Student Activism

College Students -- Take Action!

akronheim — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:23:17 -0400

Students care a lot about the environmental sector and environmental issues. For those who not only care but want to take action, I have found a great resource. I recently stumbled upon www.campusactivism.org and have not searched anywhere for new topics since. Any issue you can imagine is here -- from fair trade, HIV/AIDS testing and awareness, LGBT issues, farmwork justice, homelessness, economic equality, racism, campaign finance reform, and the environment, environmental justice, global warming, and even the Green Party's issues.

In those issues, there's hundreds of campaigns to network in and work on like Greenpeace's Kleercut campaign, The No Dirty Gold Campaign, and even a Starbucks Union Now! campaign. You can help on these campaigns, hook up with people who are working on them, and then put your own campaign up if you start to work on one.

On top of all that, with the issues you're interested in and individual campaigns, you can put your network or group on the website in order to keep in contact with them and/or find new ones to join. You can join with a school, organization, or just small group of friends. I don't know about you, but I am excited. I hope you find it as valuable as I do. I've been looking for a website like this for a long time, and now that I found it, I will probably be on it all the time. This kind of connection makes it so much easier to accomplish campaigns. I cannot wait to use it next year when I'm getting petitions signed for Green Corps and beyond.

IMAGE: University of North Carolina Library

Green College Funds: The New TGIF

akronheim — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:55:39 -0400

After over a year of tough campaign work, students at UCLA passed The Green Initiative Fund. This referendum means that over $2 million dollars will be allocated towards student-led sustainbility projects.

The TGIF referendum has already been passed at both UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley, and similar green funds have been established at colleges and other institutions across the nation. The UCLA fund allows students to apply for money to begin projects that will reduce UCLA's ecological footprint. Some potential projects, and examples of past projects include dorm retrofits, water conservation work, sustainble foods, and internships and research. This year at Ithaca College (my alma mater), students worked to get dorm rooms to be 1 degree cooler in the winter and thus saving the school thousands in energy costs. When in effect, that leftover money will be used towards green research and other sustainable initiatives.

According to the 11th Hour Action website, "Getting TGIF passed at UCLA required hard work and dedication from a small group of undergraduate students who worked together to write policy, meet with administrators to get policy on the ballot and legalized, fundraise for the campaign and to finally get the word out to students during the election! However, the large success rate of the referendum (passed by 76%) indicates that students were willing to increase their student fees for the environment. The students that passed the referendum at UCLA hope that students at our schools are inspired to pass similiar referendums at their schools in order to empower the student body to be able to start their own projecst to protect the environment and increase awareness!"

The increase discussed is something like a $5 increase to tuition. Again, Ithaca College is attempting to charge for the use of a shuttle around campus which would reduce our carbon footprint and open up parking. I hope initiatives like this continue in California, upstate New York, and all over the country. I'll keep spreading the word about TGIF and more students will introduce it at their schools too! Way to go UCLA!

Perez Hilton

akronheim — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:30:14 -0400

Perezhilton.com is the #4 site visited by college females today. First is CNN, #2 or 3 is facebook.com, then it’s Perez. I have to admit that he’s bookmarked on my personal computer; it’s so addicting! Who else takes pictures of celebrities and puts white marks from paint on them? His comments make or break celebrity stardom, and that’s quite a phenomenon. Now the site is using its popularity to promote various activist causes. At the top of each of these posts its titled “A Worthwhile Cause,” and then it goes into a little detail and a link on how you can help.

The site has been promoting everything from animal rights, the housing crisis, brothers and sisters programs, hunger, poverty, and now the We Can Solve It Group to fight climate change. This post has already received 34 responses from excited perez readers just today so far.

In case you haven’t seen the popular ads from the organization, they put political opposites like Nancy Pelosi and Pat Buchanan on major television networks to promote the idea that no matter what other political views you have, it’s an issue we need to unite on. They describe themselves as: “The We Campaign is a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. Their aim is to halt global warming. Specifically we are educating people in the US and around the world that the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable.”

I believe in the We Can Solve It goals and that Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals, and everyone else in between need to unite on this issue for anything to get accomplished. The ads are great from the group and I can’t wait to see more. It’s fantastic that Perez is promoting these causes intermittently through his laugh out loud celebrity gossip posts. More blogs should do the same like The Superfical blog with the same premise as Perez somewhat, or TMZ from AOL Time Warner with the latest in entertainment news. If these are the kinds of sites college students and all kinds of people are going to daily, the writers should definitely try to plug important causes like the We Campaign. Way to Go Perez!!

Students Recycle and Reduce Garbage: Take It Or Leave It

akronheim — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

The Ithaca College Environmental Society (ICES) found it absurd during move-out time at the end of the academic year when the amount and quality of garbage sky rocketted. They found clothes, mini fridges, hangers, food, microwaves, working electronics, computers, you name it, they found it in the dumpsters at school.

So, they started Take It Or Leave It (TIOLI). They put large bins in every dorm room where students can leave things worth donating or selling. ICES members go around campus, pick up the stuff they want for themselves, donate food and clothes, and then store the school/dorm room supplies to sell at the beginning of nxt year.

It really reduces the waste from the campus at that time of year; a full tractor trailor gets used for sorting the stuff. Plus, you get free stuff for helping out, and it raises between $500-$1000 for the club that year. When I ived in the Boston University dorm in D.C. while interning for Greenpeace's Project Hot Seat, there was a collection for similar things in the basement. I took a purse and some noodles from down there. Everyone donated and much less waste was thrown out than could have been.

It is easy to get people to put their stuff in a different place when it is advertised. It's also easy to collect, take what you want, and donate and sell the rest. It is am amazing way to divert some stuff out of the waste stream into the re-use system and I think it should be implemented at every residential college/university. It just makes sense. And that picture is of me doing it freshmen year...I found a sweet halloween costume!

Want to find out more about recycling?

Recycling Tips: Did You Know You Cannot Recycle Messy Pizza Boxes?

The Benefits of Recycling: Let’s Talk Trash

Recycling the Looking Glass: When Garbage and Art Collide

Top 10 Recycling Resources

Recycled Record Snack Tray

The Benefits of Recycling Cardboard

The Art of Garbage

Reduce, Reuse… FREECYCLE

Recycle Those Electronics!

Back to Basics—RRR

Picking Up Garbage TVs and Recycling as Art

Knight Rider Recycled—Reborn With Green Twist!

Recycling Your Garbage: Where Does it All Go?

Generation Quiet?

akronheim — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:37:06 -0500

Just this past fall, during theinternational climate negotiations in Bali, the U.S. and others insisted that any reference to the greenhouse gas reduction ranges be stricken from the text of the new Bali Mandate (as mentioned in Greenpeace’s Project Hot Seat blog). Also this fall, even though all the green groups in D.C. lobbied tooth and nail for renewable energy standards and a higher mile per gallon mandate, Congress shot themdown and passed a relatively insignificant energy bill. But, I know we will continue to fight for this legislation because it’s the issue of our not so quiet generation.

Just because the U.S.government has its thumb up its ass on these issues doesn’t mean everyone in the U.S. has to. At Ithaca College, the IC Environmental Society (ICES) has been working on environmental campaigns since 1970. We have decreased the packaging on carry-out food, hired dishwashers in one dining hall instead of using paperdishware, campaigned for a redemption center on campus, instituted a sustainable living community, got a ride board for carpooling, and now we’re campaigning for a carpool lot on campus and could use some assistance.

This past summer, some of my sustainable friends and I came up with a proposal to have a carpool lot to reduce the number of cars for environmental and logistical reasons; there is never any parking! Eight months later and no word from Parking Services! In fact, after hearing nothing, I even asked the director of Parking Services if they needed more information or had questions,but she just wrote back:

From: Lillian Tavelli

To: Anjuli Kronheim

Subject: Re: Proposal

Hi
The Policy Com. does have your proposal. They haven't met this semester yet and they do have a lot lined up to do. So I don't know when you will hear from them.
Lillian

So, ICES is going to give them a nudge on Wednesday, February 13. We are going to have a call-in day and ask Parking Services if they could have a policy committee meeting to discuss the proposal sooner, rather than later. If any of you want to call on Wednesday the number is: (607) 274-3756. Hopefully, their phones are ringing off the hook!

I love campaigning on big or small scales, and even though the small scale wins more often, it still benefits any community to be organized around an issue because they learn how to campaign themselves! I will still campaign on a national scale because in my experience we can win because we have been anything but quiet. We 18-24 year olds are coming out voting in higher numbers in this year's presidential primary than when we first got the vote in 1971. We had the first ever youth summit on global warming, this past fall with around 6,000 students in attendance in D.C. (despite the Bali debacle). And if we already got at least the Democratic presidential candidates to change the cars they drive, anything can happen!