Category | Arts & Living

Environmental alliance organizes Earth Day fest

Published on April 28, 2009 by Mallory Brewer

KSU celebrated our planet on April 22 with four hours of recycled art, jewelry, T-shirts, herbs and other goodies on the campus green.

Six KSU Environmental Alliance (EA) members-Branden Macie, Morgan Booker, Julianne Trew, Sarah Christopherson, Andrew Doak and Molly Flageolle-organized the Earth Day event with the help of many donations from various companies and much support from KSU faculty.

They didn’t charge for items like potted herbs or compact fluorescent light bulbs because the message behind these giveaways was more important. “We realized that people are attracted to giveaways,” said EA President and junior environmental studies major Branden Macie. “We also value the relational aspect of handing out goodies-people talking to people about the issues and involvement in the issues.”

Even WingZone was representing the EA’s fundamental message of “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle,” with one of its vehicles powered by biofuel. “I think they were great attention getters,” Macie said. “Folks are attracted to food-food is comforting and uniting. Our objective with having WingZone at the event was to talk with people who felt comfortable.”

“We’re trying to increase people’s awareness-the greater impact of what they’re doing on a day-to-day basis,” Macie said.

“We want to educate people that the decisions they make affect everything else,” said Morgan Booker, EA creative director and senior art major. Booker is a student representative for Vegan Outreach, a non-profit, non-KSU affiliated organization and part of the Food Justice Committee that aims to educate people about cruelty-free food. “I’m just one part of the EA with the food thing,” Booker said.

That said, the EA’s approach is multi-faceted-the topics that concern the group affect our health, our environment and our economy. “At each meeting, there is an educational component for students. We have open discussions of the issues we learn about and we focus our energies to bringing light to many destructive issues,” Macie said. “You don’t want to jump in without being educated. Just from educating yourself, with one clear, present, thought-out action, you affect change in your life.”

Although all environmental issues are interconnected, some are more worrisome than others. “For the most part, I worry about water-related issues,” Macie said. “Our daily consumption-whether it is drugs, food, drink, whatever-impacts the water system we drink from.”

EA Vice President and freshman art major Julianne Trew is also concerned about our water supply: “Water pollution affects the entire planet’s way of life, even if you don’t personally realize it,” she said.

“The real-life impact that everyone can easily make is just to conserve more energy. Conservation is the first and most important step in creating realistic energy futures for all of us,” Trew said.

Dr. Troy Mutchler, assistant professor of Biology, supported Trew’s words: “The best thing people can do is consider the true costs of their daily activities. Everything we use and consume takes energy and resources to produce. There are often hidden, non-monetary costs to acquiring and using energy and resources, such as pollution or resource depletion.”

“What we see is the only thing we believe,” Macie said. “We have to be conscious of the fact that material things do not disappear. All things just move locations for a change in composition in a continuous cycle.”

The EA tries to make believers by bringing the destructive consequences of our activities to light. “Give them facts and figures. You have to keep trying,” Booker said.

Another problem the EA faces is just the general American mentality. “This society focuses on the short-term effects,” Macie said. He explained that many people care more about their own pleasure to consider the consequences of their activities. “Happiness matters,” Macie said. “But so do the long-term effects.”

Macie himself stopped eating meat just over a year ago because the biological, chemical and physical disturbances from our agricultural industries concerned him. “Taking it upon myself to make personal changes helped me realize the importance of my own health and how significant it is to help the environment,” Macie said. Trew seconded Macie’s opinion: “When you start taking care of yourself, you start taking care of the environment.”

The group began as a committee to serve over other environmental organizations at KSU, but eventually, all the groups merged to form the Environmental Alliance. “Now we are focused as a single organization, trying to inspire individual change,” Macie said. Booker agreed that as a group, the EA wants to enlighten and inspire.

Also in the EA’s history is a struggle for student support. “I attribute it to the fact that our campus is heavily comprised of commuting students. As a result, student involvement, as a priority, is lost in translation,” Macie said.

Clearly, EA members are passionate. When they find others who are just as passionate, Macie and Booker agree that these people make their work worthwhile. One student, sophomore art major Jessica Thompson was intrigued by Earth Day’s offerings. “I came to Earth Day because I heard there were craft-type things and I love that kind of stuff,” Thompson said. “I love being around people who feel the same way I do about keeping the world clean and beautiful.” She likes to do her part for the earth by recycling. “It’s so easy, so why not?” Thompson said.

Another student, Scott Milne, a freshman Criminal Justice major, rode his bike out to the Earth Day event to celebrate our planet and to get free stuff. “I like the earth and it should be respected,” Milne said.

EA members, Trew and Macie in particular, were pleased overall with Earth Day’s turnout. “I feel like the event circulated some energy around the focus of environmental consciousness-being fundamentally aware of our every decision,” Macie said.

“I was really amazed with the turnout we had-I feel that Earth Day was extremely successful. The organic shirts went very quickly and I planted a really large amount of herbs with people. I got a lot of opportunities to share my knowledge about composting and vermicomposting with people that were really interested in it,” Trew said. Although she got sunburned from sitting in the sun all day, “Earth Day was totally worth it,” Trew said.

Director of Sustainability and Professor of Biology Dr. Robert Paul strongly believes that celebrating Earth Day is important because of how our society orients itself. “We live in an indoor society-fewer than 20% of young people in the U.S. spend a significant amount of time out in nature. Earth Day can serve to focus our attention on the fact that we are part of the natural world and we need to be good citizens of our planet,” Paul said.

Despite all the facts and figures, some people still pay no mind to celebrations such as Earth Day. “There are people, some right here on our campus, who roll their eyes when hearing about concepts like sustainability,” Paul said. It’s not just students; Paul said he has heard his own colleagues dismiss environmental education as “just a passing fad.”

Mutchler warns that considering your impacts only once a year is not sufficient. “[Earth Day] is only one day, and people need to think about human interactions with and impacts on the earth in their daily lives throughout the year. Earth Day is not just about the earth-it is about us,” Mutchler said.