UNC

April 18 - UNC (Chapel Hill)
Location: Lecture Hall
Time: 7-9
Speaking: 11th Hour expert, Stuart Pimm; co-director of 11th Hour Action Campaign, Richard Dent

The UNC screening was hosted by the UNC Student Environmental Action Coalition (UNC SEAC) and attended by approximately 50 students.

Before the screening, UNC SEAC leader Charles Edward introduced Richard Dent, co-Director of the 11th Hour Action campaign.  Richard spoke to the audience about the goals of the 11th Hour Action campaign and Hewlett Packard’s sponsorship of the 11th Hour Campus Tour. He also discussed Hewlett Packard’s history as a very environmentally conscious company.

After the screening, Richard Dent answered audience questions about the film and the related action campaign. Students were very curious to hear about Richard’s work and what 11th Hour Action was doing to encourage people to take action individually and collectively. Unlike students at other schools, students at UNC also asked a lot of questions about Leonardo DiCaprio’s involvement with the film, which we found quite refreshing! Richard explained how Leonardo was involved in the production of The 11th Hour from the very beginning, and how the 11th Hour Action website is receiving a lot of traffic from his MySpace page.  [Need examples of questions and quotes]

Various students signed up to www.11thhouraction.com using the Hewlett Packard laptops after the event.

The screening coincided with UNC SEAC’s campaign to eliminate all plastic bag use on the UNC campus. UNC SEAC leader Charles Edward explained how the group is taking action on this issue: “Earlier in the year we were working with the student stores here on campus to get them to start selling reusable bags and give out less plastic bags. In that process we realized how many bags are used every day in the U.S. and we wanted a quick way to demonstrate that by collecting as many bags as we could, though we had a pretty short time to do it. So basically we collected a bunch of bags and gave prizes for most bags collected. This is going to dovetail into next year getting plastic bag recycling on campus as it is done at many retailers now.”

The student-run Daily Tar Heel reported on UNC SEAC’s plastic bag campaign and announced the 11th Hour screening in its April 17, 2008 article “Earth Day events stress environmental protection,” a copy of which is attached. The student radio station WXYC also announced the event.
 

UNC campus

UNC takes action by running a "Bag Fest" campaign to eliminate all plastic bags on the UNC campus.

Richard Dent, co-Director of 11th Hour ACTION, speaks to UNC students

Students sign up for 11th Hour Action