"How can Dartmouth become a sustainability leader?" will be one of the biggest questions and the overarching theme of this year's Earth Week, a week-long campaign that began last Friday and is hosted by the Sustainability Office.
On Monday, the Sustainability Office plans to hold two events, a solutions cafe and "#Six: What fuels you?".
The cafe event will feature a discussion with Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Harvard University professor James McCarthy. After a brief speech, McCarthy will host a conversation to generate interaction and intellectual discussion. The event will be co-hosted by the environmental studies department.
"It's really cool because it's a student-faculty collaboration on solutions to environmental issues," said Rosi Kerr, Sustainability Office director.
The second event, "#Six: What fuels you?," aims to spread awareness of the campaign to reduce the College's dependence on No. 6 fuel. EcoReps plans to set up tables in the Collis Center for Student Involvement on Monday and Tuesday to promote their cause.
"[This event gives] students a chance to learn about six and helps us to create a banner that will ultimately be given to President Hanlon to demonstrate student interest in diversifying our campus energy portolio, and moving beyond six fuel oil," EcoReps intern Patrick Saylor '16 said in an email.
EcoReps is one of several internship programs offered by the Sustainability Office, intended to introduce freshmen to campus environmental issues, said Seamus Bellew '16, one of 10 first-year students participating program.
EcoReps advocates a switch in College fuel away from No. 6 fuel, a highly viscous residual oil that is expensive and detrimental to the environment, to a more renewable source.
On Friday, EcoReps will host a tour of the College's underground power plant facilities to create dialogue about alternative energy sources on campus. The group plans to set up a solar panel later this week. The Sustainability Office will screen the movie "Pandora's Promise" (2013) on Tuesday afternoon, followed by a discussion with director Robert Stone.
The Sustainability and Social Justice Dinner will take place Thursday evening at the Hanover Inn. Visiting professor Terry Tempest Williams, COVER Home Repair executive director Rob Schultz, Sarah Alexander '14 and Nikkita McPherson '13 will host the discussion.
Each speaker will share his or her experiences about the intersection between sustainability and social justice, and search for ways to connect those two concepts at the College.
"Sustainability and social justice are interwoven concepts, but we don't always think that way, so a lot of the reasons for this dinner is to frame those two things together to give us a chance to think about how we can do that more creatively and more consistently throughout the year," Kerr said.
Remy Franklin '13, a senior Sustainable Dartmouth intern who is helping to plan the event, said he hopes the discussion will bring together different people involved in sustainability and social justice initiatives, for they are "often divided along demographic lines of affluence or cultural backgrounds."
Sustainability is still assumed to be a niche area of involvement reserved for the affluent social classes, which is a common stereotype people have of the environmental movement and a phenomenon seen among Dartmouth's sustainability and green groups as well, Franklin said.
"It's about thinking about how to sustain our communities, how we sustain our schools and our values," he said. "It relates to environmental sustainability, but it's not necessarily the same thing. That's a difficult concept to communicate with people, and the reason we are doing these weekend events."
On Friday, the final day of programming, the sustainability office will host the Dartmouth Sustainability Awards at the Top of the Hop. The College will hand out three awards to commemorate achievements in the College's sustainability movement.
In addition to Earth Week events, the Sustainability Office works year-round on smaller initiatives ranging from reducing the number of abandoned bikes on campus to expanding to hydration stations.
