Welcome to Harvard Model Congress 2012! My name is Andrew Paterson, and I’m a junior in Cabot House and chairing the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all and hearing what you have to say about the issues on the table. As you will soon discover, the Environment and Public Works Committee is a hugely important and very active committee, as we will be debating issues which affect not only the environment but also the citizens and infrastructures of the US and other nations. Thus, you will all have to keep in mind as we write bills that whatever decisions and resolutions you come to will have farther-reaching effects than those of other committees. Balancing environmental interests with those of citizens and society is a challenging task with often contentious results, but I’m sure you will all be up to the challenge come February 2012.
This year, we will be discussing offshore wind farm development and global climate change. As the wellbeing of the environment and our energy needs are placed under ever-worsening strains as a result of human activity, the need for corrective legislative action becomes vital. As members of Congress of the United States, the nation with the largest energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, it is virtually up to you to decide the fate of the environment. By helping facilitate the development of offshore wind farms, you could do much to help solve the inevitable energy crisis once fossil fuels run out. Additionally, you have the ability to significantly reduce the US’ contribution to anthropogenic climate change and help reverse the trend entirely, or you all may perhaps decide that there are more important issues, and that the US should not modify its current policy towards global warming. Either way, the results will dictate the future of the environment and the US energy landscape, and I trust you all to do what it best for the US and the environment.
Finally, I would like to tell you all a little bit about myself. I am from Cambridge, Massachusetts originally, and I went to Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. As mentioned before, I am a sophomore in Cabot House, which by empirical reasoning and the scientific process can be and has been proven to be simply the best house. I am concentrating in Environmental Science and Public Policy, with a secondary in Germanic Languages and Literatures, and accordingly I spent this past summer doing climate change research in Leipzig, Germany. Outside of HMC Boston, I participate in HMC Europe, play for the Harvard Club Tennis team, serve as Publicity Chair of the Harvard Global Energy Initiative, and advise freshman in my role as a Peer Advising Fellow. My greatest passions in life are the Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics, and I have a massive “man crush” on Tom Brady. I also love listening to Led Zeppelin, watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus, spending time in Cape Cod, and skiing.
I look forward to meeting you all and to a very interesting and fun conference next February.
Your Chair,