FARMINGTON – Fun, education and loftier goals of greening the planet and saving the world were among the reasons people gave for attending the sixth annual Maine Climate Summit at the university on Saturday.

About 75 college and high school students and teachers from around Maine came to learn about issues related to climate change, and energy and environmental sustainability.

The two-day summit at the University of Maine at Farmington was hosted by the Sustainable Campus Coalition.

Keynote speaker, educator, author, environmentalist and president of Unity College, Mitchell Thomashow, got the multi-session forum rolling by asking people why they came.

Most, like Josh Ascani of Unity College, said they wanted to educate themselves. Some were just out to have fun, while others, like Unity College student Ashley Zook and the Brunswick High School Environmental Club, had loftier goals.

Zook said she wanted “to learn what we can do to save the planet and how to influence others to join the movement to green our economy.”

“We’re here to save the world!” shouted the Environmental Club members in unison as each boldly thrust a clenched fist outward and upward.

That enthusiasm rang throughout Thomashow’s subsequent talk about the nine elements of sustainability: energy, food and materials under infrastructure; a participatory governance, investment and wellness under community; and curriculum, aesthetics (art and music), and interpretation (signage) under learning.

“We’re in a planetary emergency right now, so we need to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint,” he said.

“We need to dramatically change how we live and how we work,” he said. “It has to happen on this infrastructure level, and on a technical level, and so, the greater the awareness we have about our buildings in relation to the natural world, the better off we’re going to be.”

The No. 1 challenge, he said, is species loss.

“Climate change just accelerates that and makes it worse,” Thomashow said. “Climate change is an extraordinary challenge as well, don’t get me wrong.”

Sustainability, he added, is a response to planetary challenges.

“It’s a way of living and learning that helps us cope and transform this reality,” he said.

The summit included a series of lectures on conservation and efficiency – an environmental paradox, climate change and what can be learned from mud from the Maine landscape.

Jim LaBrecque of Bangor, a lecturer on refrigeration, air conditioning and the paradox of energy and environmental issues, used a slide show of his life experiences to point out the inefficiencies of energy conservation.

“For three decades there have been too many people making energy and environmental road maps and no one going anywhere,” he said.

Maine, he said, is the most dependent state in the nation on fossil fuels at 89 percent and, its economy is undermined by a $5 billion energy deficit.

To reduce dependency on foreign oil through efficiency, LaBrecque said Maine must surpass three hurdles: the issue of quality, the first law of thermodynamics (energy is conserved), and the economy theory that ties together energy and the economy.

Andrea Nurse, who teaches climate change at UMF and at the University of Maine in Orono, explained how soil cores taken from the bottom of lakes, peat bogs and vernal pools can accurately – through carbon dating – reveal environmental happenings such as climate change over thousands of years.

“We can use the knowledge of past changes as the key to the future, but it’s important to separate the changes induced by climate and human-induced greenhouse gas emissions,” Nurse said.

Sunday’s sessions from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the North Dining Hall of the Olsen Student Center are to include talks on local foods and farming; an overview of energy, the economy and climate change; and how to protect the future, among other topics.