A group of Loyola students drove a van for 40 hours to College Park, Md., to attend the 2007 Power Shift conference on climate change two weeks ago.

Originally, Robert Thomas, chairman of environmental communications and interim director of the School of Mass Communication, planned to sponsor two Loyola students who were interested in attending the conference. Spanish senior Sunshine Bond, chairwoman of Loyola’s Environmental Action Program, responded and was awarded the sponsorship.

Bond felt it was important for as many Loyola students to experience the conference as possible, so she pushed for the recruitment of more students.

Bond used the original funding for her travel expenses to rent a van and bring along 11 other Loyola students to Power Shift.

The conference had hundreds of workshops and panels for the students to choose from, with topics ranging from bringing environmental activism to lower-income families and neighborhoods, making college campuses greener and interweaving faith and climate change.

Power Shift is an event sponsored by the Energy Action Coalition, founded and run by young people and comprised of more than 40 organizations in the United States and Canada. The conference ran from Nov. 2 to Nov. 5.

Wesley Samms, a Loyola alumnus who attended, went to a workshop called “How to Green Your Campus.”

The workshop suggested using solar panels in building structures and lowering carbon emissions by switching to renewable energy sources.

Most carbon emissions come from major campus buildings with high traffic and activity, Samms said.

One basic way to cut down on carbon emissions is to cut down on air conditioning use. Many national campuses have signed on to energy companies that provide green energy, but that’s not an option for New Orleans.

Rob Harman, political science sophomore, was impressed with the controversial subject matter the speakers tackled.

“Every workshop addressed the issues of oppression (in different social classes), and they were all really diverse,” Harman said.

He said one important reality keynote speaker Van Jones acknowledged at the conference is that “without an environmental movement within lower classes in America and the world, the movement will not succeed because if you can’t convince people who are being immediately affected by pollution and mistreatment of the environment, you aren’t going to be able to successfully change environmental practices,” Harman said. He wants to create a project to bring environmental awareness to lower-income families, who are otherwise faced with crime and poverty.

Bond spoke about the current revolutionary efforts of young environmentalists like those who attended Power Shift.

“It’s not just an environmental movement, it’s also a justice movement. This is a real movement we’re talking about, it’s not just a few environmentalists here and there. It could potentially be the biggest global warming movement,” she said.

Focus the Nation will be a national teach-in on global warming scheduled for Jan. 31, 2008.

Bond and political science sophomore Chad Carson, another chairman of the EAP, attended the workshop that discussed it.

Dillard University and Loyola are the only New Orleans schools that have signed on to be involved in Focus the Nation.

Rob Verchick, a professor in the College of Law and head of Loyola’s Center for Environmental Law and Land Use, committed Loyola to host an event for Focus the Nation.

One goal of the EAP is to work towards reversing climate change with a community effort and find other environmentally impassioned local citizens to work collectively.

Carson is working to put together a coalition of New Orleans students to request the presidents of their respective colleges or universities to sign a commitment to reduce the use of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity, heating, commuting and air travel. The EAP said the threat of global warming would be reduced if people committed to a widespread reduction of greenhouse gases.

So far in New Orleans, only Dillard University’s president has signed the commitment, called the American College and University’s Presidents Climate Commitment.

Some major goals of the commitment are for each university to take inventory of its greenhouse gas emissions and design steps to reduce that percentage within a year after signing the commitment. One way to accomplish this is to enforce the purchasing of Energy Star products in all academic departments.

“This would be exciting. It would be a tangible step for our university to take,” Carson said.

Sally Tunmer can be reached at [email protected].