Batten Down the Hatches: Greening your Home
SOURCE: Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County
The Sustainability at Ithaca group has made a special arrangement with Cooperative Extension to make FREE CDs of this terrific program available to interested members of the IC community.
To get your free copy of the CD, e-mail Marian Brown or call her at 274-3787. Leave a message with your name and your office location where you can receive a CD via intracampus mail.
Final Plans for IC’s National Teach-In
SOURCE: Ithaca College Office
of Media Relations
For those of you not in the know, the National Teach-In, which will be focused on climate change and global solutions, will be held exactly a week from today in Emerson Suites. It’s surprising to me how far we’ve come in just two years when The Ithacan ran a front page cover story on “Melting the Myth” in which the IPCC report verified all the claims of scientists for the past decade on global warming.
The National Teach-In will take place on February 5, 2009 in Emerson suites. Different universities, colleges, business and even faith-based groups (which are becoming increasingly eco-friendly - check out the pope!) will be holding a full day of classes, discussions and/or films to discuss. The National Teach-In is the project of a non-profit organization, Education for Global Warming Solutions (EdSolv), in Portland, Oregon. Last year, the teach-in was called Focus the Nation, but sometime afterward, Focus the Nation split.
Last year, Ithaca participated in Focus the Nation with poor results. Students didn’t organize any “teach-in,” and the national web cast was plagued with crappy bandwidth problems.
But that was then. This is now.
In one week in Emerson Suites, Ithaca will host a full day of lectures and discussions, starting at 9:25 and closing with a film screening of “The Carbon Connection,” (check out the video trailer) which will have panel discussion after the film. I think it’s brilliant that the sessions fit into the Thursday class structure. Now students can attend full sessions without leaving early or arriving late, ANNND professors, like the wonderful Todd Shack and Vera Whisman, can take their students to the sessions.
For a full listing of all the day’s events, check out Dave Maley’s post.
I will probably attend every session, except one, because my professor said no 
But if you have limited time, I recommend these two:
- “Ithaca College’s Plan to Achieve Carbon Neutrality” at 9:25 am - Trust me, it’s worth getting up for. It will have a HUGE impact on our institutions future and our tuition. Plus, it’s the most exciting environmental news on campus since the HSBC grant or compost in the Pub!
- “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)” at 2:35 - Nineteen students traveled to Poland for their “International Environmental Policy” course for the United Nations Forum Convention on Climate Change. Basically, this was the greatest thing ever for these students, and it was enormously important for global policy on climate change. Check out the student’s blogs here.
Go. Mark your calendar now. Tell your professors. Tell you friends. Tell strangers. Tell that guy behind the counter of Sammy’s and the crazy guy walking around the commons. Tell everyone! Go.
I’m a Maniac! Maniac! for recycling!
SOURCE:flicker/woodleywonderworks
A new year of Recyclemania is upon us. For five years we’ve battled for recycling supremacy, and it’s always nice to remember when in 2005 were #1 in New York State out of just three schools. Last year, we dropped to third out of six schools. After seeing our standings steady dip year after year, I find it important to to say - FREAK OUT! We’re Ithaca! We’re known for hippies and Birkenstocks and, uh, recycling! How can we not be first? Mark Darling, you know, the REMP guy, says via e-mail that he’s loosing faith in our unmotivated campus.
“Most successful schools have an engaged student body fired up to take the message to their fellow students,” Mark said. “[It] depends on the school.”
How many times do you, dear reader, take the fraction of a second to rethink where you put your trash or recyclables? Every time? Sometimes? Just when you’ve got a REMP or ICES “trash cop” hoovering around you in the pub?
Let’s say you do compost and recycle. Do you encourage your friends to recycle? Do you stop strangers from dropping their cans into the garbage? You should! I mean how much easier could it be? There are blue and green recycle bins everywhere. And if they’re not around (say, you’re in a bathroom), just walk out the door, turn the corner and drop it in the correct bin. You wasted, uh, what? About 20 seconds? They are even designed to be idiot proof so you don’t mix paper and containers together. So why does Mark think we’ve been losing?
“We have a problem with illegal dumping. That is everyone nearby - students, staff, faculty, neighbors - seem to think that because we have trash dumpsters, they are free for them to use. This pushes our waste disproportionally high. And, people are just lazy and don’t want to bother trying to figure out, let alone use, the recycling system.”
You’re right Mark. It is lazy! I hope everyone reads Libby’s article today in the Ithacan, and the article reminds them that this whole “Green Revolution” that Obama was preaching, and that rally cry of “change” doesn’t just apply to just Obama. Or his administration. Or every single elected official in the US. It especially applies to everybody in America. So quit being so damn lazy, and can it!
“We can win, the numbers are soo close,” Mark said. “People need to stop being lazy, start using the bins and off-campus folks need to deal with their own stuff, not bringing it here.”
FYI- If you didn’t know what you can and cannot recycle, read this:
In the blue bins:
Fliers, newspapers, catalogs, magazines, brochures, notebook paper, computer paper, books, pamphlets and junk mail, paperboard (such as cereal boxes), and scrap paper.
In the green bins:
Metal or aluminum cans, aluminum foil, glass bottles (all colors), #1-7 plastics bottles, #5 tubs (such as yogurt cups), milk cartons, and drink/juice boxes.
Sweet revenge
Polar bear kicks azz!
I don’t really think any caption is necessary. It’s just funny. While polar bears are cute, and they like Coke, they are also seriously pissed about this whole global warming thing.
AASHE videos are up!
Didn’t make it to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education conference back in November? Well, they’ve just posted the videos of three of the conference’s keynote speakers. Sadly, Vandana Shive’s audio was flubbed, so there’s no video, but they do have some audio.
Lester Brown started the keynotes off, followed by an enthusiastic and warmly welcomed Van Jones. You may have heard of Jones in the political/environmental circles. He’s working with the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, and is helping the Obama administration design its green collar economy.
I urge you to take an hour to watch Peter Senge’s speech. It’s incredibly eye-opening. He discusses consumerism, the age of machines, education and, of course, sustainability. He’s a systems analyst from MIT, although he says that it’s a technical and cold term.
“Systems is a crappy word. A better way to say it is interdependence. How do we understand the world as an interdependent phenomena?” Senge said.
He blames much our sad state on our system of management, or how we’ve been trained to live our lives. From daycare to school to a job to retirement to death, our lives are completely laid out for us. Combined with a disposable economy - if you don’t like something, buy a new one - and you’ve got the making for an environmental disaster. Just remember, every time we turn on that blender, a little black puff of smoke bursts from a coal factory.
“I don’t know anyone who gets up in the morning, works hard doing whatever they’re doing in order to heat up the planet,” Senge said. “Do you? Yet that’s what we’re doing, because the larger system in which our day to day lives play out are largely invisible to us.”
Watch it. It’ll blow your mind.
Just as a warning, the video quality sucks. The audio track doesn’t even sync with the video in the last 15 minutes. Just listen in the background while you sew your reusable grocery bag from organic hemp.
Easy to be Green
Green is a color. Green is a lifestyle. It’s the answer to many questions. It’s trendy. It’s controversial. It’s marketable and cleansing. It’s hard to define but easy to do. Being green is the way of the future.
Kermit the Frog was wrong. It is easy to be green. Consumers are green. Government is (finally) green. And industry is getting greener. So what does that mean for you (Ithaca College students, faculty and staff; Cornell; and the city of Ithaca, and beyond)? Being such a progressive community, we’ve already made strides to become more green: LEED certified buildings at Ithaca College, Cornell’s Lake Source Cooling and distributing CFLs to residents in Caroline, and a bunch more. Yet after my experience at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, or AASHE, I found a disconnect between students and staff, residents and faculty. This blog will link those connections.
You can expect to find stories from around the Ithaca area and the nation relating to sustainability in higher education. This Saturday, I’ll be visiting the EcoVillage, which is hosting an open house from 3pm to 6pm, showcasing their new neighborhood, TREE. There will be a free public tour of the existing village from 3:00-4:30pm, followed by a presentation (with food), and Q&A about TREE.
There will be a blogroll of everything I read and subscribe to. Each week, I’ll post the Top Ten stories to check out, which will focus on the innovative ways to go green, or opportunities for faculty, students and city residents. I also plan on featuring some of the movers-and-shakers in Ithaca - the generals and lieutenants of the Green Army - who are fighting climate change.
The fight continues everyday, especially in this city. It’s important to stay informed of all the excellent work being done, and to learn how you can help. Don’t stress, because it’s easy to be green.
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