has a huge part to do with it," Olaya-Geirman said.
She said that global warming is the biggest crisis that humanity faces today. Politicians refuse to talk about it, but students will.
Jennifer Berman, Redwood Alliance Climate Action Project volunteer, agrees. Berman is a Humboldt State graduate. She first heard about global warming in Stone Brusca's astronomy class 20 years ago. Brusca is a former physics professor at Humboldt State. Berman didn't take it too seriously then. She does now.
"The science behind it is there," she said.
The Focus the Nation event is a grassroots effort. Organized through e-mail, it's a conversation that everyone will have at once, she said. The guidelines for the teach-in are broad so they can be adapted to local areas. Online, there is a template that people can follow. It's another tool that helps unify the various groups on this day.
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