The former director of the National Park Service spoke about his career, climate change and how community members can make a difference at an Earth Day keynote address on campus Tuesday.
Charles F. Sam III, who served as the National Park Service director from December 2021 until this January, spoke to attendees about Americans’ responsibility to take care of the environment.
“How do we look beyond the 30-day spreadsheet, the quarter spreadsheet, the annual appropriations and start looking at generational change to ensure the flora and fauna are here for generations to come?” Sam said.
The address was presented by Geaux Green LSU, LSU’s Student Sustainability Fund and the Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College as the fourth and final climate speaker event leading up to Earth Day Tuesday.
Peter Kelly, a senior studying geography and philosophy, serves as a Geaux Green LSU committee member and helped plan the address. Kelly believes these events are important because they offer students a chance to learn about and become involved in environmental activism.
“We wanted to bring leaders in the climate space from across Louisiana and across the country to speak to all aspects of the climate crisis and how we can go about addressing them,” Kelly said. “And what efforts are going on currently to introduce students to people who are working in this space to be able to provide some knowledge and some connection to people who want to make a difference.”
Geaux Green LSU President Aidan O’Neal believes educating students is important to building knowledge and understanding of complex climate issues.
“This is an issue that is often politicized,” said O’Neal, an environmental engineering senior. “There’s a lot of conflicting information and that’s the result of the fact that these are complex topics. Our idea was to kind of put together some very dense, appealing talks to get people from across the student body to come out and basically get a kind of crash course on what’s going on.”
Granger Babcock serves as one of the associate deans of the Honors College. He’s teaching a course about Louisiana’s economic and environmental problems this semester and invited his students to attend the event.
“We’re working through environmental issues in the class right now, and I thought it was important for them to come and hear from somebody who actually works in the field,” Babcock said.
The event educated attendants about environmental sustainability. Mallorie Johanning, a freshman studying biological sciences, highlighted the talk’s emphasis on stewardship over domination.
“I think the biggest thing that I learned is that we have this mindset as a culture of dominance over nature,” Johanning said. “But I really like how he mentioned that we need to incorporate stewardship of the land and just overall preservation and protection of it because ultimately we aren’t working with the environment to dominate it. We’re working together with it to care and provide for future generations.”
