Furman Greenbelt Sustainable Living Community

In the 1870s, the expansion of America into the west forced predatory animals into constrained territories, where prey was driven out and domesticated agricultural animals were used as replacement. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, wolves were consistently in the aim of the rifle, trapped, or even poisoned in Yellowstone, so that the so called more regal animals could thrive, like Elk (Route 2016, 1) . From 1914 to 1926, an estimated 136 wolves were slaughtered in Yellowstone Park. In 1926, what was believed to be the last of the Yellowstone wolf packs was executed by bullet without fanfare. Gray wolves had been exterminate throughout the states, retaining only a foot hold in Minnesota by 1960. By 1975, shortly after the wolf was listed under the Endangered Species Act, there begins to be inklings of a new program to reinstate the wolf to its former glory in the west.

By 1995, the wolves were back with the support of the public behind them. Wolves were captured in Canada and brought down to both Idaho and Yellowstone. The wolves they relocated ranged from as young as nine months to full adults of five years of age that had previously bred. The reinstatement of wolves was judged a success by 1996, leading to an increase in biodiversity within the park. The wolves provide far more balance between predator and prey populations within the park. Wolf kills provide food for grizzlies, scavenging animals, as well as coyotes, increasing their populations as well. Although, the future of the wolf depends on their depletion of livestock as well as the hunting habits of packs wandering outside of the park, not just their benefits.

The recovery of the wolf is far from over, however. More pockets of wolf packs must be established in order to ensure genetic sustainability within the species. Sadly, the wolf still only survives in 10% of its former range, while still facing consistent war from farmers. And while the wolf may find sanctuary in Yellowstone, beyond its barriers in Montana and Idaho, hunting and trapping season for wolves exists. Idaho and Montana delisted wolves in the year 2008, while Wyoming has continually come on and off delisting wolves. Still, the US Fish and Wildlife service continues to monitor the recovery path of wolves within these states to confirm an increase in their population. And in 2013, the Obama administration proposed to strip wolves of their protection within the states, however the courts argued otherwise, stating that it would be direct violation of the Endangered Species Act.

The Yellowstone Wolf Project continues to gather information about the packs within the park using radio collars. This information will both ensure their survival and permit the spread of information and learning about this beautiful animal of the west.

The population of wolves now stands around 100 wolves, with about 500 in the subsequent areas surrounding Yellowstone park. They have hit a plateau as of 2014, falling beneath the 174 population in 2010 by 70 wolves. This is due to the limited number of elk, which subsequently leads to fewer numbers of wolves.

We must continue to preserve this animal and promote their recovery. They are complex and beautiful, a definite symbol of the American west.

–Camiell Foulger

 

“.” America’s Gray Wolves: A Long Road to Recovery, Center for Biological Diversity, www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/gray_wolves/.

 

Staff. “Gray Wolves Create Balance between Predator and Prey in Yellowstone.” My Yellowstone Park, National Park Trips Media, 21 June 2015, www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolves-elk-balance.

 

Route, Bill. “Wolf Conservation in America’s National Parks.” Northland College, Northland College, 15 Oct. 2016, www.northland.edu/news/wolf-conservation-americas-national-parks/.

 

“Wolf Restoration.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolf-restoration.htm.

 

“Wolf Conservation in America’s National Parks.” The History of Wolves in Yellowstone, Yellowstone Wolf: Project Citizen Science, www.yellowstonewolf.org/yellowstone_wolf_history.php.

When you look at a game of chess, you might just see a board with pieces moving in every direction until somebody wins. To me, I see the chess board as a projection of our lives. Every move that is made on the board shows your personality and creative motives as you try to beat your opponent into submission. Depending on your personality, some players tend to play an open, aggressive style of chess where risks are taken in order to give yourself an advantage. Other players tend to play slowly; patiently waiting for his/her opponent to make a mistake. Just as you play on the chess board, the values you have gained from past experiences define your overall view of sustainability.

For instance, the chess openings I play tend to be slower, more strategic, and safer because I feel more comfortable in pouncing on my opponent’s mistakes instead of causing my own. This same strategy applies to my views on sustainability. For example, I enjoy understanding US policy decisions and how they affect Americans in the long-term. Reviewing policy decisions such as the US withdrawal from the Paris Accords allows me to connect my understanding of sustainability and realize that policy decisions like these do not help the United States. For example, it is estimated from 2020 to 2039 that “between $4 billion and $6 billion [would be spent] in annual coastal property damages from sea level rise and more frequent and intense storms” (“Climate Change: Information on Potential Economic Effects Could Help Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Fiscal Exposure”, 2017). Being strategic in decision-making not only helps on the chess board, but also saves people’s lives.

Strategic thinking is important for decision making, and your understanding of systems plays an important role in decisions. For instance, the World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen once said, “I am trying to beat the guy sitting across from me and trying to choose the moves that are most unpleasant for him and his style” (Markushin, 2013). What Carlsen excels at is his understanding of the weaknesses in his opponent. Just as in sustainability, it is necessary to recognize the flaws of the systems we create. Sustainability scientists constantly consider many different systems that are interacting with each other on different scales. However, one important thing that helps in understanding these interactions are the values of those who dictate how the system works. It is important to find these areas of interaction, known to be leverage points, “where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything” (Meadows, 1999). In chess, it is important to find the right move at the right time because it can lead to a chain reaction of positive effects for the rest of the game. The same idea holds true for sustainability to connect it.

Chess presents a unique opportunity for people to make mistakes and learn from them. Those in the field of sustainability have the challenge of finding the best continuation for society, so it is best to be strategic in our decision-making or we may soon be checkmated.

–Austin Powell

 

Climate Change: Information on Potential Economic Effects Could Help Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Fiscal Exposure. (2017). Gao.gov. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-17-720

 

Markushin, Y. (2013). 27 Great Chess Quotes from Magnus Carlsen. Thechessworld.com. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from https://thechessworld.com/articles/general-information/27-great-chess-quotes-from-magnus-carlsen/

 

Meadows, D. (1999). Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System. The Academy for Systems Change. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/

An activist is defined as: a person who campaigns to bring about political or social change.

My passions lie within the realm of environmental issues. I am taking a class called, Environment & Society this semester and my favorite lecture thus far has been on environmental justice and social activism. It has been a movement that arose out of a spearhead of groups in the 70s and is still going on today. It is sad to see individuals so blind about environmental issues going on in our world every single day. Our job is to speak up and not turn back. All we can do is change our habits in hopes that by electing politicians that support our causes, justice will be served.

Climate change isn’t stopping for anyone, so we need to start being activists in order to break through with radical change.

On January 20^th, I attended the Women’s March in Greenville, SC. The sun shined on a group on us Greenbelters (a group of environmental living and learning community members) from Furman University as we sang songs, and yelled at the top of our lungs for the powerful community speeches along with the crowd of thousands in attendance. Showing up is all we had to do, and showing up is all you have to do make a change.

The Women’s March was founded a year ago as a reaction to Donald Trump being elected into the White House in 2016. But most importantly the motive behind it all was to have women raise their voices and come together as a collective body to fight for equality in our country. Guess who started this movement? An activist.

I have been to my fair share of protests, activism meetings, and corner street rallies, thanks to my parents that thrived in the 70s.

However, last year was my first year going to a protest without my parents, and that was to the People’s Climate March in downtown Greenville. I rounded up a friend who is now living with me in the eco-cabins and has continually supported me on my activist journey. We made posters that read, “It’s getting HOT in here…” and “Save Our Planet…Climate Justice NOW!”

For the Women’s March, we got those same permanent markers out and drew up a sign that read, “They tried to bury us but they didn’t know we were seeds.” An activist is like a seed spreading their passion for a particular issue out into the community. By showing up and supporting a designated cause you are given a voice. By educating yourself with your cause you are becoming empowered. By sharing your stories and passion you are making an impact. Now all you need to do is don’t stop and live it out.

As I held my sign up high and proud at the March, I realized that was exactly where I needed to be. Yes, I am a college student and have plenty of other obligations and work to attend to, but where I was, was where I was meant to be.

Our lives are surrounded by a general motive to find our purpose in this world. Most people think they find this through getting an education, or finding a job they love, but at this stage in my life I have found my purpose in activism. Not a sideline or background activist, but an activist that despite it all will show up. Will you show up?

-Amie Newsome

 

Bibliography:

Mazzio, Jenna. “So You Want to Be an Activist? 8 Ways to Get Involved in Causes You Care About.” One Green Planet, 19 July 2014, www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/how-to-get-involved-in-causes-you-care-about/.

 

For the first time in decades, the United States is on the precipice of a Christmas tree shortage threatening to shatter the family tradition of picking out the perfect tree to spread holiday cheer. It turns out that the Great Recession from the early 2000’s caused a drastic drop in demand for Christmas trees. The old Druid tradition of dragging a live tree into a house is still a tradition in a modern times. Tree farmers plant new trees to replace their harvest each year. So, when consumers allocated their limited resources elsewhere, tree farmers could not plant the new crop to sell in the 13 to 14 year growing cycle.

Limited land, desired tree height, disease and drought all can have negative impacts on Christmas tree farmers. Consumers only desire a certain size that will fit in their house. Pines larger than six feet, and pines shorter than 4 feet are not desirable. The pines planted in the years before are too tall for most consumers. Conversely, the pines planted later are too short in stature. So in 2017, the repercussions of the recession are still being felt in a manner that probably wasn’t anticipated. A lot of consumers are considering buying artificial trees.

There are even some artificial tree manufacturers marketing their product as more sustainable than cutting down a perfectly healthy pine tree. What about the materials that go into producing the artificial tree? What is their composition? From where are they sourced? What are the transportation costs? How about fuel consumption and exhaust fumes? So, is the carbon footprint of an artificial tree larger than that of a real pine tree being harvested?

Farmers’ Markets all across the nation have seen a resurgence of popularity through farm to table initiatives. Will the same movement happen with local Christmas tree farmers?

-Sonia Clemens

Music festivals are a time to embrace new perspectives, connect with diverse groups of people, and enjoy great music but should this fun come at the cost of the earth? After attending Summer Set Music Festival this summer, I was astounded by the amount of waste left over. By the fourth day of the festival, a once pristine, beautiful campground was riddled with piles of crushed water bottles, left behind tents, and cigarette butts.

Although many festival goers are lovers of the environment, many become caught up in the hype oblivious to the waste they are creating. Music festivals produce on average 6 pounds of waste per person (Creative Carbon Scotland Music). That’s almost twice the national average! For a music festival such as Bonnaroo or Lallapalooza with over 60,000 people over 720 tons of waste is produced not including the fuel for stages and shuttles or the waste produced by vendors themselves. Typically once people enter the campsite there is no leaving, so the music venues must take action in advance to provide sustainable options and inform people of how they can prepare.
Here are a few options music festival venues could employ to reduce the amount of waste:
1. Provide campers with a green guide after buying tickets to help them pack sustainably with reusable bags or water bottles
2. Have water stations available so that campers may refill their water bottles or packs
3. Give each car entering the campsite a recycling bag which they can drop off after the festival to be properly disposed of
4. Offer free t-shirts, rides, or reusable water bottle for bringing in empty plastic water bottles or used cigarette butts. Currently Coachella offers a free reusable water bottle for every ten empty plastic water bottles campers recycle.
5. Have a bike parking lot to encourage festival goers to not use the shuttles
6. Make sure charity boxes are available at the end of the festival for unwanted items like tents.
7. Require food vendors to use recyclable plates, utensils, and cups

As a camper you can even reduce waste before you enter the festival by carpooling to the grounds with three or more people in order to reduce fuel usage. Carpoolchella is an app where Cochella festival goers who ride with four or more in a car can be entered into a raffle to win prizes!

Have a fun, hippie, and sustainable music festival!

-Kelsey DiMarco

References:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.mindbodygreen.com/articles/can-a-music-festival-be-100-percent-sustainable-7-creative-ways-festivals-are-getting-close

Connecting arts and sustainability

http://www.conservationvalue.org

If you have been living in a shell the last month or have trouble seeing then you probably didn’t notice the bright orange bikes EVERYWHERE around campus.  Spin bikes are spreading across the country, and influencing others to adopt a more sustainable alternative to driving.

“In its first 20 days, SPIN saw 656 unique riders and 4,500 rides more rides at Furman in the first week than did Seattle, Spin’s inaugural launch site” (1).What is all the hype around spin bikes? I mean bikes have been around for hundreds of years; the earliest bicycle being a wooden scooter-like contraption called a celerifere, invented around 1790 by a guy named Comte Mede de Sivrac. What’s so cool about spin bikes is that they are one of the first dockless bike sharing programs to launch across the U.S. with their Spin Cities Project launching first in Seattle.

A lot of my friends (and maybe sometimes me too) drive to class when we are running late in the morning or just around campus on a busy day. It only takes at most about 15 minutes to walk to any place on campus; although some of us like to convince ourselves that we don’t have 15 minutes in our busy day to spare. Then why not use our own bikes that a good percentage of our students have here on campus? It’s all about convenience, sometimes I don’t want to have to worry about riding my bike everywhere around campus during a school day and having to worry about locking it up every time and weaving in and out between the busy students waking between the academic buildings; sometimes Isimply prefer talking and walking besides classmates as well.  Spin has no obligations, you can leave it anywhere and you can lock it with a click of a button

I use Spin bike almost 4 days aweek and it has become such a great  way to get around campus. I have stopped driving my car around campus and I am rarely late to class anymore. My boyfriend and I can finally go on bikes rides together and take quick trips down trough the Swamp Rabbit Trail to have lunch in Travelers Rest. Majority of students don’t use their cars further than 5-10 miles from campus so Spin bikes are great for eliminating unnecessary car usage within short distances, limiting the pollution in cities and campuses.  Let me just say, I am a fan of Spin bikes and would recommend them to other students and other campuses to give them a try for their superb ease of use.

– Natalia Baldwin

 

 

 

References

1. https://news.furman.edu/2017/11/02/furman-taking-dockless-bike-share-program-for-a-spin/
2. https://seattle.curbed.com/2017/7/17/15980792/spin-orange-bike-share-launch
3. https://www.spincities.org

Here at a small, liberal arts university you wouldn’t think that food waste would be much of a problem. However, in an era of convenience and material goods, most people on campus take the accessibility of food for granted. We don’t need to worry about where our food is coming from, whether it will be available, how many resources went into cooking it, or where our scraps go after we finish our meal. The concept of the clean plate club flew out the window as soon as we left Mom’s domain.

As part of Furman’s sustainability initiative, we compost all the food waste created by the dining hall and from several other places on campus. On average we process more than 32 tons of food waste per year, most of which is composted. However, we only seem to use a minuscule portion of the compost, most significantly on Furman’s organic farm.

In our little Furman bubble we do not often think about our own wastefulness and its impact on our community and the rest of the world. There are people in our community who may not know where their next meal is coming from, while we continue to throw away huge proportions of food. We also expend resources (i.e. time, effort, energy as natural gas and electricity) in composting the food, the value of which exceeds the compost’s usefulness on our campus. In light of this, I find our wastefulness both unsustainable and disheartening to those less fortunate. However, I think that composting the food waste on campus is a wonderful idea, as it keeps most of the waste from entering landfills and generating leachate, and stopping this entirely would be a step in the wrong direction. But, the sheer volume of our output is far too great for our small size. There must be a change in this system moving forward.

Ideally, we would decrease our food waste and replace the chemical fertilizers that we currently use in landscaping with the mature compost. The dining hall could make changes as giving smaller portions, offering samples of the foods, or allowing students to serve themselves at some lines. Making the campus’ compost available as a marketable item for local farmers is also a good option. These changes could greatly benefit the campus, not just in the food waste, but with removing some of the harmful chemicals from our landscaping process. However, none of these suggestions are ‘one size fits all’ and though they could be successful in other situations, it does not mean they will be on this campus. For this reason, I think the school should encourage ongoing conversation to help evaluate and correct this system as it develops. I hope that through ventures like this, we can grow to more mindful of our actions and become better stewards of our planet.

Mikaela Williams

The company Nike, a major sports clothing and shoes distributor around the world, has made huge steps towards a more eco-friendly and sustainable style of production and manufacturing. The company released three goals as part of their sustainability project, which are to “minimize environmental footprint, transform manufacturing, and unleash human potential.” Nike has strived towards these goals by making changes in their factories and materials as well as by reaching out to young children to stress the importance of physical activity.

Several ways that Nike has altered its production style are shown through the use of different shoe technology, water-conserving techniques, and energy cuts. Nike has introduced a new shoe material called Flyknit technology, which provides the maximum structural support for athletes while remaining lightweight and easy to wear during physical activity. While providing the shoes needed for athletes to perform to their best ability, Flyknit technology also produces 60 percent less waste than traditional methods of making shoes. Along with a different shoe technology, the company has also introduced new methods of saving water during production in factories. Nike has started using a new dying method called ColorDry, which dyes fabric without using water. To make better use of recyclable and reusable trashed materials, Nike has found a way to utilize plastic bottles and material from old original Nike material to produce new clothes and shoes. Between 2008 and 2016, the company has rerouted more than 3 billion plastic bottles headed for the landfill and has instead turned these bottles into recycled polyester for Nike products. Also, the new plan Nike Grind has been introduced to use materials from older clothing as the framework for new clothing, saving fabric. In order to conserve energy, the Nike footwear manufacturers have cut down on energy needed and emissions generated to make shoes by 50 percent, saving company money while also helping the environment.

Along with making changes in the factory setting, Nike has also strived to push children to live more active lifestyles, which is another essential part of sustainability because it has been proven that physically active people are happier, healthier, and more vibrant. In order to influence this healthier way of life, Nike has reached out to schools around the world to spread awareness of the physical inactivity epidemic and to influence children to get up and moving as often as possible. By working with movements such as Let’s Move! Active Schools, Nike has impacted the lives of children across the globe by influencing healthy physical activity.

Clearly, Nike has made some serious changes to company habits and partnerships to make it a more sustainable business. These changes impact lives everywhere because Nike is a major sportswear company with lots of influence on the economy of the world and the depletionor conservation of natural resources.

Source: http://news.nike.com/news/sustainable-innovation

~Danni Vines

Compost.

Did you just picture a stinky pile of rotting fruits and veggies? Then you’re in the same boat as the majority of Americans. Composting sounds scary, but if it’s done right, it’s actually a simple, sustainable, and stink-free way to save money, create less waste, and make your own organically fertilized soil!

At the beginning of the school year, I was eager to try my hand at composting, but I didn’t how to do. After some coaching from Bruce the farm manager though, the Cabin was ready to try composting in the Tumbleweed behind our new home.

The basic principle behind composting is simple: let nature do its work. Soil contains natural microorganisms that break down organic matter, so in order to have a healthy compost pile, you want to make an environment to speed up this process of natural decomposition (as opposed to molding and rotting). For us, this meant getting a mix of partially-decomposed leaves, soil that already contained some compost from the Farm, a few banana peels, and coffee grounds.  That was it! And the compost pile was ready to go.

We keep an over-sized mason jar in the fridge to put compostable materials in and then empty it into the tumbleweed about once a week. We compost egg shells, fruit and veggie scraps, tea bags, coffee grounds, and paper napkins but make sure to exclude non-compostable material like meet scraps, dairy products, and very oily or molded foods. Everything seemed to be going according to plan…

Until we started seeing green bags of trash periodically appear in our tumbleweed. Someone in the community must have thought it was a trashcan. To solve the problem, we labeled the compost bin “Not a trashcan!” and when that didn’t work, we tried a different approach: “If you would like to compost with us please contact us at this email address.” We eagerly awaited an email from the mystery want-to-be-composter, but heard nothing. About every week another bag of trash would appear and I would take it out and throw it away. We were stumped.

Finally, we caught the culprit! …who wasn’t actually a culprit… and wasn’t actually putting trash in the compost bin. It turns out, that one of my own cabin mates was using green, compostable plastic bags to bring waste from the environmental science department to add to our compost bin. The mystery was solved! We could once again rest in peace.

Ansley Glenn ’20

 

source: http://www.bhg.com/gardening/yard/compost/how-to-compost/

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