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Student Environmental Alliance set to raise climate change awareness

Marlon Pitter

Connector Editor

The Student Environmental Alliance (SEA), partnered with the Climate Change Initiative (CCI), is set to spread awareness of climate change with the “Make a Change for Us” event Wednesday night in University Crossing.

The event is designed to make students more aware of the dangerous side effects of climate change and get students interested in taking steps to reduce it, according to SEA President Peter Boretos.

The alliance plans to help carry out the university’s Climate Action Plan, designed to make UMass Lowell a “completely green campus” by 2050, which the group will present at Wednesday night’s event.

Boretos said the club will use a carbon budget simulator, a real-time graph that displays fossil fuels emitted and their current ramifications on the planet, to show “the seriousness of the situation.” He said similar technology is also used by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United Nations for large-scale environmental decisions.

At the same time, he plans to explain in “universal language” that there is “drastic climate change right now” and how students can take steps to reduce it.

While the Climate Change Initiative is a faculty-run organization that works to combat climate change, Boretos said he wanted to revive the Student Environmental Alliance and open it to more undergraduate students.

After meeting with CCI Director Juliette Rooney-Varga, Boretos was able to resurrect the student group, which now has five members, including Vice President Jared Nease.

“I’m excited to get the club started, and I’m happy to see people invested,” he said.

Still, Boretos said the club will need more members and more awareness in order to make the most positive impact on the planet. He said he wants the group’s influence to spread from the university level to, hopefully, a national and global level.

“Raising awareness is the best chance we have at defeating this never-ending downfall,” said the sophomore biology and psychology double major.

In order to do so, Boretos said he wants to make more resources available on campus for students to learn about climate change, including more environmental science classes.

Time is of the essence, according to Boretos, as he calls climate change something “we are going to experience in our lifetime.”

“Huge changes will have to be made if we don’t take small steps [to fight climate change] now,” he said.

Boretos said these small steps the club and the university will take “will define the future,” and he wants to “create leaders ready for the modern world.”

“I think UMass Lowell is ready to take small steps to fight against climate change,” said Boretos.

The “Make a Change for Us” event will take place Wednesday, Feb. 18 at 5 p.m. in University Crossing 158. For any questions about the event or the Student Environmental Alliance, please contact Peter_Boretos@student.uml.edu.

Marlon Pitter is a former editor-in-chief of the UMass Lowell Connector. Hailing from Hartford, Conn., he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English with a concentration in journalism and professional writing and a digital media minor in 2017. Follow him on Twitter @marlonpresents.

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