It’s the end of February, and man, you’re bored. You’re thinking, I have all my classes settled, all my extra-curricular activities planned, midterms aren’t for awhile, and finals are a looong way off. But wait, something’s missing from my life. Is it: a significant other? A furry pet? A new (not Apple) laptop? NO! It’s a Greenpeace Student Network Campus Coordinator position!   
    That’s right. You know you want to be involved with cutting-edge Greenpeace campaigns and make a difference in your world and in the greater world. But what does a Campus Coordinator do, and why should you be one? Simply put, the Coordinator takes charge of a Greenpeace campaign (that’s Apple or Kleercut) on his/her campus and stays in touch with other leaders in the Network to plug into joint activities. This means that the Coordinator works on his/her campus campaign with campus environmental groups, volunteers and your faculty allies (like Sustainability Coordinators), but the Coordinator also gets lots of support from Greenpeace Campus Organizers and other Greenpeace Campus Coordinators. As you all probably know, things are a lot less intimidating when you have a clear support system, and this position certainly has that!
    If you are interested in applying to be an Apple or Kleercut Campus Coordinator, please email us at students@sfo.greenpeace.org to request an application. Make sure to let us know on which campaign you’d like to work. For more information, check out: http://members.greenpeace.org/students/about_us

 

on an unrelated topic. Check out this awesome Vancouver (I believe) artist, Julie Morstad:

 

    When I was in college the best “study break” activities—a cappella groups, short films, free snacks—always appeared during major work crunch times, like during finals and midterms. I guess this is no surprise. After all, the most rapt and receptive audience may very well be the audience with other things it should be thinking about.  
    So, perhaps it’s not finals or midterms for you all yet, but I have a great study break activity for you. Go to http://www.greenmyapple.com/submit and enter your designs for the Apple campaign’s t-shirts and advertisements. You can even make an “alternative” Steve Jobs speech.     Once you’re on the site, you’ll see campaign t-shirts, advertisements, and alternative Steve Jobs speeches that people around the world— creative people who are also fired up about the campaign— have submitted.
    Hope to see your designs there!

    Not to over-simplify things but the corporate bad people are ruining our world. Look at Kimberly-Clark—senseless destruction of ancient forests that are home to hundreds of animal and plant species and important carbon stores. Look at Apple— creating products with toxins in them that poison people in the developing world. Your campus can challenge these corporations. Of course you want to get involved. But how do you start?
    Here’s a tip. Call it, Tip of the Week, if you want (but I don’t know what other tips you’ve had this week… ) : Call it, Research. Research? Isn’t that what you do for papers? Yes, research for papers and research for campaigns. Let’s start with Kimberly-Clark.
    The first step is to look at your school’s campus directory or organizational chart to find your school’s director of purchasing. This is the person who you will want to talk to first. While you’re doing this computer-based research, you can do some on the ground research too, specifically in the bathroom. Seriously, do your school’s toilet paper dispensers say “Kimberly-Clark” on them? That’s a good tip that your school uses at least one K-C product. What about the paper towels? Check out www.kleercut.net to see for what K-C brands you should be on the look out. There are some K-C products that might not be easy to spot but that your school might use, for example, microscope lens wipes. However, your director of purchasing will likely be able to go into specifics, and at this stage, it’s good to find out just generally what’s going on at your campus.
    Interested in what Green my Apple research might look like? A first step is to find out where Macs are used, purchased or sold on your campus. Look at design departments, engineering departments, bookstores, “Mac Labs” (Aha! That’s where the Macs are!) and campus procurement offices. Find the name and contact details (phone, email, mailing address) of the person in charge of the computers in each of these locations.  They’ll have titles like “Head of Academic Computing” or “Technology buyer." These are the people to whom you’ll eventually need to talk.
    Sound good? Ok, let’s go!

 Greenpeace Locks Down Kimberly-Clark Headquarters

    If you weren’t on last night’s Greenpeace Student Network Conference Call, you sure missed out on a whole bunch of exciting news. Too bad for you, of course. But not too too bad for you because I’m going to fill you in right now. Straight from the field, I’m stoked to report that students throughout the Network are campaigning like crazy!  An example: Jenna at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey is hard at work on the Green my Apple campaign. She went to see the director of computer services and presented the campaign. Lo and behold, the director was impressed with the campaign (and, I’m sure, with Jenna herself!) and wrote a very strong letter about the campaign to the Apple representative at Stockton College. Jenna is working on contacting the director of computer services to see if she’s received a letter back from Apple. Emily at Stanford, also working on the Green My Apple campaign, has put up Green My Apple displays on the apples in the dining halls (very clever, no?). Additionally, she has talked to at the head of Stanford’s Academic Computing, who put her in touch with the school’s Apple sales representative. The Apple representative has told Emily that she’d be “pleased to meet” with her, and may even go so far as to set up a meeting between Emily and Apple’s environmental people. Right now, Emily is putting together a packet to send to the Apple people. Way to go, Jenna and Emily! Way to go, everyone!
    One more update from the call: there’s currently a competition to see who can recruit the most students for the Greenpeace Organizing Term. There are prizes (t-shirts) for every 5 people you get to apply, and the Grand prize is an all-expense paid by Greenpeace climb training or boat training in Washington, DC or San Francisco! Contact Diana, diana.silbergeld@sfo.greenpeace.org for more information.

    While their parents are reading about climate change in the newspaper, watching the TV news and listening to the radio recount the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, students at Ivy League schools are taking action.
    Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released its long-awaited fourth report. The news we already knew is the group’s conclusion. The New York Times reports, “the group asserts with near certainty — more than 90 percent confidence — that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming since 1950.” Grist states the bad news we already basically knew. “They say by 2100, temperatures will likely rise 3.2 to 7.1 degrees Fahrenheit, and sea levels will rise 7 to 23 inches, plus another 4 to 8 inches if polar ice sheets keep melting.” Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Environment Program, tells us "Anyone who would continue to risk inaction on the basis of the evidence presented here will one day in the history books be considered irresponsible."
    The good news is the Ivy League schools will not be considered irresponsible in the history books. Students at these schools (Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania) are taking action. Students at these schools have banded together and introduced—no, not a new style of sweatpants with words across the butt or a new version of Ugg boots (can they get anymore unflattering? Just wondering … ) — a resolution that they all go climate neutral. Yay! As the celebratory email announced, “It’s official, students from all the ivies have come together and resolved that we go climate neutral!” The resolution demands this commitment from every school in the Ivy League, as well as the reduction of on-site emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
    So… next steps… there’s a lot more schools than the Ivy seven. Do you really want to be considered irresponsible in the history books? I think not.

 

 

 

In a recent New Yorker article, Elizabeth Kolbert interviews the environmentalist Amory Lovins. At one point in the story, Kolbert mentions “thinking outside of the box” and is quickly informed by Lovins, “there is no box.” What a great way to understand environmentalism! We want to promote solutions, solve problems, sure- but why limit ourselves to “box”solutions? Let’s think wide; let’s think about what needs to be done, and then, let’s innovate.
I’m reminded of a story told to me by our Greenpeace Campaigner before Mac World. She said, For years we pushed to remove lead from products because it is hazardous to human health. The industry kept telling us, “there’s no solution- we need lead in these products.” Did we give up? Did we say, “oh, there’s no way out of this one, I guess we’re stuck with a dangerous toxin like lead in our products forever.”
Did we?
No.
Instead, we pushed for, and got, a phase-out of lead in Europe. What happened next? Industry found a solution. Industry replaced lead with something less hazardous.
That’s a story of environmentalism without a box. And this is why I’m so enamored with the Apple campaign. Here we are with a lot of problems. Apples are full of chemicals like toxic brominated flame-retardants (BFR’s), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). When people throw out their old macs they end up being dismantled, often by children in third world countries, who are exposed to a dangerous toxic cocktail that threatens their health and the environment. This kind of environmental injustice is unacceptable. We need a solution. The exciting part— Apple is not a company stuck “in the box.” They are innovators. What we’re asking for is more innovation and fewer toxic chemicals in the products we all love. Steve Jobs as an innovator has the chance to make Amory Lovins, and all of us, proud.

Read about the article here (I couldn’t find the print version online): http://www.newyorker.com/printables/press/070122pr_press_releases