Evans School of Public Affairs

In a Town Hall meeting at the UW Fisheries building Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 25, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson told a packed auditorium that President Barack Obama’s push for green jobs and protecting the environment can also help rebuild the economy.

“There are plenty of win-win-win solutions — good ones for our planet, our country, our economy,” said Jackson, who holds an undergraduate degree from Tulane and a master’s in chemical engineering from Princeton.

Yesterday the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, held a town hall meeting at the UW to discuss growth of green, sustainable jobs and the involvement of youth in the environmental movement.

Jackson gave a brief opening speech to a packed auditorium in the Fisheries Sciences building before answering students’ questions, some of which were posed the day before on social media websites.

The questions varied in content from the EPA’s involvement with native tribes to the connections between environmental issues and mental health concerns.

Check out a video produced by students in Evans School Professor Ann Bostrum's Climate Change Communication class in Fall 2009: "Hey World - Sign the UW Sustainability Pledge." The video was created for University of Washington PB AF 595B to increase climate action self-efficacy.
Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uhwhXflRfU
 

The UW has become a member of the Leadership Circle of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, by which the University agrees to adopt policies that minimize global warming emissions and integrate sustainability more firmly into the curriculum, and also to provide leadership in encouraging other universities and colleges to join in the effort to address global climate change.

The commitment involves all three UW campuses. Chancellors at both UW Bothell and UW Tacoma have signed the commitment, along with UW President Mark A. Emmert.