Story by Tina Anderson Bessias ’78 and Andrea Caruso // Photo by Melody Guyton Butts
“I study climate change and tell people depressing stories,” said Dr. Drew Shindell, Duke University Nicholas School professor of Earth Sciences and father of Olly ’20 and Leah ’26. He was the opening speaker for the Durham Academy Upper School’s winter seminar, and he was being modest.
One of the foremost climate scientists in the United States, Shindell represented the country in the multi-year, global negotiating process that generated the October 2018 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He showed temperature graphs and images of melting glaciers but also outlined health benefits of reduced pollution and dietary changes. He gave examples of effective innovations reducing greenhouse gas emissions in far-flung places including Brazil, New Mexico, Germany and China.
Shindell’s presentation was the opening event in a two-day seminar called “Climate Change and Sustainability in Our Community.” The seminar included students who, after the release of the IPCC report in October, were motivated to devise ways to reduce the carbon footprint of the DA school community. The student Climate Change Committee met weekly, kept a blog and began exploring ways to assess and reduce our energy use and waste generation.
The February seminar gave committee members and several more of their classmates the opportunity to explore the topic of climate change more intensively. Students read parts of the IPCC report and the U.S. National Climate Assessment and then explored their own carbon footprints. They discovered that if everyone lived the way we do, it would take three, four or even more Earths to support the world’s population. For example, Julie Kim ’22 learned how significantly frequent air travel contributes to her carbon footprint, noting, ”simple changes in my lifestyle can help reduce the impact [on] climate change.”
On the second day, the seminar students were joined by students from Beijing No. 8 Middle and High School; they had been at DA for two weeks as part of the Upper School’s Chinese exchange program. The focus of this day was on action and inspiration. On a field trip to Duke’s campus, students visited the Duke Smart Home (a living space for Duke students that demonstrates energy efficient and sustainable living) and learned about the Duke Campus Farm (a working farm that serves as a source of produce and food systems education), both of which began as student projects. As Kate Nichols ’21 observed, “Students have the ability to cause major change in their communities.” Her brother Will ’20 was impressed by a demonstration about soil restoration, noting, “The type of soil affects climate change in ways I would never have thought before.”
After a walk through Duke Gardens, the group toured student engineering projects in Gross Hall, including an award-winning hydrogen-powered vehicle. Brandon Caveney ’20 was impressed that such innovations “… serve as viable and realistic means of subduing climate change.”
Back at DA, students began developing actionable plans to reduce the school’s carbon use. They met with Michael Smith, DA’s director of facilities, to talk about planting trees to fix carbon in the soil, and they met with Kelly Kilgore, manager of DA’s school store, about decreasing consumption of disposable water bottles. These conversations gave students a new and broader view of the school as a whole.
Inspired by what Caveney described as a “message of urgency with a timeline,” the students are excited to join the work that citizens, students, researchers and government leaders are doing to foster sustainable living. Jack Linger ’20 said, “I learned way more about climate change than any textbook or news article could have taught me. I learned the ways great people are trying to stop it and how we can do our part to save our planet.”
The efforts of the Climate Change Committee are ongoing, and under a reorganized student government, Caveney will serve as the Upper School’s sustainability leader. Composting, tree planting and encouraging use of reusable water bottles are among the projects to be continued, and new ones will doubtlessly emerge.