Showing a continued devotion toward environmental protection, Syracuse University highlighted Earth Week with its annual Showcase for Sustainability.

‘This year’s showcase promotes the general idea of sustainability, with an emphasis on a green economy, non-recyclable plastic materials, as well as the notion of the entertainment industry going green,’ said Emma Edwards, freshman policy studies major and head of SU’s Sustainability Club.

Journalist and author Paul Roberts gave the keynote address Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Goldstein Auditorium as the daylong showcase was drawing to a close.

Roberts focused on the complexities of each person’s individual actions and how those actions can waste limited resources. He compared the world to a cellphone and said people know what they put into and get out of it, but they don’t actually understand how it works or what effects they have on the environment.

‘If you take an action in one part of the global economy, it can ripple through and affect a lot of unforeseen areas,’ Roberts said.

Consumers, especially Americans, wastefully purchase new products when they already own similar ones, Roberts said. He said this not only wastes the physical product, but it also wastes all of the resources used to make that product, which is much more than consumers realize.

Roberts used the example of food. People are normally very protective of what goes near their mouths, yet they don’t bother to think about the resources needed for production, so they don’t think being wasteful is a serious issue, he said.

Roberts argued against electric cars being the government’s end goal for lowering oil usage. He said it would be about 40 years before those kinds of cars could actually be in service, and by then, too much oil will have been used.

Rather than completely create new technology, Roberts advocated improving old technology, like the use of sails to power boats. He said there are only two ways to use less oil: ‘Be more efficient or find an alternative.’

While Roberts spoke about actions that governments need to take, like switching from oil to natural gas, he also focused on actions individuals should take. One action, he said, is following the flow of people moving to cities. Without the need for private transportation or a large plot of land, city life conserves a lot of resources. He said small farms should be grown in large cities or have gardens planted on rooftops because this prevents the need for the resources involved in transportation.

Several seats may have remained unoccupied in the audience, but the support of students, faculty and community members in attendance provided a sense of approval for what Roberts said.

‘I thought he was right on about a lot of issues,’ said Joshua Klein, a senior political science major. ‘He brought up a lot of really good points that I think others should be aware of.’

Rachel May, coordinator of sustainability education at SU, said she brought Roberts to Syracuse because she heard he was a tremendous speaker. She said she agreed with Roberts’ ideas of complexity.

‘This idea of complexity, you need to be careful with how you tinker with the system,’ May said. ‘There are a lot of positive and negative consequences to every action, and people need to be aware of that.’

amfeld01@syr.edu  

Published on April 19, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Andrew: amfeld01@syr.edu