Decarbonization Conference

On October 29, 2019, my Vessel Operations class went to Pier 40 to go on a boat called Hornblower for a professional conference held by The North American Marine Environment Protection Association (NAMEPA). Before the event, I wasn’t really excited about this trip, mostly because I had no idea what the conference was about or what decarbonization was. About a day or two before the conference I looked up what I might need to know to be able to understand the presentations that were going to be shared and to my surprise, I actually found the topic quite fascinating. While looking up decarbonization I found out what it means to remove carbon from combustion chambers on an engine, making the environment a lot cleaner. On the day of the meeting, I made sure to write down the notes I found and the ideas I had before the meeting officially started. That day the majority of my class were dressed to impress. I personally felt very mature and professional. Listening to the presenters’ ideas on how to reduce carbon levels made me thankful that I did some research because a lot of my written down notes were brought into the conversation. After the first part of the conference, we had a break and we were assigned by our teacher, Aaron, to talk to members of the meeting and get to know about what they do along with collect their business cards. I got business cards from a salesman named Philip and a marketing organizer named Michele. After I got those cards I talked to the admiral of the Coast Guard. Talking to him was a good experience. We talked mostly about NY Harbor School and certain aspects of his job as admiral. I thoroughly enjoyed this trip and getting to be apart of something so mature. I definitely will be looking forward to the next conference. ~ Avarie Binns