Big day is coming: Focus the Nation is Jan. 31

By Cliff Newell

The Lake Oswego Review, Jan 24, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Eban Goodstein

Cliff Newell / Lake Oswego Review

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Focus the Nation has a hugely ambitious goal: Turning America around on global warming.

The day for that to start is next Thursday, Jan. 31, when hundreds of college campuses across the nation turn this country into a classroom and a rally about global warming. It could be the largest teach-in in American history.

As project director Eban Goodstein said in a recent newsletter, Focus the Nation is intended to “make 2008 the year that rose up, launching the clean energy revolution that changed the world.”

In just seven days Goodstein will find out how the mission he has devoted his life to for two years will turn out. The evidence is piling up that Focus the Nation will have great impact.

“Everything has gone really great,” said Goodstein, who is a professor at Lewis & Clark College. “We’ve met our goal of having over a thousand colleges, plus middle schools and high schools, taking part. Information is pouring in about some very cool stuff that is going to happen.”

For example, at Skidmore College in New York, students will be diving into Dumpsters to retrieve things and then build them into sculptures. At the University of Utah, 40 faculty members will be at a teach-in. And ever-controversial Wal-Mart will have the stage at the University of Santa Barbara.

“We’ll have at least 1,000 students taking part on every campus,” Goodstein said. “That will give us over 1 million” students.

No college will have a higher level of participation than Lewis & Clark, for which Goodstein predicts that all 2,000 students, plus 50 faculty members and representatives of the law school, will show up for panel discussions and presentations. Putting the fun into “Focus” will be a “warmcoming” dance put on by student organizers Kiel Johnson and David Norse.

Then comes the regional event that evening at the Chiles Center on the University of Portland campus, and it will feature a live broadcast by OPB from 6 to 7 p.m. (moderated by Sandra Tsing Loh of NPR fame), the comedy-commentator act Live Wire!, and the band Stars of Track and Field at the conclusion of the evening.

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