Green Peak
New trends in the Columbia environmental movement
Here at Columbia, green is the new light blue.
The environmental movement has been steadily taking over the nation for quite some time, and Columbia students and administrators are also participating in this waste-wary wave.
Last semester, Ariel Zucker, CC ’09, earned a $500 grant to make campus composting a reality. The grant was received from Americans for Informed Democracy, a nonpartisan organization which seeks to form “globally conscious leaders” through programming and funding. Fifteen Columbia students are currently using worms to convert their waste instead of the other option—letting it rot in a landfill.
“For me, this is primarily an educational program. Most people have no idea how easy it is to compost, or why it’s important,” Zucker says.
The worms are put in bins filled with newspaper and water, a set-up that allows the worms to anaerobically respirate and break down the refuse. Bacteria further decompose the waste, essentially converting it into dirt. By putting up to five pounds of compost in the bins per week, participants will effectively convert their waste into food that will be used for their own plants and the trees around their homes. Though some students had trouble with the process at first, Zucker says “it’s just been a matter of adding enough dry bedding and feeding the worms the right amount.”
To supplement the project, the participating students are also making a short documentary on their localized composting.
“We hope that people will see [Columbia’s worm] composting, hear about it, learn about it, and take it with them after graduation. After all, if you can do it in a NYC apartment, where can’t you do it?” Zucker says.
The unique worm project is but one small aspect of the larger environmental movement at Columbia.
According to Jordan Selig, CC ’09, despite the fact that there are many obstacles for the “green” movement, both faculty and students seem to want to “take action and responsibility.”
The difficulty now remains for students to plug into the movement.
“Start snooping around, ask questions, use campus environmental issue for classes, and get involved with any group you can,” says Acadia Roher, president of Green Umbrella, which is the overseeing student organization for most of the environmental groups on campus.
Getting involved at Columbia shouldn’t be difficult, as there are a number of groups to choose from.
Aside from Green Umbrella, there is the EcoRep program, which is an initiative that pays students to tend to day-to-day environmental issues on campus such as energy and paper use and education. Another environmentally focused group is Students for Environmental Justice, whose campaign includes clever “Blow Me” T-shirts that promote the need for wind energy. Additionally, there is the Food Sustainability Project, which runs the JJ’s food co-op and other food-related projects, and EarthCo, an environmental organization that teaches environmental education to grade school children, among other programs.
Despite the plethora of campus environmental groups, there is a definite sense of cohesion among them.
“A lot of groups have liaisons that make sure that communication happens between groups. The Green Umbrella meets once a month to make sure everything happens. We all do publicity and generally support one another in every way we can—we’re all working toward the same goal,” Roher says.
Though the environmental cause at Columbia is primarily a large on-campus activist movement hoping to enact certain changes in the way the school functions, participants believe they have learned during the process of their activist work.
Amanda Rook, BC ’08 and Barnard EcoRep, says: “I’ve enjoyed doing campus sustainability work because it’s made me revise my academic experience. I see the campus as a system and a business now, I see it more practically, as a financially functioning unit.”
The Columbia administration made a big show of its so-called “green initiative” last year, handing out cute tote bags and hiring Nilda Mesa as the chair of Environmental Stewardship, but some green activists on campus still find the administration perplexing, particularly regarding what they perceive as a lack of publicity for the internal green changes the administration has made.
“I definitely think that Columbia should be publicizing all the great things they’re doing—some of them are invisible to us, but extremely important to improving the infrastructure of the University,” Roher says.
The results of the green student movement have been particularly impressive as well. Some of the changes it has produced are now largely taken for granted. For example, double-sided printing is a necessity on all campus printers, recycling bins are conspicuous and readily available, and the EcoReps program is an integral part of the campus community.
So while some student movements tend to get ripe only to wither later, the greening of Columbia is proudly at the peak of its prominence. With more students taking responsibility for their lives, for their campus, and for their planet, the green season appears to be permanent.