Author: Eric Kleinsasser
On the evening of March 19, Occidental held its annual environmental summit. The event was sponsored by the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, the Residence Halls Association, and the Occidental Sustainability Fund.
Evan Longmore (junior), who organized the summit, started it off shortly after 6 p.m. with an introduction stressing the importance of practicing a sustainable lifestyle. “[Sustainabilty is] not just about maintaining the health and stability of the natural environment, but also maintaining the health and stability of the social environment,” Longmore said. “Today, we are going to hear about how to make Occidental a more sustainable place, through individual actions and collective change.”
Longmore also discussed the Sustainability Fund, set up for the first time during this academic year. The fund has raised 7,000 dollars, an amount matched by the college, which has been allocated to various measures to promote sustainability on campus and to raise awareness among students.
Longmore finished his opening remarks with the introduction of the evening’s first guest speaker, Adjunct Instructor Mark Vallianatos of the Urban and Environmental Policy Department. Vallianatos first addressed the disposable tableware provided at the event, beginning his talk with a description of its composition. “Our plates are made from potatoes and limestone, and our cups are made from corn… and it’s all biodegradable,” Vallianatos said.
Moving on to the subject of broader efforts at Occidental, Vallianatos described what the college has already done and what he feels it can do in the future to act as part of the greater environmental movement. Occidental has an Environmental Stewardship Class to assess programs on campus, work with students to come up with new programs, and facilitate implementation of such programs.
Another initiative Vallianatos described was the administration’s recent adoption of a Greenhouse Gas Inventory, to help determine where the college can cut back on its emissions of gases that are likely to adversely affect the global climate.
Currently, the largest amount of emissions on campus is connected to the general use of electricity, and another major contribution comes from private transportation of students and staff.
Knowledge of these activities, Vallianatos said, will allow the campus to come up with goals for emissions reduction more effectively.
In addition, Vallianatos hopes that students and faculty will continue to establish new programs of their own that advance ecology and environmentalism at Occidental. “We are very close to getting approval for a student-run organic garden,” Vallianatos said.
After describing various environmental efforts that both individuals and groups can make, such as sharing commutes and selecting more locally grown food, Vallianatos concluded his talk by suggesting that Occidental has come far in its environmental agenda, but still has a long way to go.
Longmore then returned to the stage to introduce the evening’s final guest speaker, Heidi Bass. Bass graduated from Occidental as a psychology major as part of the class of 1987. She began working for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power four months later, and has continued to advance her career there.
“At the Department of Water and Power, we want people to really believe that the water is safe,” Bass said. “[The employees at the Department] drink it too.”
Bass mentioned that the popularity of bottled water has become a detriment to promoting environmentalism, possibly due to its presumed superiority. “Bottled water is not as strictly tested as municipal water,” Bass said, adding, “our biggest customers are [some of] the bottled water companies.”
Shifting to the subject of energy, Bass said that the United States relies on coal power plants for seventy percent of energy production, and that Los Angeles is working to reduce this figure. “We have to look outside the city of Los Angeles [for energy]. Out by the Salton Sea, there are some incredible geothermal sources,” she said, adding that although the challenge of transmission might be significant, supplying Los Angeles with alternative sources of energy is a vital task.
Solar energy was also a major source addressed by Bass. The city has proposed an agenda to generate 1,300 Megawatts of power through solar energy sources. Bass suggested that Occidental could make a contribution as well. “Since 1996 [I’ve been] saying that we need solar on this campus,” Bass said. Solar roofing or solar panels placed in open areas are both options for the campus to reduce its dependence on the city’s power grid.
Bass closed the event by saying that students can seize opportunities at Occidental and beyond to be a part of the environmental movement. In the next three to five years, Bass said, there may be as many as 5,000 positions available at the Department of Water and Power alone.
“It’s important that you have a say,” Bass said. “You, as students, do have a voice.”
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