Yesterday, my friend and I went to something called Beyond the Lab: Dynamic Careers in Science and Sustainability at the Explorers Club in NYC. It was an event she learned about through the Science Research teacher, and she thought I'd be interested because we're both studying something to do with climate science (which I partially convinced her to do
).
The event was basically a series of scientists and people in the private sector with conservation-related jobs telling us about their experiences. One of them was in the Arctic for three months doing research with only one other person (who wasn't even a scientist, just a mountaineer). O_O
I think my favorite presentation was by a woman named Puja Modi who is the Vice President of MSCI ESG research. Basically, she publishes reports on the environmental and social impacts of companies (apparently they've published around 6,000 reports). She's studied science but primarily business-related stuff. During the intermission, I asked her something like, "You talked a lot about studying the environmental impacts of companies. So what do you think about how those companies that often have harmful environmental impacts give so much money to our politicians?" (I know, it's very surprising that I'd ask that question ;D) She clarified, "Lobbying?" and said that that was part of the reason she didn't go into policy (politics). She said that it's a really difficult issue to change, and that she didn't see the effort she'd put into policy as being very relevant because of that issue, but that the government has done some things. She mentioned the Montreal Treaty-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol
She gave me her card, too.
She said she'd email me with updates about environmental policy, though I'm not sure I'd need them given how
obsessed interested I am with the news...
It's a good thing I talked to her then, because she had to leave before the discussion/questions period. During that, I asked the more broad question (as a general question to whoever wanted to answer), "What role do you think the government has to play in conservation?"
One of the speakers said that he definitely thought a 'sharp legal mind' could make a big difference despite having no experience in science, though that it wasn't ideal. He mentioned some gas price policy in New Jersey. Then, he passed the mic to someone else who said she thought the government NEEDS to play a role in conservation, but that we also have to make more individual choices, like avoiding plastic cups.
Afterwards, my friend went up to that person (Gaelin Rosenwaks) to ask what kinds of individual choices we could make to help stop global warming. She said the major things were using cars less and, I think, avoiding plastic. So I asked her about animal agriculture, and said that I read animal agriculture contributes more to climate change than cars. She said that it does, and she was actually a vegetarian (albeit she admitted wearing leather boots because they last longer, but I don't really think that's a big deal)!
So I mentioned we were vegan (my friend has been vegan for awhile- she wanted to be for a long time but her mom wouldn't let her, until her mom tried being vegetarian and it made her feel really good, and then her mom decided to be kind-of-vegan and let my friend be vegan), and she said that was the biggest impact we could have, but she doesn't usually bring that stuff up to people. She gave us her card too.
It was a really great event. Everything was free, and it was really interesting.
This post is already really long, but then we went to an all vegan place called the 'Candle Cafe' for lunch, and it was amazing. It was the first all vegan restaurant I'd been to, and I think it was the best restaurant I'd ever been to at all. It was kind of pricey, but we split pretty much everything and still ended up full.
We found it when we looked up vegan restaurants near us, but we weren't sure it was actually vegan because it just said 'vegetarian' on the outside. But everything was vegan.
I think nothing had palm oil, but at the end, the check said 'no pom oil' under the food we got.
It's probably fine though.
When we asked for sugar, and they gave us stevia (stevia with agave in it
).
I REALLY recommend the Candle Cafe if you're ever in NYC. It's
amazing.