So, why are you so passionate about the environment?
This is something I've thought a lot about, because I'm actually very interested from an activism and education standpoint about what connects people to the environment. So I've had to think a lot about why I'm connected to the environment. It comes from my sense of place. I grew up in Minnesota, and my parents would take me on hikes every weekend, or we would go canoeing or camping. I never really separated myself, or how I live my life, from the environment. People are interconnected, but we're also interconnected with our environment -- they aren't separate things. The environment has become part of my identity as much as, say, my gender or my ethnicity. I can't boil it down to a few actions like using a compact fluorescent light bulb instead of an incandescent, or taking shorter showers. It's a part of how I think and it's a part of who I am.
What environmental projects are you part of at Dartmouth?
I've been involved with environmental groups on campus since my freshman fall. I'm going on the Big Green Bus this summer, and I helped organize the first sustainable move-out and the move-in sale my freshman year. We're now in our fourth year, which is really exciting. One of my proudest achievements is that I was a founding member of the Sustainable Living Center. It was a group of us that just decided that, as environmentalists, we couldn't live in the dorms the way we wanted to, and that we needed a Sustainable Living Center that would serve as a type of living laboratory. I'm so excited to have actually seen it happen within my time here. I'm not living there though, because as a senior, I feel like it needs to be something people younger than me take on. I actually live at Casque and Gauntlet senior society. I've started pushing recycling and composting there, and I did an energy audit on the house -- you know, hoping to create SLC number two, I guess. And then there's the Energy Campaign, of course.
Right. Tell me about the campaign.
Wednesday was our launch. This is a really, really exciting campaign for me, mainly because this is something that's going to be a long-term, positive, sustaining change for the campus. Using data from audits of the buildings that hog the most energy on campus, the College came up with a greenhouse gas reduction target for the campus: a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. So the first goal of the campaign is to help reach that target. The second goal is to help save the College money by being more energy-efficient. Energy costs a lot of money, and we need to save money around this time. Just a 10 percent reduction in our electricity use for on-campus buildings saves half a million dollars a year. The third part, the energy pledge, deals more with our culture and attitude towards conservation. The pledge is about making people more energy conscious in their everyday choices so it becomes automatic to plug everything into a power strip and turn it off when you leave your room, or turn your thermostat down during breaks, or use a water bottle instead of buying bottled water. So sign the pledge!
Are there specific plans for accomplishing those goals?
Education of course is at the root of everything, especially for the energy pledge. The entire environmental studies program and the SLC try to do a lot of educational programs by bringing in guest speakers, the Environmental Conservation Organization and Dartmouth Council on Climate Change have panels and discussions about national environmental issues and campus environmental issues. So there are a lot of student groups that are promoting the educational aspects of it. As for tackling college operations and buildings and policies, a lot of that is being done by collaborative work among students and staff. There's a resource working group looking at the results of the energy audit to see how changes can best be implemented. So things are being done on all levels.
Does student apathy toward environmental issues frustrate you?
That's hard to answer because I don't want to sound bitter or pessimistic, but sometimes is it frustrating because I feel like certain things -- like how to recycle and where to recycle -- are really obvious. I walk by students who throw plastic water bottles straight in the garbage, and they go through three or four bottles a day. It's depressing and frustrating because it's very, very easy to not do those things. To a certain extent, being wasteful is the status quo, and it's hard changing the status quo. But it should be really easy. If you're eating at Food Court, why take a clamshell takeout container if you can just use a plate? Why not use a cloth bag at Topside instead of plastic? It's getting to the point where being green and being more environmentally conscious is the only way to go, and it should be the easiest and the cheapest option. What's difficult is changing the way people think. That's what this campaign is pushing for: making green the cool thing, the easy thing that everybody does. Being green and environmental makes you feel good. You're a better person because of it. It should be an empowering thing and it shouldn't feel like a burden.
Do you feel guilty when you do something that isn't environmentally friendly?
Yes, actually. There are often times when I show up to get coffee somewhere, realize I didn't have my eco mug and just don't get the coffee because I don't want to use a disposable cup. I really love traveling, so I feel guilty about flying. It uses a lot of gas! So I don't go home as much as I would like.
This is really off-topic, but is it true that you're one of the geniuses behind Collis baked goods?
Yeah, I'm an assistant baker here at Collis. And it's related in this way: one of my other obsessions besides making Dartmouth more sustainable is cooking and food. I've been volunteering at the Organic Farm since my freshman year. I love, love cooking, and I love using what's seasonal and local and organic. I shop at farmers markets as much as I can. Our food is very much linked to environmental issues. After cars, it is one of the most fossil-fuel intense industries in the United States. Food consciousness goes right along with environmental consciousness. And I just love cooking. So I hope you enjoy that blueberry muffin.
