Climate conscious and engaging others

  • 17 October 2022
  • 3 minutes

The climate emergency and environmental issues are at the forefront of the thoughts of Clarissa Salmon (English 2020).

Clarissa was always conscious of the issues, but listening to podcasts about intersectional issues in summer 2020, ahead of matriculating at Gonville & Caius College, heightened that awareness.

“I listened to one which spoke a lot about the intersection of environmental issues with every other issue, specifically refugee rights,” she says. “From then the climate crisis became a dominant thing in my life.”

That includes her dissertation, which is focusing on representing climate change in literature, both fiction and non-fiction. The dissertation is in the planning stages with her supervisor Dr Jenny Bavidge and Professor Jason Scott-Warren, her Director of Studies and a Fellow at Caius.

She is keen to move away from dystopian fiction, and knows the lines are blurred between fiction and non-fiction on an issue which is all too real.

“I’m going to look at form. What form can represent the scale, time span and magnitude of the climate crisis?” she adds.

“Is it framed as a future issue when it’s not? Do we see it as a future crisis when it’s happening now?”

Clarissa, who as Green Officer on the Gonville & Caius Students’ Union is guiding student activities in Green Week this week, undertook a summer internship with the University of Cambridge’s Sustainability Team in an internship scheme organised by Cambridge Zero.

She had had previous interactions with Cambridge Zero, launched by the University in 2019, as President of the 2022 Cambridge Climate and Sustainability Forum, a two-day annual event organised by students aimed at increasing awareness of the climate crisis. She also was involved with Engage for Change with Cambridge Hub.

Her internship focused on sustainable transport, reviewing building travel plans across the University estate and promoting sustainable travel by reducing reliance on single occupancy car travel and increasing awareness of the alternatives. Clarissa developed an implementation strategy largely focused on soft behavioural changes, in conjunction with existing hard infrastructure and the University’s Transport Strategy.

“I found it interesting thinking of ways to try to convince people that this matters and should be on their radar, showing it would benefit them as well as being a moral cause which they might not have time for,” she says.

“The Sustainability team have a whole raft of projects and are invested in joined up thinking not just in the University, but across the whole of Cambridge.

“All the team are so incredible and devoted to their unique specialisms. Working with people so enthusiastic and encouraging was a real positive within the sometimes-heavy context of the climate crisis.”

She enjoyed the weekly Cambridge Zero seminars which showed her the breadth of careers available in sustainability, and Clarissa is keen to follow that route, possibly after a Masters in policy, politics or communications related to climate change.

Of more immediate concern is her role as Green Officer, which includes representing the undergraduate population in the College’s Environmental Sub-Committee, made up of staff, Fellows and students.

“I was pleasantly surprised by how receptive the committee is to create change and move things forward,” Clarissa adds.

Clarissa drove Caius towards a Green Impact Platinum Colleges Award year and is engaging students in environmental and sustainability issues on a daily basis.

“Everything I do filters through that lens,” she says.

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