It’s Time To tUrn Around

COURTESY OF KRISTIN KUSANOVIC

Professors and students rally to ring crisis bells on climate

This week marks the second bi-annual tUrn week, “an invitation to all members of higher education institutions and partner networks, alumni and community members to lean in to the climate crisis, because it is time and we must.” 

The movement’s slogan gets right to the point—tUrn, because it is time and we must. Time to shift radically in order to save the Earth. 

No exceptions. A total U-turn.

tUrn was born of this urgency. When professor Kristin Kusanovich of the Theater and Dance department learned about the gravity of the current environmental situation—which she and tUrn emphasize is a crisis, not just a nice pastime for tree huggers and GreenPeace—she committed to doing all she could to make a real change. 

Now, this tUrn movement is moving ahead at full force. It began with a week dedicated to climate action in October, and now celebrates a week of serious dialogue and calls to action from April 20-24.

A project this comprehensive is a big team effort. Alongside Kusanovich, seniors Alexa DeSanctis and Drew Descourouez work night and day as interns on the tUrn team, helping to facilitate conversation and spread the word. 

DeSanctis herself was “turned” by tUrn. It wasn’t until working the last tUrn week in October that she realized everything she cares about—all the social justice issues in the world—are wrapped up in the climate crisis and the fate of the planet. 

And she’s hoping the university will take tUrn’s lead to intensify its commitment to actual climate justice. She says that she expects more from a Jesuit university, and sustainability-talk in the core curriculum is a bare-minimum effort that doesn’t actually achieve much justice. This, she says, is unacceptable.

“The fact that we haven’t divested [from fossil fuels],” DeSanctis said.“It’s possible. Georgetown did it. As a university, there’s so much we can do. We talk so much about the poor and the marginalized, and with this Jesuit education, what if we actually prioritized the planet as the marginalized. That’s exactly what Pope Francis said we should do.”

The tUrn team is doing everything in their power to prioritize the marginalized and the future of our planet Earth, one seed of impact at a time.

The tough part, DeSanctis said, is that the people showing up for tUrn are “already drinking the kool-aid.” It’s the sustainability buffs, the environmental studies and science students—community members who are already aware and committed to fighting for the environment—who are coming through for these events and discussions.

But the movement—and our planet—needs all hands on deck. 

It’s a packed schedule for tUrn this week, which included a ten-hour reading of Laudato Si’ on April 22. Thursday the 23 boasts an impressive series of mid-morning industry-specific breakout sessions on the triple bottom line: ecological, social and economic sustainability. Friday the 24 offers a deeper dive into sustainable practices and local food systems, and continues a series of community dances staged over the five day line-up.

The week began with sessions on activism, research and education. Participants watched and discussed several moving videos on Monday, April 20 morning’s forum on “Being Seen and Heard,” which shared the impassioned work of indigenous and youth activists, who are on today’s front lines advocating for climate justice. 

Particularly striking was the music video for “Why” by Montana-raised Apsáalooke rapper Supaman, who performed alongside world champion jingle dancer Acosia Red Elk of the Umatilla people. The pair unfurl radiant color and movement across the sunset-strewn plains to ask questions like, “Why don't you help your brother when you see him fall? Why do we act like God don't see it all?”

Indeed—and why don’t we consider the Earth part of our family, too? 

The voice of Nixiwaka Yawanawá, a member of the Amazonian Yawanawá tribe, also came through in a powerful TEDx talk to speak for the rainforest and its people. 

“I don’t think that we have enemies. We just have people that are not really conscious, and we need to show them,” Yawanawá said. “I feel millions of people on my back telling me to show the world nature, and the importance of land for tribals people, and the whole planet. It’s ours, it’s yours.”

This idea of consciousness seems to be a vital facet of tUrn’s vision—it’s not about calling anybody an enemy, but rather about showing people the severity of this crisis in which we currently find ourselves, about clarifying the absolute necessity of large-scale shifts to curb environmental degradation, particularly carbon emissions.

Another session highlighted the illuminative 2017 “Global Warming Demystified” lecture given by astrophysicist Jeffrey Bennett, which divulges the unavoidable and nonpartisan nature of the climate crisis. Atmospheric CO2  rising to unprecedented levels—on an 800,000-year timeline—and the consequent rise in temperature, extreme weather and ocean acidification, to name a few downsides of our current trajectory.

Bennett drops historical names like Margaret Thatcher as early supporters of climate action—it’s really not a liberal issue. The lecture and session made clear that carbon doesn’t need to be so contentious. We already live within a system that socializes the cost of fossil fuels through a massive global subsidy, and there is indeed a free market solution involving a carbon tax that already has many conservative supporters.

Another lecture came in Santa Clara form on April 21, recorded by William Sundstrom of the Economics department to educate audiences on the Green New Deal and potential implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on progress towards climate justice.

“The wake up call is that the [coronavirus] emergency has shown us a number of systemic weaknesses,” Sundstrom said. “And some of those resonate quite strongly with the Green New Deal (GND) ambitions around areas of social and economic injustice. For example, we’ve seen really important vulnerabilities in our social safety net systems.”

He poses two other important questions: Will the federal budget be hit so hard by the pandemic that the GND becomes unthinkable? Or will stimulus and recovery spending amass funds for creating a greener infrastructure?

The message of tUrn and such information is clear: the climate crisis is happening, with or without anyone’s input. And this crisis? It is solvable, if everyone works together to solve it.