By Adrienne Martini
On Saturday in Muller Plaza, about 35 community members joined people from places as far away as Kazakhstan, India and Spain to make a lot of noise.
Armed with kazoos, party horns and slide whistles, the group raised a ruckus at 3:50 p.m. as part of a global event to call attention to environmental issues.
Students in Todd Ellis' Global Climate Change class at the State University College at Oneonta took part in this global day for environmental action called "Make a Noise About Climate Change," sponsored by 350.org, a grass-roots organization. Groups from 150 countries also made noise at 3:50 p.m. in their time zones. Pictures from these events streamed live on a billboard in Times Square.
The campus' Protect Your Environment club approached Ellis, who said he realized this event could be another teaching moment for his class, which looks at the science of climate change as well as the social, political and economic issues surrounding it.
"The 350 movement is anchored by those like (environmentalist and author) Bill McKibben who care about all facets of climate change," Ellis said.
Senior Tamarah Russell, 22, of Marcy, said the class has been planning the event for almost a month. While the big noise draws the most attention, the main focus is education. Students created handouts and posters explaining the costs of climate change and how they can be avoided, set up tents and tossed around a beach ball that resembled Earth.
The "350" represents the number of parts per million of carbon dioxide our atmosphere can support without ill effect. Currently, that number is at 390 parts per million.
"Our goal is to inform people," Russell said, "so that they can learn how they can help the environment."
"It's neat that these kids are doing this kind of stuff," said Erik Knudson, who works for Blake Equipment Company providing parts for "green" businesses.
One of these businesses is Barney and Sons, whose Jessica Valentine was on hand to talk about geothermal systems, which use the earth's energy to heat homes.
"It's a renewable resource, and reduces our dependency on foreign oil," Valentine said, adding the company has seen an upswing in installations in the past year and has installed half-a-dozen systems locally. The company is converting Sidney Federal Credit Union's Sidney office to a geothermal system.
For Ellis, the most important part of the event is that all of the organization and work was done by his students.
"This is the proudest achievement of the semester for me by far," Ellis said. Then he excused himself to give a quick speech and get the loud noise started.
