The Intersection of the Local and the Global in Environmental Grassroots Activism started as simply an idea to have an environmentally focused program that blossomed into a week full of events centered around international environmental grassroots activism and local sustainability efforts. To start off the week, we partnered with Environmental Health and Safety to host a stream cleanup right on campus and attended the Campus Sustainability Fair to support advocacy on sustainable resources. Later in the week, the committee screened a documentary with the chief scientific advisor along with two Texas A&M scientists to discuss issues affecting Costa Rica, Australia and the many coral reefs found in our Earth’s oceans. The next night, we hosted a speaker panel of activists from Thailand and South Africa, staff who worked in conservation efforts in Ghana, and community partners who carry out environmental justice here in Texas. Our impact was global not only by addressing a worldwide problem like climate change but also by engaging with people all over the world.
One of our panel speakers, Blake Dyason, virtually visited a variety of classes within the Departments of Sociology, Anthropology, and Kinesiology at the Galveston and College Station campuses to talk about how athletics and the outdoors support his passion for environmental activism; vice versa, he also demonstrated that no matter your skills, interests, or majors, there’s a way—and a need—to engage in solving global environmental issues. This concept, along with the intention of solving global problems on a local scale, were two of the driving ideas behind the program.
In total, we engaged with almost 1,000 participants here on the College Station and Galveston campuses. MSC L.T. Jordan Institute made this possible through valuable partnerships with the Texas A&M Office of Sustainability Institute for Sustainable Communities, LAUNCH, MaroonBase, The Bush School of Government & Public Service and Conservation In Action, and the Texas A&M Environmental Health and Safety team.
Every single one of us impacts and is impacted by our environment, whether we are hikers in South Africa, journalists in Thailand, or Aggies in College Station. There were many goals for this program. We wanted to show that we must remember we all live on one planet, to show the effects of environmental degradation are not equitable, and, most of all, to remind our students we have the power and responsibility to be stewards for our planet.