“Massive, exciting, chaotic and a bit overwhelming.” That’s how Olivia Voorhis ’16 described her time as an official observer of COP21, the United Nations conference on climate change held last December in Paris, where delegates of 195 countries came together to try once again to negotiate a global climate agreement.
In halls she describes as “the size of jet hangers,” she encountered languages and dress from around the globe and attended dozens of lectures and panels and a range of side events. “There were thousands upon thousands of people, from scientists and researchers to activists, media and government representatives,” she says.
In all, she spent a week in Paris, focusing mainly on ways in which World Wide Views, a global citizen consultation initiative, might become a more effective part of the international policy-making process.
She doubts that the COP21 agreement, which was signed after she left Paris, will achieve everything environmentalists had hoped for, but she believes the conference is a step forward becasue it focused global attention on the problems. “I think the global community left COP21 with admirable goals,” she says, “but now comes the extremely difficult and politically contentious work of implementation.”
GOLD
If you’re comparing yourself to others, you’re often going to find yourself short on something, especially if they have a background that’s different from your own. … Don’t measure yourself against others. Measure yourself against you. How much have you done to get where you are? And take pride in that, because that adds to the richness of your university and the place that you’re in.
For nearly 20 years, the Pomona College Museum of Art has been home to a series of exhibitions designed to turn a spotlight on emerging and underrepresented artists from Southern California. After 49 exhibits in what became known as the Project Series, senior curator Rebecca McGrew ’85 decided to take it up a notch for Project #50 by showcasing seven artists in concurrent solo exhibitions in “R.S.V.P Los Angeles,” which will be open through Dec. 19. “I envisioned collaborating directly with the artists who themselves were engaging with the contemporary cultural moment through a rich, boundary-blurring dialogue of art, culture, history, social issues, politics, music, science and more,” says McGrew on how the Project Series was conceived in 1999. Many of the artists who have been featured in the series have gone on to major national recognition.
