by Nicholas Phillippou
In the MAC Rotunda for Kingsborough’s annual Eco-Festival, it is plain to see that this campus has more reason than any CUNY college to protect environmental responsibility.
On the first day of Eco-Fest 2008, the sun-soaked room filled with nearly a hundred students ready, willing, and able to at least listen to ideas on how they can make a difference.
The round-glass room was saturated by the sun bouncing off the Atlantic Ocean and cascaded a brilliant natural metaphor for why those students showed up in the first place.
When the first keynote speaker, Lisa Rainwater, Policy Director for Riverkeeper (an organization started by Robert Kennedy Jr. for “Defending the Hudson, Protecting Our Community”) took the podium and spoke whimsically about the environment. Rainwater described, “a buzz in the air” of awareness and likened that buzz to a “swarm” that was ready to be put into action.
Her analogy was that we have done the talking, now the environmental movement is ready for some action. Essentially, she admitted a previously toothless movement, and was now ready to add some bite to that bark.
Besides some very typical slaps at the Bush Administration and some more typical jabs at the usual suspects (big business and big oil), Rainwater preceded along her talking points by spelling out a domino effect of our very own Campus Eco-Fest with an eventual “move beyond Festival and discussion.”
She laid out four simple ways every person could help the environment by stop buying bottled water, switching from regular light bulbs to fluorescent, and to stop using plastic bags. Her fourth and “most important” idea was to tell four friends to do the same.
The idea is to engage the conversation, so that it can take us to a better treatment of our environment.
Rainwater took some steps towards that process, proclaiming to a room of community college students, “There is no greater issue than the environment.”
The absolute conviction of her statement became the quintessential problem for the very movement she was there to promote. There are a lot of issues for Kingsborough students to deal with, which are slightly more important than the environment and sustainability. Coincidentally the environment most students are concerned with changing is getting out on their own feet in this tough economy and sustainability of a lifestyle that can simply be described as “comfortable.”
With Eco-Fest being three years old, we have as a student body been active in that conversation. Students like Raquel Flecha (President of Phi Theta Kappa), Julianne Willis (President of Student World Assembly), and Joy Marchionni (President of Honors Club) have been active on campus, bringing the conversation on the environment to the classroom and the Campus Club culture.
The dialogue has been ongoing and the theme of this year’s event, “Grassroots Environmental Action,” has been more than a wish, as recycling receptacles become more frequent and the issue remains prevalent.
The problem on campus environmental responsibility is not with the students.
This year’s CUNY budget totals $183.3 million.
That includes a $1.5 million cut in CUNY’s energy budget. This snapshot of backwards thinking is the problem.
While the students drive the environmental movement on campuses, the colleges individually drag their feet on alternative energy sources as well as finding solutions to the problem both in the budget and the dialogue we call the Environmental movement.
Instead of increasing our energy budget with long-term solutions, we are handcuffing our colleges with old technology and likeminded policies.
Professors Betsy McCully and Tara Weiss are widely credited as the professors that started Eco-Fest three years ago.
While they were clearly satisfied with the student’s movement on the issue, they spoke with some degree of frustration in regards to some more specific measures in and out of the classroom to address the problem we all face.
McCully sharply contested, “we should be teaching sustainability (in the classroom).” McCully said, “curriculum change is absolutely essential.” Professor Weiss further added, “we have the tools in our hands, the tools of an educator.”
This brings the issue of knowledge to question.
Is discussion enough?
Is it irresponsible to continuously go around a problem without a direct investigation?
Kingsborough has become the central front of the conversation for CUNY as we are currently preparing for possible Solar Energy panels to be installed on campus, to begin to wane our college off of fossil fuels and ultimately reduce our ecological ”footprint,” on this and the surrounding environment. Progress, even at a snail’s pace, is nevertheless progress.
What needs to be redefined is just what we actually know about the problems we face.
The April 7, 2008 issue of Time magazine featured a well-studied article by writer Michael Grunwald. The cover issue was titled, “The Clean Energy Myth,” and the article itself is titled ”The Clean Energy Scam.”
The question Grunwald tackles is if we are going to wane our use of gasoline into a new need for bio-fuel are we going to investigate the consequences of that macro-economic compromise and the very likely environmental pitfalls of this spawn of the Green Movement.
Grunwald addressed how, “renewable fuels has become one of the motherhood and apple-pie catchphrases, as unobjectionable as the troops or the middle class.”
Grunwald directly tackles why we need education in the classrooms, not just beyond it. His article explains why biofuels are contributing to high food prices, increasing famine worldwide, and ultimately more carbon dioxide in the environment than if we just kept on driving big rigs and Hummers.
Brian Lee, a student at Kingsborough, commented on Eco-Fest, “We all want to save the environment. That’s not the question. The question is how can we do it where our livelihood is sustained. We need to emphasize on the practicality rather than the emotional.”
The Green movement needs to take the next step, in a very American way. We need to stop asking, what can we do, and start asking in a very cold, capitalist context, what can we do to profit, both environmentally and financially.
Are we making a profit? It is a simple question.
The answer is either yes, no, or break-even.
We can apply the same question to our environmental movement, not just in terms of progress but also, in terms of profits. Did we emit less Carbon Dioxide to the environment? Did we take our trash and turn it into treasure by recycling? These questions if applied in a more direct, business-like in theory and action, will translate into results.
Emily DiRienzo overheard Brian Lee and added that some campuses don’t use paper plates at all.
They use dishes and create jobs for students and the community by simply cleaning dishes. Not a difficult job or a great compromise.
Restaurants on campuses would spend less on paper and plastic plates and then creates jobs.
Emily realized, “The thing I never thought of is just how many jobs can be created.”
By making some economic and common sense changes, we can create jobs and save our environment. Now that is a movement that protects not only the environment but also, the American way.
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