UC Davis is inviting the greater campus community to join with thousands of other universities, schools and civic organizations next month to participate in Focus the Nation, a daylong educational initiative to explore climate change solutions.

Focus the Nation is scheduled for Jan. 31, 2008, a date chosen especially for its proximity to the presidential primary season. "Climate change may not be a priority for students today, but if we wait until tomorrow to make it a priority, it might be too late," said Kareem Salem, president of Associated Students of UC Davis.

Salem and Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef are extending a joint invitation to the campus and surrounding communities to participate in the day's activities, along with elected officials and policymakers from throughout the region.

Focus the Nation's national organizer, Eban Goodstein, an economics professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., describes the day as the largest "teach-in" in the history of the nation.

At UC Davis, events will include: seminars on topics ranging from energy efficiency to spiritual life; an idea fair; a climate change cultural showcase; tours of eco-friendly sites on campus; and a World of Ideas Cafe, in which Freeborn Hall will be transformed into an "ideas convention" where teams advocate for climate change solutions.

The Freeborn Hall event is being called a campus-to-Congress green democracy, to connect students to elected officials and policymakers — conversations that Goodstein calls "intergenerational dialogues." In California, there is plenty to discuss since lawmakers enacted AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which set wheels in motion to shape the national response to climate change.

An overview of Focus the Nation at UC Davis:

• The Teach-In in the ARC Ballroom will feature talks on solutions for everything from energy efficiency to business and law, to home and spiritual life. A poster session welcomes authors to enter posters presented at conferences and science meetings. All solutions posters are welcome, even informational posters submitted by students from community colleges, high schools and middle schools in the region.
• The Idea Fair in Freeborn Hall will feature tables with activities hosted by student and community organizations to promote sustainable activities, green products and other solutions. The Green Bag Lunch at noon is a place to grab food and a beverage and enjoy a Climate Change Cultural Showcase with music, drama, dance and spoken word.
• Car-Free Campus will collect and publish names of community members who pledge to walk, cycle, carpool, bus or use other car-free modes of travel to campus on Jan. 31. Focus the Nation wants to acknowledge sustainable practices that are part of daily routines as well as pledges to demonstrate sustainable transit on the day of the event.
• Focus the Classroom will collect and publish names of faculty who pledge to address climate change solutions in the classroom from Jan. 28 to 31. If 10 percent of the faculty participate, this could result in more than 100 climate change solution discussions that might not otherwise occur.
• Tours and On-site Education invites campus units and organizations to schedule group tours throughout the day so that the campus and community can better experience UC Davis efforts in solutions research and demonstration.
• The World of Ideas Cafe is a UC Davis green democracy event. Freeborn Hall will be transformed into an "ideas convention" where teams advocate for climate change solutions, and the public is invited to converse about solution costs and benefits as they complete their ballots. Elected officials from Congress, state government, counties and cities have been invited to participate and to address the crowd on their climate change agendas as ballots are tallied. After the cafe, participants are invited to stay for music and celebration.

The week of Dec. 3-7 was designated "commitment week" to encourage the community to "step up" to pledges. Commitment has building steadily since May, when graduate student Jonathan Wooley, a member of the California Student Sustainability Coalition, invited Lewis & Clark's Goodstein to campus to initiate the planning process with campus administrators.

"I expect the interest in climate change on this campus to fill our venues to capacity," said Wooley. During the visit, Stan Nosek, vice chancellor of administration, and John Meyer, vice chancellor of resource management and planning, provided the start-up resources to begin the planning process.

"This initiative is the result of many students and staff who have already stepped up," said Camille Kirk, associate environmental planner in the Office of Resource Management and Planning, who provided leadership to the planning committee from the start.

Kevin Dickenson, an economics major, volunteered to serve as Focus the Nation student outreach coordinator. "Many students are interested in climate change but they don't have the time to learn about it because they are not in an environmental major. Focus the Nation is for students from all majors to find out more about solutions."

UC Davis is a national leader in education, innovation and research in energy efficiency, biofuels, transportation, and a host of environmental and agricultural sciences that conduct research on topics related to climate change in California.

More information on national activities: focusthenation.org.

Suanne Klahorst is a writer for the John Muir Institute of the Environment at UC Davis.