Students play dead for climate change

Board of Trustees protest calls attention to Queen’s greenhouse gas emissions; carbon neutrality

On Mar. 6
Image by: Tyler Ball
On Mar. 6

At last Friday’s Board of Trustees meeting, 28 people decided to fake their own deaths in the name of Mother Nature.

The “die-in” was staged by Queen’s Backing Action on Climate Change (QBACC) in order to bring attention to two pressing concerns surrounding the environment.

QBACC founder Aaron Myron, ArtSci ’09, said the group wants the administration to conduct a greenhouse gas emissions assessment on the entire campus.

“Through that, we can find out which buildings use the most amount of energy and then we can retrofit them,” he said. “It’s going to improve Queen’s reputation, save Queen’s a lot of money and protect our environment. All three should be key issues for the University at the moment.”

Myran said the group also sought out a commitment from the administration to reduce on-campus greenhouse gas emissions to as close as neutral as possible.

“If we don’t stop the tipping points of climate change, it’s going to decrease the quality of life and it will affect Queen’s students if we don’t do something about climate change,” he said. “If the best university in Canada can’t commit to carbon neutrality, how do we expect the rest of the country to follow through?”

Myran said the group received positive feedback from those who were in attendance.

“We had flyers explaining what we were doing and we had [AMS President] Talia Radcliffe speaking for us at the meeting,” he said. “We had a really good response from the Trustees. We’ve had e-mails from Trustees saying that they now know what’s going on with respect to climate change.”

Myran said he’s pleased with his group’s efforts.

“I think we’re sending the message that this is something that students really want done.”

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