Shades of Green in Madison County!

This past Friday, I was fortunate enough to attend the Shades of Green in Madison County conference on sustainability. The conference took place at Morrisvile State College in Madison County, NY, and while the focus was on sustainability measures being implemented in Madison County and the surrounding areas, many of the messages and ideas transcended location. As described by the conference’s website, the purpose of the event was to:

“…help individuals, businesses, and communities advance green initiatives throughout Madison County to achieve more economically viable, sustainable and healthier places to live, go to school, work, shop, and enjoy!  Check out the agenda on the conference program page and register today! Shades of Green in Madison County: A Green Living Experience is an initiative of the Madison County Community Economic Development (CED) Committee.”

The day started off with a presentation by Peter Fleischer, the Executive Director of Empire State Futures (ESF), a coalition of over 50 organizations working towards a more sustainable and equitable New York State, promoting the idea of “Smart Growth” for land use and business expansion. Mr. Fleischer discussed how ESF works to promote sustainable development across the state. One particularly poignant example was ESF’s work with the food industry. According to Mr. Fleischer, New York State annually produces 4.5 billion dollars of food annually. Now, this seems like a huge amount of food, but compared to the $30 billion of food consumed by New York City alone each year, it is clear that New York cannot sustain itself, which led the speech in the direction of discussing what kind of things are done to make this consumption more sustainable.

The rest of the conference followed this discussion. It was a sustainability junkie’s heaven – discussions and presentations were available about a variety of topics, ranging from historical preservation to composting, sustainable gardening to retrofitting lighting systems, and had just about anything you would want to learn about in a sustainable context. This is in addition to the dozen or so exhibitors from around the state, including some local energy companies, NYSERDA, and my good friends at YouSave Green! As an inspiring finale to the day, SUNY ESF‘s President Cornelius Murphy gave a brilliant Keynote speech on how ESF (Not the same as the first Keynote speaker’s ESF) has changed the world of sustainability and environmental awareness.

I managed to rack up a bit of information during the conference:

Attn: Readers - Prepare for a knowledge infusion.

I plan on using all of this information, combined with what the presenters spoke about to bring a whole smothering of new posts over the next few days, starting with an overview of President Murphy’s speech, and continuing on to include:

• Home Energy Efficiency
• Geothermal Heating Systems
• Shopping Locally
• Home Gardens and their Sustainability Impact
• Reusing Waste to Create Energy Sources
• Effective Composting
• Coordinated Transportation Systems

Check back often to see all of these awesome posts!

Anything specific you want to learn about? Let me know!

Water Taste Test Shocks, Surprises SU Students

All day today in Schine Student Center, the Syracuse University Sustainability Club ran a water taste-test, challenging students, staff, potential students and their visiting parents to try to guess which type of water were which. The participants were presented with unmarked samples of bottled, filtered, and tap water, and asked to choose a favorite and then guess which was which.

Many participants were shocked to learn that they preferred certain types to others – though it was especially nice to see that many more people preferred the tap and filtered-tap water over bottled water. Even those who did prefer the bottled variety were shocked to learn the environmental and health dangers of drinking bottled water, and were excited and enthused to find out the benefits of filters and reusable bottles, especially when they learned about the new filling stations in Schine and Bird Library.Congrats to the Sustainability Club for an incredibly successful and informative event!

What’s New @ SU: Bottle Filling Stations

In the past few weeks, there has been an explosion of sustainable improvements at Syracuse University, empirically proving how small changes can make a huge impact. In the past couple weeks, a few small changes have made a huge difference on campus. Recently, water bottle filling stations have been put into Schine Student Center and Bird Library.

These filling stations are a bigger deal than one may realize. Up until they were put in, there was only one filling station on campus, in Archbold Gymnasium. With these stations installed, it is now significantly more convenient for students on campus to live a sustainable lifestyle by switching over to reusable bottles and ending their use of plastic bottles. Not sure why plastic bottles are a problem? Check out this old post.

In case you were wondering:

• Why Bird and Schine? These are two of the most highly trafficked areas on campus. It just makes sense to put these filling stations in the areas where people are most likely to use them. The station in Bird has had especially high traffic because many students have taken to the idea of being able to refill their bottles instead of hurting the environment and their wallet every time they’re thirsty during study sessions.
• Why not just use a water fountain? First of all, think about it: Isn’t it always a royal pain to try and fill a water bottle from a water fountain? Just in terms of plain convenience , the bottle filling stations, which shoot the water straight down into your bottle, are significantly better and more efficient. Additionally, they are significantly more sanitary, since the water is filled from a different nozzle that no one drinks from!

Valentine’s Day!

I know it’s a little late, but Happy Valentine’s Day from SU Sustainability and Green in a Sea of Orange!

Dunk the Huskies!

After beating Georgetown’s Hoyas Wednesday night, it seems almost too easy to just beat the UConn Huskies this afternoon. So as an added challenge, Syracuse University is also working to promote sustainability via the DOT program.

DOT (Do One Thing) On Campus is an initiative of SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise)

Tu B’Shvat: Going Green for the Big Man Upstairs

Today is Tu B’Shvat (Also spelled Tu Bishvat), the Jewish New Year for Trees. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on about its origins or religious practices and significance. What I want to talk about is how this holiday relates to sustainability, and how I’ve used it to advance sustainable practices.

Traditionally eaten fruits and nuts, being purchased locally this year.

Many consider Tu B’Shvat to be the Jewish equivalent of Arbor Day or Earth Dat – A day to celebrate the gifts of the Earth, the beauty of nature, and everything else about the environment. So for this year’s tradition Tu B’Shvat Seder (traditional Jewish meal/service), I’ve worked with the Syracuse University Hillel to make a Tu B’Shvat that’s truly in the spirit of the holiday.

America’s Next Eco-Star

FANTASTIC NEWS!!

Earlier this month, I was officially nominated for the “America’s Next Eco-Star” competition, sponsored by SmartPower. In just 4 days of voting, I’m already in the #3 spot! However, I need to stay in the top 10 until February 29th, so I still could use all of the support you all can muster!

Don’t have a clue what I’m talking about? Find out all about the contest here. Ready to vote? Click here.

So why was I nominated?

I Told You First: Super Bowl XLVI: Greening Efforts To Reduce Environmental Impact

Remember these past weeks when I’ve been posting about the Super Bowl’s greening efforts? Well the Huffington Post finally got around to it:

Super Bowl XLVI: Greening Efforts To Reduce Environmental Impact.

5 Tips for a Sustainable Super Bowl Party

Sunday is perhaps the biggest, most important day of the year – The Super Bowl. The NY Giants and NE Patriots will be dueling it out in vicious rematch of 2008′s memorable Giants upset of the undefeated Patriots. But there’s another battle that will be fought at the same time. Across the nation, millions of Americans will host or attend parties to watch and enjoy the game, and in doing so will create mountains of waste, tons of CO2 emissions, and will use plenty of water and energy. So what can you do to make sure that even if your favorite team loses, the environment will still win?

Do Natural Distasters Really Exist?

Let me begin by saying that by no means do I necessarily agree with the points in the article I’m about to discuss. I feel that it has a multitude of points that bring out interesting complications and issues in our society and in our interaction with the natural world, and therefore I feel it beneficial to share it with you all. This article first came to my attention a few weeks ago in my Spanish Literature class, and I thought to share it.

The original article is written entirely in Spanish, which can be found here; for an English translation, click here.

Eduardo Subirats, the author, argues a very controversial