U.N. chief to students: Act globally - NJ.com

It wasn't hard to figure out what the head of the United Nations was thinking during his first Garden State speech yesterday.

In a half-hour-long talk to stu dents at Fairleigh Dickinson University, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon managed to utter the words "global," "globally" and "globalization" at least 30 times.
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Ban also turned to the topic of climate change, an issue he has repeatedly emphasized in his nearly two years in office. Two weeks earlier, in Geneva, Ban had said the next U.S. president will have to show greater leadership than previous administrations in tackling cli mate change.

"Climate change is not science fiction, it's a fact," he said yesterday. "It's not a future threat, it's happening now."

Students and alumni gave mixed reviews about yesterday's talk. Some, like 2007 FDU graduate Sindhuru Prakash, 21, said they felt Ban was too "vague" and "elusive."

"We're all familiar with the problems," said Prakash, of West Orange. "But how are problems going to be alleviated?"

But Julian Gronager, 28, a graduate finance student from Denmark, said he was impressed that Ban "went out on a limb" on the issue of climate change. Gronager said while some FDU professors have been saying climate change is real, others have argued that it is unproven.

"Basically, what we've been told is it's not certain," he said.