Seton Hall Students Worry about Climate Change

How far would you go to save the earth?

“I think a lot of people would die for a cause that they believe in, and climate change is definitely very real,” said Thaiba Sherwani, a sophomore psychology major at Seton Hall. “Although I personally would not go to that extreme of a level.”

Climate activist Wynn Bruce decided that bringing attention to the earth was worth more than his life. Bruce died after he set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court on Easter weekend as a form of protest to bring more awareness to climate change.

While Seton Hall students agreed with Bruce’s message, many felt his execution was too extreme.

“It’s alarming,” Sherwani said. “I feel like people won’t stop and think until activists raise that type of awareness, because some people still think that climate change isn’t real. Although where he’s coming from is a little twisted.”

Sadia Raza, a sophomore social work major, said she understood Bruce’s way of thinking. “It makes sense, considering the scale of the situation, why someone would do something so crazy as to explain the detriment of the situation,” Raza said.

Anais Boyajian, a sophomore diplomacy and international relations major, was shocked about Bruce’s actions. “It’s definitely a wake-up call for a lot of people,” Boyajian said. “It’s very complicated though, to do such a thing.”

Bruce’s story wasn’t the first of its kind, which also added to students’ worries about the impending climate crisis.

Lauren-Marie Diawatan, a junior economics and philosophy major, said she heard a similar story about Peter Kalmus, a NASA scientist who chained himself to a Chase bank office building in early April. It was reported by the Sierra Club that JPMorgan Chase & Co. was the top banking company that invested in fossil fuels.

“That sense of urgency is understandable,” Diawatan said. “But it’s concerning to me that situations like this exist because these activists need to go to such extreme lengths to be heard and be seen and be acknowledged by news outlets.”

Judith Stark, a philosophy and environmental studies professor at Seton Hall University, said she was first aware of the effects of climate change in the mid-1980s.

“Since then, I’ve seen an enormous growth of people doing scientific research, doing sociological research, even doing psychological research because there is something called climate anxiety,” Stark said.

Stark explained that climate anxiety related to the worries people had when it came to what climate change would mean in the upcoming 50 to 60 years.

“Now I have kids in my family, the little ones are six to 20 years old, and I worry about them and their lives,” Stark said. “But as long as anxiety is not paralyzing, a little bit of anxiety can act as a motivator to do something about this situation that we’re in.”

Stark had been teaching at Seton Hall University for the past 41 years, and helped create the women and gender studies program, along with the environmental program. One of her favorite courses to teach has been Humans and the Natural World, which addressed the relationship between humans and nature.

Whenever students spoke about climate change, Stark explained that they have always asked her how much time they had left to make a big difference.

“I’d say, ‘right now,’ because right now is the only time we do ‘have,’” Stark said. “If you want to ask me seriously, I’d say we have three to five years to make the deep structural, economic and political changes to make a difference.”

Seton Hall students expressed worries about running out of time because of unusual weather patterns in the past few years.

Maryam Ali, a junior diplomacy major, explained she became more aware about climate change because of the weather this past semester. “I’ve seen how whack the weather is now because it’s always changing,” Ali said. “In the winter, we didn’t get as much snow. It’s just really weird to see we’re living through this and nobody’s noticing.”

Boyajian mentioned how the drastic weather on campus this past year had affected her usual routines. “I've been wearing my sweatshirts and my thicker boots for past two weeks when I should be wearing my sandals and shorts,” Boyajian said. “I look back on my Snapchat memories and about this time last year, I was sitting out on the green doing my homework with my friends. We were all just laying around and just having a good time, and now I'm going back and forth between the library.”

Despite the effects of climate change becoming more common, Stark said that it was not too late for students to make a change.

“If I didn’t seriously think that there is something that could be done, I’d be kayaking off Costa Rica because I’m a sea kayaker,” Stark said. “I told my students, ‘Why would I spend the last 20 years of my life with you guys if I didn’t think that there could be major changes?’”

Stark said it was important for students to recognize that climate change could not be denied because it was based on science. “The one phrase you should get rid of is belief in climate change,” Stark said. “You either know it or don’t know it.”

Building upon that mindset, Stark mentioned that students did not have to go as far as risking their lives, such as Bruce, to help resolve the situation. “I’m also a climate activist but I’m not going to burn myself to death,” Stark said.

As individuals, Stark explained that there are two main ways students can immediately help reduce the effects of climate change. “The first thing is we all can reduce our driving by ten percent,” Stark said. “The second thing, if you can’t stop eating beef, at least reduce your consumption of beef and other meat products.”

Stark also explained students have the power to call attention to higher authorities for changes that they could not make on their own. “You students are in a great position to say, ‘We need this on our campus,’” Stark said. “We need to do things like reduce food waste, reduce the use of plastics, stop using herbicides and pesticides on the lawns.”

Stark hoped that students would become more aware about how they could impact the environment, even if they just made the smallest changes

“Be very knowledgeable about environmental issues, know where to go to get accurate knowledge, and make changes in your lives that will have good, positive environmental effects,” Stark said.