On Saturday, an event aimed to educate about the harms of fossil fuels will be hosted at the Joslyn Art Museum. Part of a nationwide tour called “Do The Math!,” the event will feature Bill McKibben, who has been named one of nation’s leading environmentalists and a prominent advocate against global warming. Creighton’s Green Jays, a group on campus focusing on environmental issues, has encouraged students to attend the event, which will be free for students because of CSU funding.
“We are encouraging students to attend this event because it uses community resources to offer an innovative and unique way of educating students on sustainability and climate change,” said Arts& Sciences senior Ashley Lehman, who is in charge of promoting this event along with Arts & Sciences senior Eric Queck.
Lehman noted that this event will be unique from other lectures, and will use a combination of music and videos to spread its message.
This event is part of a 21 city nation-wide tour which has sold out at 12 locations already, according to Theology professor Richard Miller, and will also include a video address by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Miller was responsible for getting the Green Jays group started five years ago, along with professor Jay Leighter, who both serve as co-coordinators for the group. He suggested that Green Jays apply for funding from the CSU so the event would be free of charge to Creighton students.
“We live, in the words of Winston Churchill, in an ‘Age of Consequences,’” Miller said. “The effects of global warming, which have been predicted by scientists for three decades, are beginning to make themselves felt with increasing rapidity: sea level rise, arctic ice sheet collapse, ever worsening storms, droughts and wildfires.”
Miller has given lectures on the implications of global warming, and believes that most students, like the general public, are unaware about the effects global warming could have in their future.
“Students should attend this event not only to come to grips with our situation, but also recognize that there are millions of people around the world who are actively engage in trying to prevent irreversible catastrophic climate destabilization,” Miller said.
Miller sees McKibben to be an important figure in the fight against global warming, and has described him as the “Gandhi” or “Martin Luther King” of the climate change movement. He hopes students leave the event realizing the severity of this problem while also being motivated by those, such as McKibben, who have been very involved in the fight against global warming.
“We hope that students will gain a better understanding of the importance of sustainability and climate change, along with how as a university we can have a major impact upon the Omaha metro area becoming a more sustainable community,” Queck said.
The event will take place in the Witherspoon Concert Hall at Joslyn. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the show starts at 7 p.m. The website of “Do the Math!” can be seen here: http://math.350.org/