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Friday, July 30, 2010
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Serving Maine and Lincoln County for over a century. |
Volume 135 Issue 30 |
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| | Email this article • Print this article | LA Climate Club Revs Into Action
Kay Liss
It may be easy to get discouraged with all the dire news about global warming, but Chloe Maxmin, a sophomore at Lincoln Academy, Newcastle, makes one feel a lot more hopeful.
She started a Climate Action Club at the beginning of the school year and has about 20 students from freshmen to seniors involved in various activities for "action" is what they're after.
One project is to minimize the idling of school buses, a source of carbon emissions which is the main cause of climate warming, according to all the scientific data. A club committee has been formed to talk to local merchants in town about changing from using plastic bags to paper, and even better, to suggest to their customers that they buy a canvas bag to shop with, which they can keep using.
Plastic bags being a petroleum-based product create a multi-tiered problem: their use continues reliance on fossil fuels; in their manufacture, and also if burned in land fills, they create carbon emissions; if not recycled or burned, when discarded into land fills they leach their chemicals into the ground; and in addition, when they find their way into oceans and waterways through carelessness, they wreak all sorts of havoc for marine life. Due to the intransigence of polymer chemicals, it is said that all plastic bags which are not burned or recycled are here forever.
"There was a woman in Devon, England who decided that she wanted to ban plastic bags from her town," Chloe relates. "This action prompted a response throughout the United Kingdom. Now, Parliament is voting on whether to ban plastic bags from all of London, and Dublin has decreased the usage of plastic bags by 90 percent. Eliminating plastic bags from London is the equivalent of taking 18,000 cars off the road - and it all started in one person's kitchen! I hope we can motivate our school and our town to show the same kind of leadership."
Projects the club has already initiated include recycling of batteries, coordinating recycling bins in the classrooms and encouraging student car-pooling. An energy-saving initiative the group has begun is called "local cooling," which, Chloe explains, involves keeping the many computers in the school when not in use in a sleep mode that saves energy.
"The club's mission is to create positive concrete opportunities for students to be active in the fight against global warming and fossil fuel dependence," she says.
One of the people very excited about Chloe's club is Eleanor Kinney of Bremen who was just elected board president of the Natural Resources Council of Maine at its annual meeting. Chloe attended the meeting along with her mother, Shoshana Zuboff, a NRCM board member and retired Harvard business professor. She's co-authored a book, "The Support Economy," with Chloe's father, James Maxmin, a former CEO for Volvo in England and international consultant. They, along with Chloe's younger brother, live in Nobleboro where they utilize both solar and wind power to help generate energy in their home.
"Climate change and the importance of citizen activism to make a difference is NRCM's major focus now," Kinney said. "So it's inspiring that such a group as the Climate Action Club has begun. Young people can get their parents and communities motivated to action, as in the Step It Up campaign to reduce carbon emissions, which was begun by Bill McKibben in Vermont but has lots of young people involved and has spread throughout the country."
Kinney hopes that such climate clubs will sprout up in other schools in the state and that they'll start networking with each other, a goal which Chloe says the LA group has discussed.
"Maine has been a leader on the climate warming front, with initiatives like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Emissions standards, which will help reduce carbon emissions in the region," Kinney adds. "Such efforts create models for the rest of the country, so perhaps we'll be a leader in student efforts like this one at Lincoln as well."
Another goal is to have an energy audit done of the school, so that it can become more "carbon neutral," Chloe comments. The plan is to have club members trained in conducting such an audit by Paul Kando, a local resident who attended an Al Gore global warming workshop last year and has been presenting programs throughout the Midcoast on the issue.
The club has two faculty advisors, Charlie Scimone, a science teacher, and Rebecca Decker, a math teacher. Chloe also credits the school's headmaster, Jay Pinkerton, with being very supportive and eager to have the club's input in helping to reduce the school's carbon footprint.
"I was excited and honored this summer when Chloe asked me to advise the Climate Action Club," Decker remarks. "We are off to a terrific start with tremendous enthusiasm among the student body and wonderful support of the administration. It is hopeful to see so many young people with such awareness for this issue. We are tackling several projects this year and hope to build into larger projects as the club matures and develops."
"While most of the research and articles about climate change are very ominous," Chloe concludes, "I think people need to realize that even small actions can make a very big difference. For example, if everyone bought energy efficient light bulbs and non-standby appliances, then millions of tons of carbon could be saved. People are creating big changes with small actions all over the world."
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