MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: Education & Climate Change

Education always needs to be forward thinking. A person studying in an undergraduate degree course today needs to acquire the skills that he/she will require to function 8-10-15 years from now. Educational system therefore has to anticipate and mold itself to the future. 

Is the education system of today doing enough to equip the youth to face the biggest challenge that they will encounter when they step out into the real world? 

This is the challenge of climate change. Climate change has now become a Climate Crisis. What we do with our energy and material resources in the next decade will decide the fate of humanity post-2050. But even if we manage to avoid the crisis, there are certain climate change impacts that are now unavoidable. We need to train young people not only to MITIGATE greenhouse gas emissions which will address the emerging crisis, but also to ADAPT to the changes that past greenhouse gas emissions are already causing. 

We believe that a Carbon Neutral Campus (CNC) initiative is a good way for educational campuses to equip today's youth to deal with tomorrow's climate crisis, while the campus itself becomes a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. 

If an educational campus decides to go carbon neutral, and track its own net carbon emissions, it is creating a culture of 'living with climate change'. Young people who will experience the culture over the 3-5 years that they will be spending on the campus, will take the habits and learnings with them in their personal and professional lives. 

In 2018 Samuchit Enviro Tech tested out the CNC idea in Pune under the umbrella of a youth-focused climate change themed programme 'Yuva Drishti', in collaboration with our partner organisation Laya. Our focus was on undergraduate education campuses in Pune. Today three colleges have completed the first critical step of measuring their carbon emissions and planning for a low carbon campus. We have learned from the experience, and also came up with a step-by-step 'do it yourself' guide that will allow any educational campus to complete its carbon accounting and plan to go low or zero carbon over a specific time period. 

The start of this blog clearly explains why we are focusing on youth and specifically educational campuses. There is another reason which made us focus on educational campuses in Pune. Samuchit Enviro Tech is part of the Climate Collective Pune, and we are committed to doing our bit towards the goal of CCP - Making Pune city Carbon Neutral by 2030. Pune is 'Oxford of the East'! The city is teeming with a wide variety of educational and institutional campuses. Therefore, we feel that if all the educational campuses in Pune move towards carbon neutrality over the next 5-7 years, Pune as a city can achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2030! We can do it! 

Please join us on Saturday 15 June evening (please see poster above) to celebrate the visionary educational organisations that worked with us and have set out on the journey towards carbon neutrality. We will also be releasing our 'do it yourself' Handbook for Carbon Neutral Campus on this occasion. The event will be co-hosted by Samuchit Enviro Tech, Laya, Indian Network on Ethics and Climate Change, Climate Collective Pune, and Department of Environmental Architecture, Dr. Bhanuben Nanavati College of Architecture, Pune. 

I am looking forward to seeing all of you there! 

Priyadarshini Karve

Director

Samuchit Enviro Tech

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

   

Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com