Folk music played softly Friday in Conrad Hall as the lecture hall filled with more people than it usually holds.
The hall housed the beginnings of “Turn Down the Heat,” a weekend-long conference on global warming organized by ECO, a student organization concerned with environmental issues.
Booths lined the lobby with representatives from groups such as Washington, D.C.-based Power Shift, who enthusiastically told its audiences about issues such as alternative energy and the effect of global warming on beer - humidity and parasites from the higher temperatures can ruin the quality.
“We had scientists look into it,” said Power Shift member Mark von Topel. “We were like ‘Holy cow, we really do have to save beer.’”
Von Topel’s voice rose above others, but some mingled and talked about the issue of global warming.
The conference began Friday with a talk by activist Julia Butterfly Hill, who sat in a tree in California for more than two years to save it and the redwood forest around it.
Since her tree-sit began in 1997, she has become one of the more visible environmental activists in the country, writing several books, including “The Legacy of Luna”and “One Makes the Difference.”
Hill talked with the audience for more than one hour, touching on her experiences in the tree, the role of diversity in activism, industrial hemp and the focus issue of the weekend, global warming.
“To know what you know about global warming is scary at best,” she said. “We can’t fall into the traps of the disposable society.”
Hill, a former business major, said she was in the business of accumulating money, but became interested in ecological issues after a car accident in 1996 that affected her short-term memory.
“Maybe it took a steering wheel in my skull,” she said. “But I learned it.”
Hill said she was inexperienced as an environmentalist when she first climbed the tree, which she called Luna, in December of 1997.
But her lack of experience didn’t stop her from climbing Luna - and she urged her audience to become involved as she did, even if it means becoming the subject of a few jokes.
“When you do something like that, you might as well sign on the dotted line to be made fun of,” she said.
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point student Megan Heurion made the almost 470-mile trip with some friends to see Hill speak and contribute to the weekend’s discussions. After the discussion, fans filled the front of the room to ask Hill to sign a copy of her book or the bottoms of their jeans.
But mostly, the Spanish and sociology sophomore said she piled into the 15-passenger van Friday “to get inspired.”
“I wanted to get more involved in organizations like (ECO),” she said.
Music performance freshman Amanda Rice-Johnston said the speech was fun to listen to.
“It was interesting, very passionate,” she said. “When she was speaking she wasn’t (BSing).”
The rest of the weekend was reserved for workshops on activism and the development of a global warming platform to be brought to MSU officials.
“We’re hoping this will spawn a whole campus movement. We’re creating a center here,” said Amy Gregory, co-coordinator of ECO. “If you can’t change your community, how can you change your world?”
