A job well done

Letter to the editor: A plug for the good

To the Editors:As many of you know, Bowdoin’s 15th Annual Common Good Day is fast approaching! Next Saturday, September 28, hundreds of Bowdoin students will be participating in dozens of daylong service projects throughout mid-coast Maine. As many of you may have also realized, group registration has closed and only individual sign-ups remain open. But does that mean you should scrap the idea and wait until next year? Absolutely not.
“Individual sign-ups” is misleading. No one will be volunteering as an individual. In reality, individuals will be working in groups of other individuals, allowing participants to meet new people while exploring a local project. These types of experiences have tremendous value, as they allow you to connect with other like-minded individuals who are also looking to develop new relationships during their volunteering stint.
Common Good Day is also a very unique event that mobilizes both Bowdoin students and alumni all over the country to put aside school and work commitments for a day and dedicate themselves to serving their communities.

Letter to the editor: Global warming and hope for the future

To the Editors:
Many presentations on the issue of global warming leave one with a sense of foreboding doom given the complexity of the issues humans must overcome in order to prolong our present environment. However, the presentation by Dan Schrag last Friday at Common Hour left the audience with a resounding sense of hopelessness and I believe was completely disempowering. While indeed the hurdles are large, Schrag is not correct in stating that “sustainability” is not worth it, and that individual contributions can only really come from budding new scientists creating techno-fixes. On the contrary, each and every one of us has a responsibility to do what we can on an individual scale, for two reasons. First, collectively each of our efforts add up to make a difference; reducing our personal consumption collectively will reduce emissions, not enough to actually stop environmental change, but a start. Developing and using alternative energy sources at the local and national level is a proven solution that can be supported by each of us. Political action to stop the oil lobby in Washington and instead contribute federal support to alternate energy and transportation will help too. The list is long, and there are many avenues of individual action.
And secondly, without hope of a livable future, we are indeed doomed. Hope has helped the human race overcome major hurdles in the past, and we must not give this up. If we lose hope we will indeed end up like Venus far sooner than we need to. So to the students and to all in the community, keep trying and keep believing your efforts are effective. We have to.

Letter to the editor

September 20, 2013

To the Editors:
Kudos to the entire staff for a superb first issue (September 13)! As a Bowdoin graduate, I appreciated the peek inside the College (the “Take Care” editorial, “Make the Global Local,” “Talk of the Quad,” and “The Class of 2017”). As a Brunswick resident, I liked the local angle (Eveningstar Cinema and Jen’s Place). Other articles covered nice territory, from a well-deserved rap on Congress to an effective mix of cultural commentary, student profiles and sport highlights. Finally, as a professional writer, I appreciated the uniformly high quality of writing. Keep up the great work! People do still read newspapers. At least this old Polar Bear does.
Sincerely,
David Treadwell ’68

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