PITTSFIELD, Mass. — In celebration of Earth Day, Berkshire Community College (BCC) will return its ecology flag to full mast at 11 am on Thursday, April 22. 

 

The flag has been flying at half-staff as a symbol of the "forceful and unprecedented assault on the environment" since March 2017, explained BCC President Ellen Kennedy.

 

Representative BCC staff, faculty and students will attend the ceremony, which will feature short remarks by Environmental Science Professor Tom Tyning, Nature Conservancy biologist and BCC graduate Rene Wendell, President Kennedy and others. BCC student Amber Macneil and other members of the Conservation of Natural Resources class will perform a short dance movement, and Coordinator of Academic Computing Christian Tenczar will highlight the BCC's Green Team recycling accomplishments, especially the college's involvement with the nationwide Campus Waste to Zero Waste project.

 

 "In the past 50 years, protection of the environment, both at home and globally, has waxed and waned as economies, social upheavals, and other events have taken center stage," Kennedy said. "However, beginning in January 2017, it became clear that the federal administration was intent on sweeping away a lifetime of gains that protected both the environment and US citizens." 

 

 In response, BCC lowered its the ecology flag to half-staff in March 2017 to highlight the negative effects upon the environment that were already beginning to show.

 

Though the lowering of the flag was intended to last a short time, Tyning explained, it was left in place when assaults on the environment continued, including the United States leaving the Paris Climate Agreement and the "outright denial of the value of science and the scientific method," he said.