Fred Weber
Staff Writer

This Thursday thousands of schools and universities including UT will host Focus the Nation, a day-long series of global warming conferences. These panel-style discussions will allow students to interact directly with local political leaders and policy-makers who make important decisions about this national issue.
Focus the Nation will give students multiple opportunities to attend a variety of discussions about global warming. The day will conclude with a large discussion at 7 p.m. in the UC Auditorium. Panelists for the main event will include state Sen. Tim Burchett, Madeleine Weil of the Knoxville Energy and Sustainability Task Force, and Jerry Paul, a distinguished fellow on energy policy for UT’s Baker Center. The discussion will address measures taken to combat climate change on local and federal levels.
Reagan Richmond, co-vice president of Students Promoting Environmental Action in Knoxville, helped bring Focus the Nation to UT.
“Dealing with the impacts of climate change is going to be one of our generation’s greatest challenges not just because it’s an environmental issue — it’s also a social issue and an economic issue. ... It has resounding effects throughout all parts of our lives,” Richmond said.
She said Focus the Nation will present an interdisciplinary approach to educating students about global warming.
“We’re not just having an environmental scientist talk. We’re having architects, political science professors and economists speak about how climate change relates to their field of study.”
Many of Thursday’s speakers are professors at UT. Associate professor in biosystems engineering and soil science Joanne Logan will speak about agricultural solutions to global warming. She will also address sustainable moneymaking opportunities for the university, such as selling biofuels or creating a wind mill farm. Logan said she hopes to inspire more of a grassroots involvement.
“(Students) often feel ‘there’s nothing I can do.’ We need to empower the average student. It really does start with the individual,” Logan said. She and other speakers seek to enact “little changes” in the average student lifestyle.
Focus the Nation was founded by Eban Goldstein, a professor at Lewis and Clark University. The program is aided by the Energy Action Coalition, a group composed of Canadian and American organizations that work with students on climate change issues. This event has been planned since 2006. It was initially started as a faculty-led program, but a grassroots student campaign helped take many older ideas and expand on them, Richmond said. She also contacted students at other participating universities across the Southeast for ideas to help develop UT’s program.
This teach-in is a result of a collaborative effort between the Committee on the Campus Environment, the Baker Center, SPEAK and Make Orange Green.