Inigenous Activist Leo Cerda To Speak Thursday!

SDS and EON bring you Leo Cerda!

Leo Cerda is an indigenous human rights and environmental activist from Ecuador. He was born in the Amazon region of Ecuador, and his activism has focused on that area. Since he was 14 years old he has been fighting oil exploitation in the Amazon region of Ecuador, speaking in indigenous villages across Ecuador about the costs and consequences of the oil industry. These costs range from the destruction of the local environment to global climate change. He has also worked to support sustainable alternatives to oil for indigenous communities, including organic products cooperatives.

He will be speaking about the destruction he has seen and experienced in the Ecuadorian Amazon, what local groups are doing to resist this destruction, and what we, as American college students, can do to help.

He will speak Thursday October 30th at 6pm in Exely 150.

Energy in the Elections

"The presidential race grabs the headlines, but it is hardly the only contest that matters for the future of energy and climate policy." -Kate Galbraith, New York Times

Check out the the New York Times' list of energy-related races here.

Climate Justice Workshop, Tuesday October 21st

On Tuesday October 21st, activist and musician Evan Greer will be facilitating a workshop called "Connecting the Dots of Climate Justice: Community Autonomy and Sustainability." The workshop starts at 4 30pm and it will take place in the WestCo Cafe. It will be followed (after a break) by a concert in the Cafe at 9pm with Evan Greer, Broadcast Live and Crocodiles.

Below is a description of the workshop and a link to the flyer!

hope to see you there!
Connecting the Dots of Climate Justice
Workshop / Strategy Session
with Evan Greer of the Riot-Folk! Collective & Rising Tide

This popular-education workshop weaves together music, stories, guided discussion, images, and games to help groups to identify and understand the root causes of climate change and the related systems attacking our planet and our communities. With this knowledge, we will brainstorm creative responses that everyone can take part in.

Climate Change is too often framed as simply an issue of too much carbon in the atmosphere. Climate Justice is about seeing climate change as the product of hundreds of years of colonialism and other forms of injustice, and recognizing that the communities who will be most affected by climate change are the same communities who are already oppressed by this society.

Everyone has something to bring to the discussion, and we will cover topics and ideas ranging from gender liberation to community gardening. The focus will be on identifying ways to strengthen local organizing and connect with other social movements in our area.

Facilitator Evan Greer is a twenty-three year old activist, educator, and musician from Massachusetts. He tours internationally as a political songwriter and is a founding member of the Riot-Folk! Collective, a group of 9 musicians who work together to use their music to support grassroots justice organizing. Evan has spent time as a relief worker in New Orleans, a street medic at the G8 Protests in Scotland, and a youth and community organizer in Boston, where he currently lives. His deep involvement in movements for social and ecological justice gives him a unique perspective on the many ways that we can address the problems facing our planet and our communities.

[formatting edits: alex, 10/19]

Things that are happening in the near future

The near future being this weekend...

1. Green Corps Info Session TODAY (Thursday) at 7 pm in PAC 002
2. Where on Earth are We Going? Seminar, Saturday 8:30-12
3. Table under the Festival on Foss Hill tent this Saturday from 12-3

Film Series: The End of Suburbia

The EON film series presents

What: a film about oil
When: TOMORROW, Tuesday 10/14 at 8 pm
Where: PAC 002

Composting with Green Machines

You may have all noticed some strange, green plastic barrels around campus. They look something like this:


Well, they aren't just any plastic barrels, my friends; they're green machines! And they are just waiting to be filled with your food scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags and wilted flowers! All you have to do is put in your compost, give the barrel a spin and you will have done your part in composting at Wesleyan.

The only rules are:
1. No meat, dairy, or large amounts of grease (protein takes longer to break down) and no plastic, paper or metal. Everything else organic goes in to decompose!
2. When you're done turning the barrel, please leave it lid down so that unwanted liquid can drain out.

The compost, when broken down, will be driven out to Long Lane Farm to help the vegetables there or will substitute fertilizer on beds around campus.
If you live near a green machine (look for them on Fountain, Lawn, by WestCo, near Fauver, at Mocon Circle, near Low Rise, at the Wash. Houses, in front of Usdan and in the Butts Courtyard), you can just use an old yogurt container, pot or bowl (with a lid) to store your compost until you have time to walk it out to the green machine to empty it.
Thank you for composting- the worms and I love you for it.

For more info on compost:
http://vegweb.com/composting/
http://compostguide.com/
If your green machine is full or smells horrible, e-mail compost@wesleyan.edu!

Article: Is immigration an ecoissue?

I came across this article while cruising through online news this morning.

It brings a lot to the table and could make for quite the discussion.... I'd like to hear what people think.

[This is a world map showing carbon emissions from 2000. Check out all the different ways you can see the world @ worldmapper.org]

On a similar note, I'm reading an amazing book right now called Hope's Edge, which is Frances Moore Lappé's follow-up from Diet for a Small Planet. In Hope's Edge, Lappé and her daughter travel around the globe meeting with a variety of people who are trend-bending in the face of so much that's wrong with the world. The book's a few inches thick but an easy, enjoyable read, so if anyone wants to borrow it when I'm done, let me know. It's for sale at Broad Street, too. If your optimism and hope ever need a boost, this is the book for you!

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Photo of the Week

(tree on a beach in niantic, ct)

Environmental Symposium on October 18th

Check out this article in the Wesleyan Connection about the upcoming Environmental Symposium, to be held Saturday, October 18th in Science Center 150. There's more information on the website of the Environmental Studies Certificate Program. Speakers will include Wesleyan's very own climate change celebrity, Gary Yohe (pictured above), William Blakemore '65 of ABC News, and Richard Houghton of the Woods Hole Research Center.

CAKE

(This is John McCrea, the lead singer of Cake. After one concert, I managed to catch him out back and somhow spluttered, of all questions, "do you like Kurt Vonnegut?" Why I asked that, I don't know. For the record, he said yes).

Cake has been my favorite band for a hugely long time. Once, in high school, I drove three hours and went through the giant pain that was booking a hotel room as a minor (it involved some calls from my mom) because I wanted to see them so badly. My favorite game is "guess the Cake song" (mostly because I get it right pretty much every time). Needless to say, I'm obsessed.
Part of the reason I keep coming back to Cake is that not only is their music amazing, but they are a band that actively cares about things. A glance at their news page quickly reveals that issues like big oil, global warming, and Washington politics are important to them. They definitely have strong opinions and aren't bashful about being upfront about them, but they're not just talk...they actually do things, like encourage concert-goers to carpool, give away trees at concerts, and install solar panels on their studio. Here's a video about their solar panel installation:

Pretty cool, yeah? I'll leave you with one of my favorite songs (predictably, it's impossible for me to choose just one). Enjoy!

Toxic: Garbage Island

I heard about this web series last semester in my student forum, and finally got around to watching it at the beginning of this year. It's a 12-part series of web episodes chronicling the travels of three VICE magazine reporters as they journey to the Pacific Gyre, the location of the elusive "Pacific Garbage Patch." The result is hilarious, hip (there's a lot of American Apparel), and even a little raunchy (there's some kissy kissy at one point). The level of plastic contamination in the ocean is driven home with visuals of the samples they collect along the way and interviews with the captain and researcher on board. The basic deal is that there are TONS of tiny bits of plastic in the ocean (which happen to collect at this point in the Pacific Ocean where four major currents intersect). The plastic bits come from everything from regular trash to industrial waste (especially common and terrible are the pellets leftover from the manufacture of plastic items). Lots of the plastic is bisphenol-A, a pretty nasty chemical.

Anyway, there's lots more (much more than I can summarize here) in the videos, so check that out. Also read this article written by Thomas Morton (the guy from the web series) about his frustrations with environmentalist types and also an interview with Michael Shellenberger (author of The Death of Environmentalism). He's all about focusing on industry and the development of that instead of trying to limit or "just use less." Personally, I'm for reducing and using less, though I do think it would be most productive to work on both fronts (encourage industry along with trying to foster a cultural shift to a less consumption-obsessed society). But I also still need to actually read the Death of Environmentalism, so who knows, maybe that'll impact my opinion.