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<back | home For Cal Poly Students, Sustainable is Attainable by Jesse Churchill Early in 2003, Cal Poly unveiled plans to build the largest student-housing complex in the country to date. For people worrying about the looming student-housing crisis, this was a relief. To individuals seeing the importance of sustainability issues, Student Housing North was a potential mistake. A hearing was held to incorporate community input into the design, and apparently the developer, Capstone, did not hear a thing. Come Fall 2003, a group of Cal Poly students organized to speak out against the irresponsible plan. We wanted to know why an apartment complex with 2700 beds should be rushed into construction. We wanted to know why the environmental impact report was passed so quietly in the summer when those whom it would impact the most were not here. We wanted to know why Cal Poly wanted to build something that took into consideration almost no sustainable building practices while at the same time boasting an environmentally-aware design department and a new master plan that preaches the virtues of sustainable growth. To our relief, Student Housing North was held off until 2008 due to budget issues. Our environmental drive continued even though it now seemed we had nothing to campaign for. We knew that if any change was to be made, we would have to find more people to join our group. Communicating with the web of environmentalists around the state, we found out about a group called the California Student Sustainability Coalition (CSSC). They were to be holding a convergence at UC Santa Barbara, featuring student activists from many of the UCs and CSUs around the state. With the help of Greenpeace International, students at the UCs fought a hard battle, resulting in the UC regents signing a plan that will mandate the use of clean energy on all campuses and the implementation of green building practices. This movement is part of a greater movement sponsored by Greenpeace on campuses all over the country, winning similar battles. For more information on the exciting development of Greenpeace’s campus campaign called "Clean Energy Now!" see the website, http://www.cleanenergynow.org The CSU students absorbed the positive energy of the UC’s success, and we got working on our own plan to bring responsible energy use and building policy to the CSU system. At this time, we were also appointed a Greenpeace representative to guide us. What we are doing is much like what the UCs have accomplished; however we face an entity that is much more difficult to work with. We left Santa Barbara with hope and an overall feeling of empowerment. Seeing green change happening on a large scale and gaining the support of other CSU campuses gave us the encouragement we needed. With plans to send representatives to the Board of Trustees in March (the CSU equivalent to UC regents), our newly formed wing of the CSSC had a strong direction. CSSC members at Cal Poly went to work, talking to other students about issues of clean energy and sustainability, sending out for letters of endorsement, talking to our faculty, getting petitions signed, and planning for the next CSSC convergence, to be held in San Luis Obispo. This time we would focus on preparation for the meeting with the trustees the following week. The convergence went smoothly, and we successfully built community and gathered our energy once again. And the group gathered more than 1500 petition signatures from concerned students all around the CSU. Most people seem to support using clean energy and sustainable building practices, but in many cases, people are not given these alternatives. We in the CSSC will continue to garner student and community support and, hopefully, will bring the implementation of these alternatives to the entire CSU system. It is only a matter of time before the continued mistreatment and disrespect of the natural systems will come back around and bite us humans. As students of change in our generation, we will raise clean energy and sustainable building out of the realm of "alternatives" and call them as they are; the long awaited solutions. If you want to find out more about the CSSC movement at Cal Poly, please contact me at jchurchi@calpoly.edu, or Tyler Middlestadt at tmiddles@calpoly.edu. A website is also under construction at www.renewcsu.org. Tyler Middlestadt will also be conducting a workshop at the GreenEarth Festival on June 5th in SLO. <back | top^ |