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Focus the Nation is coordinating teams of faculty and students at over a thousand colleges, universities and K-12 schools in the United States, to collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion about “Global Warming Solutions for America”
Focus the Nation is based in educational institutions, but also is engaging Americans in their churches, mosques, synagogues, businesses and civic organizations. The intent is to focus the growing concern in the country about global warming, and to create a serious, sustained and truly national discussion about clean energy solutions, linking students and citizens directly with our political leaders.
During the spring, summer, and fall of 2007, Focus the Nation teams will be creating campus dialogue, sponsoring talks and debates, integrating discussion of climate solutions into curricula, and drawing in faculty from across the curriculum. From Oregon to Ohio, and Alabama to New Hampshire, professors will focus on global warming solutions in their classes, and travel with their students to interdisciplinary discussion sessions and forums. Because Focus the Nation will engage thousands of organizers, and tens of thousands of educators, millions of students will have the opportunity to be involved.
Focus the Nation will culminate January 31, 2008, in the form of national symposia held simultaneously at over a thousand campuses, places of worship, businesses, and other venues across the country. On that day, each Focus the Nation team will invite local, state and federal political leaders to come to campus and participate in a non-partisan, round-table discussion of global warming solutions. US Senators and members of congress, state representatives, mayors and city councilors, all will be receiving dozens of invitations to speak about global warming, from over a thousand institutions nation-wide. Every campus will also vote on their top five national priorities for global warming action, producing a campus-endorsed policy agenda for the 2008 elections.
(click HERE for audio/video about Focus the Nation)
Focus the Nation is growing rapidly. The key to our success is the fact that, across the country, tens of thousands of educators, students and citizens are eager for a way to engage with global warming solutions, and quickly understand what Focus the Nation can become. The project culminates in a national teach-in in schools, places of worship and businesses, but Focus the Nation is more than that. The growth potential is vast: this is the opportunity to catalyze the country, and indeed, “Focus the Nation” around a non-partisan, reasoned, campus-lead discussion of this critical 21st century issue.
Over the next decade, critical policy decisions will be made with irreversible consequences for the future. Dr. James Hansen, the top US government climate scientist, believes that if we do not stabilize greenhouse gas emissions soon, we may set in motion a process leading to collapse of the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice sheets, events that would raise global sea levels by over 40 feet, inundating many of the world’s major cities (see sidebar). This of course is just one of the myriad potential consequences of human-induced warming, with regional and global impacts ranging from hurricanes of greater intensity and duration, global water shortages, altered patterns of rainfall, drought and flood, massive forest die-back, and large-scale species extinction.
Students today face many important social, economic, and security issues. Global warming however, is unique, in that if we are to reduce the risk of large-scale, irreversible, world-wide damages, then ambitious—and potentially costly—policy solutions must be undertaken within a very compressed time frame. Failure to act soon increases the likelihood of a swing in global temperatures of Ice Age magnitude within our children’s lifetimes, only in the opposite direction. We owe our young people a day of national, focused, non-partisan discussion of the decisions to be made in the next ten years, decisions that will profoundly affect their future, and indeed the future of all human generations to follow.
The second motivation for this project is to explore a new model of collaborative, interdisciplinary education, on a national scale. Focus the Nation will require campus-based teams of faculty and students to draw on campus expertise across the broad range of disciplines: religious studies, psychology, business, art, geology, law, economics, biology, communications, public health, theater, engineering, sociology, computer science, political science, literature, chemistry, philosophy, communications, music. Focus the Nation provides an exciting model opportunity to create, for one day, a true national community of scholarship bridging traditional disciplinary boundaries.
This is an opportunity for educators to take a leadership role, and catalyze a process which indeed will “Focus the Nation”. For the last 150 years we have been engaged in an unprecedented natural experiment, drastically altering the basic nature of the planet’s climate control system. Focus the Nation is engaging the country with the question: How far can we let that experiment go?
How to Get Involved
To be a part of Focus the Nation, simply sign up to participate. By signing up, you are committing to help organize an educational event about global warming solutions at your institution on (or around) January 31st, 2008. At this point, you do not need to know exact details for the event— by signing up, you are simply signaling your desire to help build Focus the Nation in your community. As colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, faith organizations, businesses, and civic groups come together, we can launch a discussion far-reaching enough to change the future.
Once you sign up, you will receive bi-weekly updates from Focus the Nation that will suggest many ways to build your event. To hold global warming to the low end, we have only a few short years to act. To ensure action, we have only one year to Focus the Nation. Please sign up today.
The Focus the Nation Resolution
Once you have a launched a Focus the Nation organizing team at your institution, build support for a truly deep conversation by obtaining the endorsement of the following resolutions by your President, Head of School, CEO, Boards of Directors, Student government, Faculty Senate, or Organization. (See who has already ENDORSED!)
For Educational Institutions - FOCUS THE NATION RESOLUTION
For Other Institutions - LETTER OF ENDORSEMENT