The Appalachian Climate Action Collaborative is a movement led by students, faculty, staff, and local residents to transform our society and institutions to be just and sustainable in response to climate change and its consequences. As students, we have power to influence change. With this power comes the responsibility to hold ourselves, our community, and our university to the highest standard. Join the Appalachian Climate Action Collaborative in our work to build community, support the institutions around us in becoming climate leaders, and to mitigate and prepare for the climate crisis.

Essence of the pledge: Show up. Speak up. Build up.

Show up when you can. Speak up to the people around you. Prepare yourself for what's to come.

 

I commit to:

 

1. Supporting the Appalachian climate justice movement by participating in major events and activities, and offering my ideas, passions, gifts, skills, and presence as needed. I recognize that communities in North Carolina and around the world are already being harmed by climate change, and that further inaction will continue to endanger people and ecosystems. I will prioritize my participation accordingly.

 

2. Requesting that my professors take the faculty pledge, which asks professors in all disciplines to include climate change into their curricula as appropriate, and following up by asking professors how my discipline or area of study will be affected by climate change and how the course will address this.

 

3. Building meaningful connections with people. Connecting with staff and community members to create solutions collaboratively, and with vulnerable communities and those on the frontline of climate change to create networks of mutual support for climate justice for all.

 

4. Discussing the climate crisis and the Climate Action Collaborative within my current social circle.

 

5. Building a more just and sustainable community where I live now by improving my own personal sustainability and initiating or supporting action in the clubs, communities, and institutions of which I’m a part.

 

6. Using my time at Appalachian State University to build the knowledge and skills necessary to advance sustainability and justice in whatever line of work I choose and to expand my knowledge of the systemic injustices which created and sustain climate change and its harms.

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With hope in a better world,

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