Henry Lodge, News Editor
11th December 2007
Climate Change Action Week’s (CCAW) activities saw a number of speakers engage with students in the debate over how to solve global warming but also revealed the indifferent mindset of many LSE students.
Speakers such as Michael Meacher MP urged increased lobbying of parliament, whilst specialists such as Dr Andrew Boswell of campaign group Biofuelwatch analysed possible solutions to the impending energy crisis.
The launch of CCAW, attended by over 60 people, saw Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute perform on the violin before putting forward the Contraction and Convergence model, supported by many countries across the world as the post-Kyoto solution.
The week’s events were tied together by a petition for LSE to run on 100 percent renewable energy which gathered over 400 signatures. Aled Fisher, the LSE Students’ Union Environment and Ethics Officer, added: “to put things in perspective, it took several weeks to gather the 700 signatures for the Living Wage campaign.”
The petition, whilst regarded as a success overall, revealed the divisive nature of the climate change issue among LSE students. Sasha Hoff, People and the Planet Society Climate Change Campaign Coordinator, who was petitioning, told The Beaver: “Generally, most people were willing to sign. There were of course a few people who said [the switch to renewable energy] was crazy, that they don’t support this and would not sign. I was not surprised when many people asked how this would be paid for and if our tuition bills would go up. A few people also flat out told me that they did not think [the switch] was possible, and that there was absolutely no way that the School would make the switch.”
The concern over tuition fee increases to fund renewable energy is perhaps indicative of the larger problem of how to reconcile self-interest and the global warming problem. This was alluded to by Donnachadh McCarthy, former Deputy President of the Liberal Democrats, a guest at Thursday’s eco-homes event. He said: “When people ask me ‘can I afford to [help cut emissions]?’ I tell them it’s the wrong question. They should be asking ‘how can I afford not to?’”
Dr Meyer Hillman, who spoke at the launch questioned the resolve of the student body, asking “great event, but why aren’t three times the number of students here? Aren’t they interested?”
It has been suggested that a number of factors other than apathy were to blame for the week’s overall poor attendance, such as the increased workload students face towards the end of term and the bad weather. However, this is the just the latest ‘awareness’ week to suffer from apparent student indifference, with LGBT week and Disabilities Awareness week seeing a fall in attendance on last years’ figures.
Sasha Hoff commented: “Sadly, I got the feeling from many people that they don’t think climate change will impact them and that they will have enough money to move to high ground or protect themselves from whatever catastrophic changes occur on the earth. This apathy is exactly what keeps people from taking the initiative to stop on their own for 50 seconds to sign a petition.”
Students at the LSE appear out of sync with the general student population. Fisher told The Beaver: “I have received numerous emails and Facebook messages from external people saying [CCAW] looks great and that they will promote it from the outside.”
CCAW finished on the Saturday with a march of at least 5000 people from Parliament Square to the American Embassy in Grovesnor Square, organised by Campaign Against Climate Change. Fisher told The Beaver: “Around 20 LSE students formed a contingent on the march, and many more were there as part of other groups. I was proud to see so many coming along on the wettest day in London for months!”
Despite the mixed response from the student body, CCAW successfully pressured LSE management. Following last week’s ‘Is LSE doing enough about climate change?’ article in The Beaver, Chris Kudlicki, director of the Estates Division at LSE has contacted LSESU People and Planet to arrange a meeting in which renewable energy plans will be discussed. He aims to reduce the LSE’s carbon emissions by 1000 tonnes per annum. Current figures show the LSE gets 53 percent of its energy from renewable sources. This follows the LSE being described as the greenest university in London last year, scoring 2:1 overall in the People and Planet’s Green University League.