Prompt: Leadership is a constant theme and emphasis at CMC. One way CMC emphasizes leadership is through the Athenaeum Speaker Series, which enables CMC students to dine with leaders from a wide range of fields every weeknight during the academic year. Recent speakers have included authors, activists, entrepreneurs, scientists, professors, politicians, and more. If you could invite anyone to speak at the Athenaeum, who would you choose and why?
I would invite the environmental activist, Bill McKibben, to speak at the Athenaeum. He is a leader in his field. As a journalist, author and founder of the grassroots movement, 350.org, he would certainly have some wisdom on national leadership to share with the community at Claremont McKenna.
I first found out about Bill McKibben through a link to his website, 350.org, on my friends Facebook page. Bill McKibben is in his 50's, my parents age, yet he has a grasp on how to use social media to grab engage younger generations. Moreover, he turns 350.org's Facebook "likes" into real life action. The website is captivating and well designed, grabbing attention with startling, in-your-face facts and figures and moving that attention to more important concepts. For example, he chose he number 350 is the parts per million of CO2 that is sustainable. The current level is 392 ppm, allowing the user to look into solutions to this problem on the website.
Scrolling through his website, I was impressed by the accomplished initiatives that went beyond raising awareness. I followed his campaign to block the Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline would funnel tar sands, which produce more pollution in their refinement than any other source of crude oil, from Canada to Nebraska. The oil company, TransCanada, claimed the project would increase energy security and create American jobs when in fact, much of the oil would be exported and it would kill more jobs than it would temporarily create according to a study by Cornell University. In response, McKibben took action and organized members of 350.org as well as everyday concerned citizens and encircle the White House in protest. Although the fight still goes on, the protest was a success and President Obama delayed the approval of the Keystone Pipeline until 2013.
Inspired by his actions, I started a chapter of 350.org at my school in Exeter, NH to participate in future demonstrations. In the process of setting up the group I discovered McKibben's bottom-up approach to leadership that unites individual, local activists in chapters then further unites each chapter under global initiatives. He grants autonomy to the local chapters and simply trusts they will get involved in national protests. The website shows his masterful connection between scattered local communities and international issues. I was excited to add photos from a 350.org protest my chapter participated in called Connect the Dots. When I was uploading, I saw a series of local demonstrations across the globe, just like ours, holding up painted circles or "dots" to highlight the connection between individual extreme weather and global climate change. There were pictures of my group waving "dots" about the lack of winter snow or the tornadoes in New Hampshire in a slideshow right next to pictures of a chapter in Salvador, Brazil with dots calling attention to the rising sea levels affecting their property and livelihoods. The pictures were powerful and truly connected the dots of local weather events to create a captivating picture of climate change and its jarring effect on human lives.
Bill McKibben's ability to unite people beyond a Facebook page and produce action makes his one of the most important environmentalists of our time, having organized 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. His wisdom on creating an enormous movement and breaking it down into smaller initiatives with heavy impact, accessible to anyone with a computer, could be instrumental in launching the careers of the future leaders Claremont McKenna hopes to produce.
I would invite the environmental activist, Bill McKibben, to speak at the Athenaeum. He is a leader in his field. As a journalist, author and founder of the grassroots movement, 350.org, he would certainly have some wisdom on national leadership to share with the community at Claremont McKenna.
I first found out about Bill McKibben through a link to his website, 350.org, on my friends Facebook page. Bill McKibben is in his 50's, my parents age, yet he has a grasp on how to use social media to grab engage younger generations. Moreover, he turns 350.org's Facebook "likes" into real life action. The website is captivating and well designed, grabbing attention with startling, in-your-face facts and figures and moving that attention to more important concepts. For example, he chose he number 350 is the parts per million of CO2 that is sustainable. The current level is 392 ppm, allowing the user to look into solutions to this problem on the website.
Scrolling through his website, I was impressed by the accomplished initiatives that went beyond raising awareness. I followed his campaign to block the Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline would funnel tar sands, which produce more pollution in their refinement than any other source of crude oil, from Canada to Nebraska. The oil company, TransCanada, claimed the project would increase energy security and create American jobs when in fact, much of the oil would be exported and it would kill more jobs than it would temporarily create according to a study by Cornell University. In response, McKibben took action and organized members of 350.org as well as everyday concerned citizens and encircle the White House in protest. Although the fight still goes on, the protest was a success and President Obama delayed the approval of the Keystone Pipeline until 2013.
Inspired by his actions, I started a chapter of 350.org at my school in Exeter, NH to participate in future demonstrations. In the process of setting up the group I discovered McKibben's bottom-up approach to leadership that unites individual, local activists in chapters then further unites each chapter under global initiatives. He grants autonomy to the local chapters and simply trusts they will get involved in national protests. The website shows his masterful connection between scattered local communities and international issues. I was excited to add photos from a 350.org protest my chapter participated in called Connect the Dots. When I was uploading, I saw a series of local demonstrations across the globe, just like ours, holding up painted circles or "dots" to highlight the connection between individual extreme weather and global climate change. There were pictures of my group waving "dots" about the lack of winter snow or the tornadoes in New Hampshire in a slideshow right next to pictures of a chapter in Salvador, Brazil with dots calling attention to the rising sea levels affecting their property and livelihoods. The pictures were powerful and truly connected the dots of local weather events to create a captivating picture of climate change and its jarring effect on human lives.
Bill McKibben's ability to unite people beyond a Facebook page and produce action makes his one of the most important environmentalists of our time, having organized 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. His wisdom on creating an enormous movement and breaking it down into smaller initiatives with heavy impact, accessible to anyone with a computer, could be instrumental in launching the careers of the future leaders Claremont McKenna hopes to produce.