By BENJAMIN FOX
Student Reporter
CORE held an hour long Skype session Friday with eco-activist Peter Galvin as part of a presentation series the club holds every semester.
Steven Mackie, the club’s sponsor and long-time friend of Galvin, introduced him to multiple rooms on the respective NWOSU campuses. The Alva campus boasted the biggest attendance, with the room becoming quickly overcrowded within minutes of the presentation’s start.
Galvin, who is a co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity began his presentation by talking about his organization and how they “merge science activism and law.” Among other things, they work to get endangered species on the list and protect them with “cutting edge litigation.”
He spoke of getting people involved in making environmental change by starting locally first. Someone’s local picnic spot becoming the future sight of a McDonald’s, for example, would be a great place to start, he said.
Galvin strives to protect the environment from big-name companies and their pollution, including pushing for a ban on fracking in San Benito, Calif. Fracking is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure to fracture shale rocks and release natural gas.” Fracking leads to earthquakes, and is perhaps the single most controversial problem in small communities, as fracking has lead to an economic boom in recent years in search of oil.
While environmentalists lobby against what oilfield companies do, one attendee said after viewing Galvin’s presentation, “He had a lot of good points. And I come from an oilfield family. We’re not trying to destroy anything, we’re trying to make a living. There’s just some things I support, but I feel there is stuff I think they need to leave alone.”
During the Q and A portion of the presentation, Galvin was asked what he viewed as the single most crucial global environmental problem. He said consumption is the issue. “We live our lives in a very inefficient way,” Galvin said. “We live in an age of feel-good consumer placement. They bring you a larger plate of food and charge you more for it. America is 5 percent of the population, yet we consume 25 percent of the world’s resources.” Because of this, Galvin hopes to launch a “low meat” campaign to help reduce red meat production, which is the number two reason for global warming.
Galvin is a passionate man who enjoys what he does. “I feel lucky to do something that I love to do,” he said.
Northwestern biology major Adam Jones said he was inspired by Galvin’s passion. “I found his story incredible in that someone would be willing to take such actions in a cause that they believe in so strongly.”