Professors Shanjun Li, Greg Poe, and David Wolfe candidly discussed environmental issues that we face around the world and in our own backyard. I was most intrigued when fracking in Ithaca was brought up. I just saw today that Cornell is the sixth most beautiful rural college campus in the U.S. While I was not on campus when people were fighting those who wanted to do fracking here, I understand the outrage. I probably would think twice about coming to a school where I know the water could be contaminated. Global warming is a major issue but so often people are overwhelmed by everything that they need to do to solve it that the result is inaction. Although they did not specifically say this, it seems like people generally become the most invested in a project about global warming when it is tangible. Fighting fracking in Ithaca had a clear purpose and timeline. This makes it easier to commit to. The problem is that global warming is not, nor will it ever be, something easy to fix and the professors acknowledged this. Due to their different backgrounds, there was often disagreement about the best approaches economically and environmentally to reduce pollution. The ambiguity that results from no one really knowing how to solve climate change means fewer people are prone to try to solve it. In a room of arguably engaged and intelligent students, you would think there would be more environmental activism but there was very little. It is important that we remember that while this is a big issue, it can be broken down into more specific goals, such as getting Cornell to divest from fossil fuels and that these are the things we should focus on if we want to get anything done.