SLU hosts climate lecture

CANTON — A giant arch made of shopping carts or a field of 15-foot-tall carrots made of chicken wire could be two oversized art installations on St. Lawrence University's campus by today.

The art installations will be the work of Vermont stonemason Thea S. Alvin, who will be on campus for most of next week as part of an environmental conference titled "Climate: Change." The conference will feature several guest lectures as well as film screenings.

Though the focus of the conference will be environmental justice, advocacy and action, Miss Alvin's art aims to show a lighter, fun side of conservation.

"A lot of climate change is about doomsday, pessimism, 'We're all going to die,'" she said. "Instead of having all that misery, I try to teach people to embrace the fact that we are changing, our climate has changed; go ride your bike, go do something that's quite dramatic that doesn't affect our climate."

Originally, she was planning to make a small house out of 40,000 aluminum cans, but the college has had a difficult time persuading people to donate the recyclables and give up their nickel-apiece refunds, according to the university's costume shop supervisor, Selina French, who suggested Miss Alvin to come to St. Lawrence as the artist in residence for the conference.

Instead, the mason likely will make an arch of shopping carts and possibly old farm equipment or even hay bales, she said. Construction will begin this weekend, and a sculpture should be up by today.

"She's basically said it's a sustainable week, so she can do anything," said Ms. French, who worked at a ski resort in their native Vermont with Miss Alvin about five years ago. "This is going to take the edge off. She's going to add a little youth and energy. She's going to get students involved so it's not just a group of white guys in suits up there talking."

The conference is the first of its kind to be hosted by St. Lawrence; it is being supported by part of a multiyear, $800,000 environmental education grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Event organizers say they hope it will become an annual event.

The first lecture, about climate change and Miss Alvin's art, will take place at noon Monday in the Winston Room of the student center. A full schedule of events is on St. Lawrence University's Green Pages website.

It will include talks by Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org, a movement to reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, as well as several other activists. Discussions will focus on what is going on in Northern New York and the Adirondacks, across the world to the Amazon and the international community.

"We need to recognize that this isn't just a matter of 'I can turn off my light bulb and this will all go away,'" said Louise E. Gava, the college's sustainability coordinator and one of the organizers of the conference. "This is recognizing that our St. Lawrence community and the broader community could probably do with a little bit of conversation and intensive study on these issues."

ON THE NET

St. Lawrence University Green Pages: www.stlawu.edu/green