Karina Hoepnner, sophomore music major, sits at the Daily Grind, sipping a pumpkin spice latte. Her serious eyes focus behind thin, black frame glasses towards the two people sitting across from her, Jessica Viges, senior biology major, and Dan Wiley, music major and senior. “Nature can live without humans, but humans can’t live without nature!” she says with a smile.
The three students are members of the Students for Environmental Awareness, a club born out of CSU-Pueblo that helps raise intelligence on issues such as recycling and clean living. They are excitedly discussing their upcoming trip to Washington D.C. to attend a training seminar provided by The People Speak and Americans for Informed Democracy.
Recently, the Students for Environmental Awareness have submitted ideas to a nationwide contest called Climate Crews, hosted on PeopleSpeak.org., a Web site dedicated to helping young people come together to help promote environment awareness and an affiliate of the P.S.A.I.D.
The Climate Crews contest urged college students nationwide to submit ideas and proposals of ways to help promote sound environmental thinking. A $500 mini grant was the prize awarded to the ten finalists with the most creative submissions, allowing their ideas to turn into reality. An additional $500 will be rewarded to the winner.
Out of the ten finalists, two were selected from the Students for Environmental Awareness, making CSU-Pueblo the only college with two winning submissions; the contributors were Viges and Hoepnner.
Viges’ contribution was the idea of a green directory. The green directory would work very much like a phone book, listing businesses and organizations that help the environment, through pollution prevention, the promotion of energy efficiency or steps to prevent global warming.
Examples of an entry in the green directory include restaurants that use locally grown or organic foods, thrift stores that sell used clothing, businesses that recycle or use recycled products and shops that sell Energy Star appliances.
Hoepnner’s contribution, selected by Climate Crews, is a documentary showing how much the average college student wastes. A campus wide survey would be conducted, with student volunteers being selected to go through the day documenting the things they waste, including how much trash they accumulate, how much water is misused, how much gas their cars consume, etc.
A calculator in the corner of the documentary would calculate the environmental impact each action has. Afterwards, examples of how to prevent these actions would be demonstrated.
Considering that the Students for Environmental Awareness have been active for just roughly a year, they have made serious strides in promoting their environmentally conscious ideals on the CSU-Pueblo campus.
“Our main goal is the education and promotion of the environment, and basically just getting people to think how their actions are affecting it,” Viges said.
Jessica Viges is the founder and president of the S.E.A. She is sitting at the coffee shop with an iBook, making preparations for the flight and sending emails to fellow members about upcoming projects. She has vibrant blue eyes and smiles excitedly when she speaks about the future of the S.E.A.
Raised in Portland, Oregon, Viges grew up in a more environmentally conscious community than that of Pueblo, Colorado.
“Everything was kind of green there and taken care of for you. You had your little recycling bin, you don’t have to sort your recycling…it was just a way of life there… but when I moved here, there was nothing!” Viges’ blue eyes open wide with animation, then settle back when she considers what she’s said. “Well, there’s stuff, but it’s very limited.”
Though she claims not to be the type to initiate things, she had just about enough after a year of living here to start the S.E.A. and to begin changing things for the better.
The S.E.A. has several projects geared towards helping the environment, designed not only to keep the campus in shape, but also to demonstrate to students how they can contribute as well.
One of the major projects that the S.E.A. upholds is campus recycling. Resting next to almost every soda machine on CSU-Pueblo property is a recycling box that students can use to dispose of their plastic waste. This material is then collected, bundled and then transferred to Colorado Springs for processing.
Though the boxes are simple cardboard at the moment, official plastic recycling bins will be available next semester.
Originally, the S.E.A. had planned on handling the recycling here in Pueblo at the bi-monthly plastic drive, but the amount of material collected proved to be too overwhelming.
“Our first week and a half, we collected over ten garbage bags full,” says Viges, “so we’ve had to drive them up to Colorado Springs.”
Fortunately, no one has had to go out of their way to deliver the collected material. A few of the core members, of which there are 14 with over 40 volunteers on the mailing list, commute from Colorado Springs to attend CSU-Pueblo.
Each of the 14 official members of the S.E.A. is responsible for a certain section of the school. When they’re not collecting recyclable materials, they focus on other projects, such as campus clean-ups and maintaining the xeriscape demonstration garden, a garden set up last year which is home to a variety of plants that thrive off of conservative uses of water and energy, located outside of the Physics/Math building.
Dan Wiley, senior music major, is one of these core members. He has a thin beard, a green jacket and a black t-shirt with the comment “On a cellular level, I’m really quite busy” printed in white type across the front, hinting at the sense of humor that peeks through his serious demeanor.
He is busy promoting a showing of “The 2% Solution”, a web cast that brings together top experts on climate change from around the nation to discuss global warming solutions. It will be broadcast from the Life Science Auditorium at 6:00 p.m. on Jan. 30, 2008, and everyone is welcome.
The following day will be even more eventful. The S.E.A will be hosting a Focus the Nation event on the CSU-Pueblo campus on Jan. 31.
Focus the Nation is a full day event which features guest speakers and students interacting with each other on the possibilities and realities of environmental awareness. It starts at 9 a.m. in the Occhiato University Center Ballroom and ends tentatively at 5:30 p.m., depending on the length of activities and speeches. A lunch break will be scheduled from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. and will offer free food to all attending.
The S.E.A have invited a variety of speakers, ranging from teachers to politicians, to come and have an open dialogue with students about their stances on environmental awareness and how they think things can be changed for the better.
“You can talk to the speakers and ask them what their stance is on climate change, the environment, basically things that are not going well and what they’re going to do about it,” Viges said. “People are actually paying attention and we’re trying to do as much educational events as we can.”
The S.E.A has several speakers and topics confirmed for the event, the titles of which are tentative, include:
- “Climate Change: More than Inconvenient” by JoDee Powers.
- “Solar Power” by Leslie Glustrom.
- “CSU-Pueblo Initiatives” by President Joseph Garcia (confirmed)
- “Humans’ biological/evolutionary basis that drives consumption and materialism” by Marc Pratarelli, Ph.D
- “Environmental Disasters: impacts on the earth by asteroids and comets” by Dr. Brown
The S.E.A. would like fellow campus clubs and organizations to participate in the event. Booths can be set up around the ballroom with each club having an activity or presentation showing how they contribute to the environment.
Interested clubs include the art club, who are considering an exhibit of how to recycle old denim jeans into handbags, as well as the CSU-Pueblo Today, who will show the benefits of online news compared to the waste producing printing methods of before.
Wiley is also interested in live music for the event and is currently looking for a band who would be interested in performing at Focus the Nation, hoping to add to the fun that is already planned.
Focus the Nation has a variety of sponsors, including the Desert Reef Hot Springs, Green Woman Mercantile, and the Golden Flower Health Clinic.
For more information on “Focus the Nation” and “The 2% Solution”, please visit http://www.focusthenation.org/
With so many upcoming projects, the S.E.A. has a lot on their hands. Volunteers willing to help with film making, camera work, or event planning would be greatly appreciated.
Meetings of the S.E.A. are held weekly, either on Mondays at 6 p.m. or Wednesdays at 3:30 p.m., and they can be contacted through e-mail at sea@colostate-pueblo.edu or sea.csup@gmail.com .
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i applaude efforts to make the area green and environmentally friendly.
the other side of the program would be to help joe homeowner capture enough knowledge and capital to make this a reality