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Latest News - Environment
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UW Aims to Be National Leader in Sustainability
Students at the University of Washington recently proposed a Campus Sustainability Fund to improve the school’s environmental sustainability and to encourage student leadership in "green" projects on its campus.
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WMU Launches Eco-thon to Reduce Use of Electricity
This week, Western Michigan University is launching a month-long Eco-thon in its 11 residence halls as part of an effort to reduce electricity usage on campus and encourage more responsible energy use habits among students.
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Kansans Want Wetland Protection from University
“Don’t Pave!” rang out across Strong Hall Lawn at the University of Kansas at Lawrence on Nov. 2, as forty student-activists and locals summoned the administration to save 20 acres of wetlands from the proposed South Lawrence Trafficway.
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Thousands Rally For Climate Action
Campuses and communities across the nation gathered for an International Day of Climate Action Oct. 24, hoping to raise awareness and spur global decision-makers to reduce pollution.
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Students Rally for Clean Energy in Massachusetts
Massachusetts Power Shift, a statewide network of climate activists dedicated to solving environmental problems, called on the state to lead the nation with a bill for 100 percent clean energy by 2020 in a rally on the lawn outside of the Science Center at Harvard University on October 1st.
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Iowa Public Universities Heed Student Advice on Coal Ash
Heeding the advice of concerned student environmental activists and administrators, Iowa’s three largest public universities will begin a groundwater-monitoring program at the unlined quarry in Waterloo, where they dump coal ash.
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Students Call for Global Warming Solutions
As the Senate prepares to consider the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), which would establish a framework for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, Student Public Interest Research Group (Student PIRGs) chapters around the country yesterday teamed up with Campus Progress, the Energy Action Coalition, and Clean Energy Works to organize students to call their Senators in support of reform.
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Syracuse and SUNY students celebrate National PARK(ing) Day
In honor of National PARK(ing) Day, students from Syracuse University and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) worked with COLAB to convert 20 parking spaces into public relaxation spaces including a beach, a kitchen table and a yoga instruction spot.
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University of Minnesota Student Videographers Promote Sustainability
As Universities across the country are submitting plans to go climate neutral, five student videographers at the University of Minnesota-Morris are producing a five minute film for the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) to encourage other higher education institutions to join the movement to reverse climate change and find clean energy solutions.
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Oregon Students Arrested in Logging Protest
After four days of protesting a timber sale at Elliott State Forest in Douglas County, Oregon, five University of Oregon students and 22 Eugene-based protesters were arrested on Thursday, July 9.
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Education Leaders Push for Green Energy Education
As the U.S. Senate takes up the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a bill to clamp down on global warming pollution, higher education leaders are advocating that the bill help to fund education for a green energy economy.
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L.A. Community Colleges Going Green
Thanks to voter-approved bonds, the Los Angeles Community College District is able to move forward with $5.7 billion worth of green building projects despite cuts in other areas of their budget.
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Most Colleges Meeting Climate Commitment Goals
78 percent of the colleges and universities that signed up for the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment are in good standing, meaning they are meeting their deadlines to submit plans and timelines for achieving “climate neutrality.” The initiative began after a coalition of environmental student organizations lobbied their universities to take action against global warming as part of their “campus climate challenge.”
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Ban the Bottle Hits Seattle
As part of Earth week, Seattle University students are working hard to spread awareness of the use of plastic in bottled water. The events are part of a movement of students working to eliminate bottled water from campus because of environmental and social justice concerns.
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Earth Hour
Campuses across the country joined millions worldwide for Earth Hour this Saturday – an hour when people around world reduced their electricity usage for one hour in an effort to raise awareness about how energy consumption contributes to global warming.
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Power Shift 2009
12,000 students descended on Washington D.C. this past weekend for the second annual Power Shift conference, organized by the Energy Action Coalition.
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Going Green On Less Green
Many universities have been “going green” over the past several years for environmental reasons, but the cost-savings from energy conservation and efficiency are giving universities even more incentive during the economic downturn.
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Booing Bottled Water
Students in the Social Responsibility Club (SRC) at St. Cloud State University are encouraging their classmates to forego bottled water, noting that, on average, their fellow classmates spend as much money on water bottles as they do on gas.
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ASU ♥s Public Transit
Arizona State University-Tempe students pedaled in droves last Thursday for the “We ♥ Public Transit” day biking event to advocate for at least $12 billion of funding for public transit in the final version of Congress’s stimulus package.
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Students Set to Lobby Congress for Clean Energy Policy
On Feb. 27, nearly 10,000 young people from across the country will come together in Washington, D.C. for one of the largest youth summits in decades, the 4-day Power Shift 2009 conference. Power Shift is a national youth summit with the aim of influencing legislators to introduce and implement sustainable climate and energy policy.
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Students Draw Attention to Flu Vaccination Risks
In the heart of the flu season, Ball State University students are working to ban a popular influenza vaccination, Fluzone. Ball State members of Truth Movement, a group dedicated to discussing and informing others about seldom-discussed or publicized facts, are working to expose the risks with one of the Fluzone vaccine’s preservatives, thimerosal, which contains microscopic amounts of mercury.
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Eco-Friendly Competition
Students from the University of Florida are combining their competitive nature with concern for the environment. Dormitory residents compete in an eco-friendly challenge called "Battle of the Halls: Eco Challenge," which runs from now until March 28.
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Recyclemania 2009!
The ninth annual college recycling competition, Recyclemania! is kicking off on 409 campuses across the country in the next few weeks.
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Recylemania 2009!
The ninth annual college recycling competition, Recyclemania! is kicking off on 409 campuses across the country in the next few weeks.
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San Diego Students Utilize Auto-Owning Alternatives
University of California at San Diego is largely considered a “commuter” school, with 66 percent of the faculty, staff and students reporting a daily single person car ride to campus in 2001. Students groups and campus administration took steps to offer alternatives to all those solo car rides and now that number is down to 49 percent and falling.
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Clean Power With Power Vote
For the youth of the planet, a future without clean energy means no future at all. Power Vote, a national nonpartisan effort ran by the Energy Action Coalition is working to bring climate change to the forefront of the election by mobilizing 1 million young voters to pledge their vote for clean energy.
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Al Gore Junior?
The Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded Harvard graduate student Eric M. Leibensperger the EPA’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) fellowship for his research on climate change.
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Sustainable Sustenance
Last week, as a precursor to Harvard’s upcoming “Sustainability Week,” a panel of faculty members came together with prominent chef Alice Waters to discuss the role of sustainable food in people’s lives.
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UC Berkeley Tests New Water Recycling Method
Researchers at UC Berkeley are using Wurster Hall on the campus to
experiment with a new water-recycling program that hopefully will be implemented in multiple buildings. The system will separate wastewater by color and treat them separately.
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Presidents Show Lack of Climate Commitment
The deadline for the signatories of the historic “American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment” to submit inventories of their school’s carbon footprint has come and gone and fewer than half of committed institutions actually submitted reports.
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Ike Recap
Texas colleges on the Gulf Coast were ravaged by Hurricane Ike, and are just now starting to reopen their campuses.
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Campus Shuttle Runs on Vegetable Oil
For the past several years universities have been taking steps to reduce their carbon footprints by making campus facilities and services more eco-friendly. One popular way to reduce energy consumption is to power campus shuttles with bio-diesel or vegetable oil.
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It Ain’t Easy Being Green
All over the country campus dining halls are going green. One of them is Boston College’s Corcoran Commons, where Styrofoam plates will be replaced with decomposable plates.
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Schools Take the Lead on Green Practices
Colleges and universities are not just securing America’s future by educating the next generation of competitive thinkers. Colleges and universities are also setting the standard for environmental policy.
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Green is the New Black
Colleges and universities are quickly realizing that one of the best ways to attract students is to go green.
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Earth Day 08
Tuesday marked the 38th annual Earth Day, and campuses across the country used the event to celebrate, educate, and advocate environmental awareness. Some campuses held events over the weekend and some on Tuesday, many including a mix of concerts and information fairs.
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Rising Gas Prices Inspire Facebook Organizing
As the price of gas continues its steady increase, concerned Facebook users have created more than 500 global groups dedicated to griping about gas and brainstorming ways to lower prices.
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Energy Orbs Gage Energy Consumption at Oberlin
Oberlin recently kicked off its first ‘Ecolympics’ by installing energy orbs on campus. The orbs, located in each dorm’s lobby, glow different colors representing that dorm’s energy consumption.
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Earth Hour
Last Saturday students from colleges and universities across the country joined others from across the globe in turning off lights and appliances for an hour in observance of Earth Hour, an event to promote Global Warming awareness.
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Recyclemania Update
RecycleMania – a 10-week competition between college and university recycling programs in which campuses compete in different contests to see which institution can collect the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate – has passed the halfway point for the 2008 competition and schools are checking out their chances.
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Big Fans of Biofuel
As students are working to promote clean energy, both by using the university to research new solutions and by pushing the campus to use available clean technology, many are turning to biofuels.
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An Hour for Our Earth
The University of Chicago’s Student Government recently voted to join seven other Chicago colleges to conserve energy by turning off their lights for an hour on March 29th as part of Earth Hour.
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Go With the FLO
A group of students at the University of North Carolina recently created Fair, Local, and Organic Foods – which they call FLO Foods – a group spreading awareness and working with UNC’s Dining Services to implement sustainable buying practices on campus.
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Bigger is Better When It Comes to Bottle Bills
The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) is teaming up with over 600 organizations in the state to convince the New York State Legislature to include the "Bigger Better Bottle Bill" in the April 1st budget.
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Green Miles
A group of students at the University of Colorado, Boulder are raising money and looking to find sponsors for their upcoming summer road trip, an adventure they are calling “Option Green.”
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Campus Climate Challenge
Students from WashPIRG chapters at the University of Washington, Evergreen State College, Whitman College, Western Washington and Green River Community College united in Washington’s state capitol, Olympia, last week for a day of environmental advocacy and awareness as part of the Campus Climate Challenge.
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Students Protest Coal Plant
This past Sunday more than 50 students from the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition representing 10 Ohio colleges and universities protested in front of the homes of Ohio Environmental Protection Agency director Chris Korleski and CEO of American Municipal Power – Ohio Marc Gersken, the men responsible for the final decision on a proposed coal plant in southeast Ohio.
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Students React to Tornadoes Impact on Colleges
Along with Super Tuesday’s political excitement came one of nature’s most feared forces: tornadoes. Throughout the southern U.S more than 50 people lost their lives when over 80 tornadoes swept through Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and other areas, destroying nearly everything in their paths.
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Energy Challenge
To celebrate National Campus Energy Reduction month, Students at the University of Florida will soon kick off The Biggest Saver: Battle of the Halls Energy Challenge, a competition in which students cut back on electricity and water used in their halls.
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Student-Developed Tool Tests Campus Energy Emissions
The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Calculator, developed eight years ago by a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire, has been one of the most influential tools used to determine the strengths and weaknesses of college campus energy emissions.
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Battle of the Bulbs
The Green Campus Initiative, a student environmental awareness group at the University of Chicago, kicked off its second annual Battle of the Bulbs energy-reduction competition last Thursday.
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Toilet Paper Trees Can Support
Student members of the University of Vermont Forest Crimes Unit rallied on campus as part of the Kleercut Campaign: a campaign focused on getting the university to join a host of other schools in cutting ties with Kimberly-Clark, the national distributor of Scott and Kleenex tissue products.
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Solar Decathlon
The U.S Department of Energy has selected a team of students from the University of Minnesota to participate in the third-annual Solar Decathlon.
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Students Drink Water to Save Water
In affiliation with the national 1000 Wells Project, students at Texas A&M have organized the “Two Weeks of Sacrifice” fundraiser in which students pledge to give up all beverages except water for two weeks, to pool the money they would have spent on beverages, and donate it to build clean-water wells in impoverished African communities.
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Students Encourage River Community to Dream Big
Seniors enrolled in the University of Washington’s Community, Environment and Planning Program are conducting neighborhood research and holding community workshops in an effort to clean up Seattle’s heavily polluted Duwamish River, one of the most hazardous sites in the country.
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Focus the Nation
Focus the Nation, a national teach-in to engage thousands of universities, secondary schools, and businesses in a discussion on finding Global Warming solutions, was held on Thursday at over 1,550 institutions nationwide.
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Extreme Recycling!
This past Sunday 350 schools began competing in the second-annual Recyclemania Campaign.
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Power Shift
In early November, close to 6,000 students from across the country gathered at the University of Maryland to attend Power Shift, the first ever youth climate summit.
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UNC Locavores
Students at the University of North Carolina hosted a “Fair Food Fair” to promote sustainable and locally grown foods.
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Reuse, Recycle
Student at the University of Illinois are working to improve recycling practices on campus and export them to the surrounding community, while students at Kansas State are focused on ‘reusing.’
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Think outside the bottle
Students at Tufts are organizing to convince the city of Boston to cuts its contracts with bottled water companies, and proclaim the quality of the city’s public water system.
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Princeton and PETA Meat Out
The Princeton Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) joined with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to co-sponsor a protest display, and also to hear from PETA's Senior Vice President as he discussed PETA’s tactical choices, as part of their campaign to raise animal rights awareness.
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Students Push for Greener Campus
Three students at the College of William and Mary will present administrators with a plan for making the campus a more environmentally friendly place, focusing especially on making the college carbon-neutral.
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Harvard to Serve Cage-Free Eggs
A student campaign for cage-free eggs in the dining halls at Harvard University was successful; the University will start serving cage-free eggs at the beginning of next week.
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Students to Vote On Cage-Free Eggs
Next fall, students at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh will vote on whether University food services will use cage-free eggs in their meals. The vote is in response to a student-circulated petition that garnered more than 750 signatures.
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Lessons in Sustainability
Two schools are showing interest in teaching their students about sustainability, offering new minors in the subject. In other sustainability news, participation in this year’s RecycleMania event was down at the University of California Davis.
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Students Kick Off Earth Week
Students at the University of Chicago celebrated Earth Week with workshops, demonstrations, and lectures—as well as a composting class, vegan food, and mini-golf—to focus on sustainability and environmental awareness.
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The Eco Chamber
Sustainability, ethics, and endangered species were at the forefront of innovative Earth Day activities.
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Waste Not
Students at UCLA hoped to raise awareness of how much students waste in dining halls by measuring the amount of food waste students produced in one dining hall in one day as part of the “Waste Watchers” project.
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Students Push for Climate Change Action
University of Maryland students are coming together in support of a Student Government Association referendum on renewable energy. Student activists from several universities initiated a four-day march on Trenton, New Jersey to promote action on global climate change.
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The New Black is Green
From carbon-neutrality to recycling, various facets of sustainability were big news at campuses across the country.
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Students Push for Sustainability
A student group from the University of Utah, Sustainable Environments and Ecological Design, has drafted a proposal to create a new office of campus sustainability. Duke Environmental Alliance began a new campaign called "Get Caught Recycling."
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We Got Green
Students at Dartmouth University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Washington, Lehigh University, Princeton University, and the University of Kansas worked on environmental issues this week.
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Students Sponsor Meatout
A student group at the University of Georgia, Speak Out for Species, held an event to celebrate The Great American Meatout.
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Campuses Keep Greening
The Student Government Association of the University of Vermont voted in support of the Clean Energy Fund. American University’s student group EcoSense is helping to plan a National Climate Action Day. ActivUs, a student activist group at Iowa State University, held a 'clean' car show.
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Macalester Leads the Way in Conserving Energy
Macalester College students conserved light and heat use during February's Campus Wars, a conservation event organized by Macalester Conservation and Renewable Energy Society and the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group.
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UVA Students Building Homes
Students and faculty at the University of Virginia are working together to remodel a historic house as part of the ecoMOD project, which focuses on creating ecologically friendly, affordable housing.
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Dispatch: Step It Up
Peggy Mansperger brings us word of the many events planned for Step It Up: A National day of Climate Action—including many organized by students and student groups.
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Students Take Initiative On Recycling
BU Green, a recently formed Boston University environmental conservation group, is kicking off a recycling competition between the school's residence halls. Another BU student group, the BU Waste Reduction Team, has submitted to administrators a proposal for revamping the school’s recycling program.
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Students Lament Lack of Recycling
Students living off campus at Brigham Young University have no way to recycle unless their landlord provides them with the proper cans—but they've come up with a few solutions.
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Tree Hugging
Students at Bates College will receive grant funding for a plan they devised to replenish some of the trees destroyed in the implementation of the school's current building project.
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RecycleMania Enters Week Five
RecycleMania is back in the news this week, with articles from Portland State University and the University of Delaware exploring the annual recycling competition.
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The Buzz on Sustainability
Environmental sustainability is big in campus news again this week, with articles from Baylor University, the University of California Berkeley, and Cornell University.
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Saving Energy
Students at three colleges at the University of California San Diego are competing to save the most energy.
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Students Push Environmental Campuses
The Nebraska Emerging Green Builders are working to design environmentally friendly buildings on campus and eventually throughout the state. Also, the second annual Midwest Student Clean Energy Conference was held last week at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
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Students Work to Expand Bottle Bill
Students from Syracuse University and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) were among the 150 people lobbying the New York State legislature to expand the Bottle Bill to noncarbonated drink containers.
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Student Group Urges Rutgers to Go Green
Members of the New Jersey Public Interest Group (NJPIRG) Student Chapters met with the Douglass College Government Association to propose that Rutgers get a little greener. The Daily Nebraskan explores the ways that students can make their lives more “green,” and what the University is doing to make its buildings more environmentally friendly.
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A Mascot for the Fight Against Global Warming
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services recently recommended that the polar bear be placed on the endangered species list, prompting a Bowdoin student activist to use the polar bear—also Bowdoin’s school mascot—as a mascot in the student fight against global warming.
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Campuses Get Greener
The lastest on the campus environmental front from Massachusetts, Colorado, and Missouri.
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Mardi Gras & Mania: Environmental Fun
The Mardi Gras parade in Berkley had a political bent this year, as students and community members marched in costume to the theme of “commuting the death sentence of global warming.” In other environmental news, “RecycleMania” continues.
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Eco-pledges from Central Oregon Community College
The Associated Students of Central Oregon Community College (ASCOCC) and Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG) joined up to hold an eco-pledge drive at Central Oregon Community College.
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Sitting in the Trees
Numerous UC Berkeley students sat in the oak trees on campus for 24 hours last week, protesting a plan for development that would remove the trees.
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Loyola Goes Green
Two new things are happening at Loyola that will make that campus a little greener.
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A Green February at Bryn Mawr
Together with Facilities Services and Dining Services, the Bryn Mawr Greens are challenging their campus to go on an Energy Diet.
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Students for Compost
A handful of students at the School of Environmental Science and Forestry have successfully revived a composting project.
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Students Plan for Sustainable Energy
A collective organization comprised of student groups at Johns Hopkins University is promoting awareness of global warming and proposed sustainability changes for their campus.
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Community Sustainability
Community sustainability is on the docket at Kenyon College, where a group of Kenyon administrators, students, and Gambier residents are meeting to examine the economic needs of the community.
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CU Students Promote Environmentalism
CU Boulder’s Program Council and the Colorado Public Interest Research Group co-sponsored a showing of Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
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Tulsa’s Student Senate Goes Green
The University of Tulsa’s Student Association Senate has passed a resolution calling for their administration to form a sustainability committee.
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It’s Report Card Time!
The Sustainable Endowments Institute just issued College Sustainability Report Cards to 100 colleges across the U.S. and Canada, evaluating their greening practices and endowment policies.
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An Inconvenient Truth
This winter break, two student leaders from Virginia Tech’s Campus Climate Challenge attended a training session to learn to give Al Gore’s lecture from An Inconvenient Truth.
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U Recycle
When the students of Union College met with administrative resistance about starting a recycling program, they decided to take care of it themselves.
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The Emissaries of Green
Student groups like Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) and the Campus Greens are playing a role in UW-Oshkosh’s plans to make the college an environmentally sustainable campus.
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Water Watch
Student interns working with MassPIRG are organizing river cleanups on an ongoing basis and in cooperation with Massachusetts Community Water Watch.
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Princeton’s Green Winter
Princeton’s environmental groups are campaigning for their fellow students to contribute to their efforts in absentia this winter.
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Harvard’s Cagey Campaign
Following in the footsteps of fellow Ivies at Dartmouth and Princeton, Harvard students have begun a campaign to make Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) a cage-free egg user.
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A Convenient Opportunity to Debate
The members of the University of Northern Colorado’s Environmental Studies Club held a screening of the Al Gore movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”
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Wind in their Sails
Earthlust, Swarthmore’s student environmental group, is holding a rally to cap off an outrageously successful semester.
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The Law of Hoof and Talon
Law students and animal rights go together like, well, like nothing we’d heard of before this: Emory School of Law students launched an Animal Law Student Conference last week.
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Oberlin Goes Climate-Neutral
Oberlin’s President Nancy Dye has committed to developing a plan for Oberlin College to go climate-neutral as soon as possible.
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Dispatch: Step It Up
Peggy Mansperger brings us word of the many events planned for Step It Up: A National day of Climate Action—including many organized by students and student groups.
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