by Dongeun (Don) Kim

One can get absolutely swamped with what a search engine like Google has to offer at times. But I was lucky with my search for a climate change documentary. It took me only a few clicks to find Before the Flood, and it only took a few more clicks to be convinced that it had to be shared with fellow Lipton Hall residents.

Before the Flood is a climate change documentary distributed by National Geographic, and it features Leonardo DiCaprio’s journey across the world to meet with scientists, activists, and leaders to discuss the impact of climate change and possible solutions.

But as much as I was excited about the documentary, I knew it wouldn’t be enough to attract busy college students to take time out of their day to attend a film screening. In keeping up with the goals of NYUnplugged, I decided to get food from the popular vegan restaurant, byCHLOE.

Livestock not only consume more resources than crops, but they also emit an estimated 7.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide every year, representing about 14.5% of all human-induced carbon dioxide production.

The documentary was set to be screened in the Lipton Hall Lounge, and on the night of the showing, I was pleasantly surprised to see interested students shuffle in. Many of the students were interested in climate change, and some were even vegetarian for environmental reasons.

As we all watched the film, we gasped, sighed, laughed, and cheered together as the documentary took us on Leo’s journey across the world. We followed him to Greenland, where we saw scientists standing on ice melting below their feet. We followed him to Indonesia, where the rainforest was being burned to the ground for palm oil production. We followed him to Beijing, China, where air pollution was affecting millions of lives, daily.  Though it wasn’t the largest crowd, I was confident that everyone left the event with more information on climate change and more passion for conserving and reducing our impact on our green planet.

NYUnplugged was a good opportunity to bring students in Lipton Hall together around a shared commitment to sustainability. During Earth Month, my fellow EcoReps and I look forward to continuing to engage our communities in educational and informational programming around the environment and sustainable living.

 

 

 

 

Don is a first year student in the NYU College of Arts and Science pursuing a major in politics. He currently serves as the Director of Advocacy at Lipton Residence Hall, and he joined EcoReps to learn more about sustainable action and spread green advocacy to his residence hall.