Raising the BCC Ecology Flag to Full Mast.
Earth Day 2021. Thursday, April 22 at 11 am.
A note to the BCC Community. Tom Tyning, Environmental Science
As the first Community College in Massachusetts, BCC was incorporated in the fall of 1960 and set up within an active High School in downtown Pittsfield. Ten years later the first global Earth Day (see: https://www.earthday.org/) was celebrated, and this event marked an impressive turn-around in the understanding and action to support a healthy environment that would benefit natural systems and people. BCC students and staff celebrated the initial Earth Day with exhibits, talks, a launch of a recycling program, and the formation of its Environmental Science Program*. The Mass Board of Regents of Higher Education required BCC to describe what this program would accomplish. Among other things these four learning outcomes for students were set: 1) a reverence for life in its many interrelated forms, 2) awareness of the ecological consequences of social and economic action, 3) responsible participation in positive conservation efforts, and 4) a commitment to the abundant health of all living creatures on Earth.
In 1972, BCC built a new campus at the base of the Taconic mountain range on 180-acres of forests, upland meadows, and wetlands. These ecological communities continue to serve as excellent field sites for Biology and Science Labs, for on-going Berkshire research, and for casual visitors on our John Lambert Nature Trail. Constructed bird houses for our bluebirds, wood ducks, and native falcons were installed almost immediately. Students still today maintain the boxes and staff lab supervisor Linda Merry is monitoring our colony of Cliff Swallows, a declining species in eastern North America. Ongoing bird records have been kept by faculty, starting in 1971 with Dick Ferren, an authority of New England birds. Numerous management plans for the natural areas on campus have been set out with ecological values foremost by early teaching scientists including John Lambert, John Anthony, George Hamilton, and more recently by Charlie Weinstein and Tim Flanagan, all in concert and support with the BCC Facilities staff and the Campus Administration.
When the West Street campus opened a series of Flagpoles were erected and on these the American, Massachusetts’ State, and Veteran’s flags flew high. The fourth banner raised was the Ecology Flag, purchased by our Student Activities office on the application ecologically concerned BCC students. The Flag highlights the schools’ continued commitment to the environment, reduced energy use, and continued support of community-based conservation programs. In recent years our attention to these goals was coalesced into the very successful BCC Green Team (https://www.berkshirecc.edu/about-bcc/campus-services/green-team/), organized by a number of faculty, staff, and administrators, especially Charlie Kaminski. click the link to understand the remarkable progress the school continues to make.
The Ecology Flag has flown continuously at BCC, despite the waxes and wanes of environmental progress locally, nationally, and world-wide. It has been a continuous reminder of hope and positive thinking that has gotten many students and citizens to understand more about how we are part of the environment and not separate. However, a really low point occurred during the Trump administration when he began an outright attack on the conservation of natural resources and energetically renounced science. He eliminated many previous programs set forth by Republican, Democrat, and Independent leaders, including pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement**. On March 28, 2017, Trump rescinded the Clean Power Initiative at 2 pm and on that day and time, with the support of President Ellen Kennedy, a small group of us at BCC watched as our Security team lowered the Ecology Flag to half- staff ***. We thought it would only last a short time, but it became clear that the assaults on the environment and science worsened. The flag has remained in its mourning/distress position for the past four years.
However, with the new Biden administration, running on a platform of renewed interest and hope for the environment, our rejoining the Paris Climate agreement, and the Green New Deal making headway under the leadership of Ed Markey, the time has come to return BCC’s Ecology Flag to full staff. In addition, Governor Baker’s March 26 commitment to dramatically reduce emission limits is a welcome and great first step in combating Climate Change. President Kennedy chose this year’s Earth Day as the right time to make a gesture. So, on Thursday, April 22 at 11 am staff, faculty, students, and interested community members are invited to a small ceremony at the flagpoles on campus. We have a small series of short talks, including students, community environmentalists, and current and former BCC staff and faculty (see attached). We will be broadcasting this live (thanks to Jonah and others) and PCTV will record the event and make the video available later.
*see: Berkshire Eagle: April 22 and April 23, 1970 coverage.
** see: https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement#:~:text=The%20Paris%20Agreement%20is%20a,compared%20to%20pre%2Dindustrial%20levels.
*** Berkshire Eagle Coverage for dropping Ecology Flag: https://www.berkshireeagle.com/archives/mourning-for-the-planet-bcc-lowers-ecology-flag-to-half-staff/article_9b47d7ab-b110-5edd-9f0c-3ed7d1314e4c.html
