Headmaster's Weekly Newsletter -- Week 36

When the media calls for an interview I get nervous. When it is the Globe and Mail calling with regards to a special report on Private Schools, a big part of me wants to hide. The reporter/writer, Saira Peesker, is interested in environmental education and the climate crisis. She wanted to speak with staff and students. Our KES Green Team is led by Mr. Ryan Alguire, and he coordinated Saira’s interviews with Mr. Bouwman, Grade 11 student Katie Goddard, and himself.

As Saira was in Ontario, our interviews were all on the phone. Although I found it very disconcerting hearing her tap away on her keyboard as we spoke (I thought all reporters recorded interviews digitally nowadays?), she was very engaging and personable and knowledgeable.

There is no doubt that with regards to the environment, we do a lot to educate, create awareness and modify behaviour, but as a school we have a huge carbon footprint. Gone are the days when the only school building with heat in the winter time was the Dining Hall. Now we have hundreds of thousands of square feet to heat, 30 acres of grass to mow, and students travelling all over the world just to get here and then again to participate in our different programmes. We all want fresh fruit and vegetables when they are out of season and avocados for our guacamole. The sixty-mile meal is theoretically possible throughout the school year, but if we were rigid with our implementation, I suspect that food complaints would sky rocket and the local restaurants would be delivering far more pizza and Chinese food than they already do.

It is very hard to avoid single-use plastics and so much has a carbon footprint: travelling to Science Fair Nationals, or a Robotics tournament, or a Track and Field meet. A single Google search uses enough power to light a lamp for 17 seconds.

Needless to say, I went into the interview feeling “guilty as charged”.

To my surprise the interview went well. To start with, we were the only one of ten schools that Saira had contacted who agreed to be interviewed. Secondly, we were the only private school she had found who participated in the Climate Strike on May 24^th. She also was very complimentary (reporters pay compliments now?) about the initiatives we have ongoing at our School, the capital investments we have made to reduce our footprint and purchase blue boxes and the like, and the prizes we have won for environmental videos and posters, etc.

I am used to reporters who are adversarial. Too often I have felt like a prisoner suffering through an inquisition being prepared for sentencing. Perhaps though, when it comes to Mother Nature, we all need to be on the same team. Every positive action, no matter how small, helps.