***I am supposed to remind you that my work in the second semester more than makes up for my work completed in the first part of the semester.
I really enjoyed having a practicum as part of the Introduction to Environmental Policy curriculum. I ended up participating in a number of activities that let me apply what I learned in class to the real world, allowing myself to take greater ownership of my studies and knowledge. My practicum work manifested in a number of ways. This semester I (1) attended a number of lectures at the Academy of Sciences [5 hours], (2) joined the Environmental Club [6 hours], (3) secured a position on the Environmental Club’s E-Board next year as Project Manager [2 hours], (4) designed a full-scale garden plan for a new vegetable garden at Fordham Lincoln Center [22 hours], (5) attempted to compost and garden with the Church of St. John the Apostle [4 hours], (6) helped prepare St. Rose’s Garden for the spring with Jason Aloisio [4 hours], (7) had meetings with Fordham facilities members [14 hours] and (8) got sanction to do a number of environmental friendly projects at the start of next fall [6 hours], including a sustainability station and board, composting for the entire McMahon Residence Hall, and possibly obtaining a fleet of reusable grocery carts/baskets for student use [will spend 3 entire days at the start of the year setting these projects up and will compost people’s compost every week for the rest of the year]. After completing all of these things, I haven’t only cemented my knowledge from class but I have also made vast improvements to my character and work ethic.
Finding something meaningful to do for my practicum was harder than I initially thought it would be. At first, I wanted to join the Environmental Club at Lincoln Center. However, they did not meet very often and I didn’t have much of a chance to enough practicum work to fulfill the requirement. So I asked myself, how could I contribute? At first I attended the lectures at the New York Academy of Sciences. I know that attending a series of lectures doesn’t seem like it counts that much for my practicum, but I consider it important because attending those lectures was the first action I took to try and integrate my course material with life outside of class. That action of attending the lectures spring boarded me into trying new things to apply my studies outside the classroom, the next activity of which was which was securing a position on the Environmental E-Board as Project Manager. All of the sudden I immersed myself into all the different kinds of projects we could do with the student body and how I could make a difference in my immediate community become so much realer of a reality as a result. I participated in the clothing swap, the vegan potluck, and more. From what I learned at events like the vegan potluck (mixed with my newfound understanding of the food industry from Food INC) have now cut out red meat from my diet and I am going to try and transition into a vegetarian lifestyle. I know how much regularly eating meat contributes to my ecological footprint. As project manager I felt responsible for making a big difference on campus; my job as project manager denotes the need for action and making a difference in the real, immediate world. So after far too many meetings with various departments, I can proudly say that I am going to outfit McMahon Hall with a ‘Sustainability Station’. This station is in a very popular section of the resident hall and will consist of an informational board with all of the Environmental Clubs announcements, activities, and notices as well as a large credenza with places for people to drop off their electronics, batteries, paper bags, and other items that can be reused and/or recycled at local businesses and organizations nearby (but not in the regular recycling). That way it will be easy for residents to make healthy choices. We will also use this board as a place to offer information to residents about their ecological footprint and how they can live more sustainably. Also, we will be launching a residence hall-wide composting program. Residents can compost in their individual apartments and members of the Environmental Club will collect their compost and drop it off at local farmers markets nearby to be composted properly.
A number of things that I learned about the environment in class came into view in my practicum, and of these things, nothing was more prevalent than vast amount of roadblocks that try to hinder people from getting sustainable measures passed in local communities. I thought it would be so simple to get compost containers in the cafeteria or to start a food sharing program between Fordham and the Church but there were a lot more economic, political, and logistical problems to consider. And worldviews! The heads of Sodexo definitely have a Environmental Management worldview. When I asked them about making their company more green, the only things they would talk about is how they are using new computer systems or updating their labels, prices, and materials to increase their sustainability, but all of their efforts had to honor economics above everything. They said they ‘wanted to go green’ but they ‘could only go green within budget’. Not only that, but even after I offered to do all of the work to sort though composting they said they didn’t want to deal with the liabilities.
I became very passionate about setting up our own sustainability station in McMahon after reading Miller’s account of our solid and hazardous waste management. According to the core cast study, e-waste, or the throwing out of old and broken electronics, is the fastest-growing solid waste problem in the world. Americans alone discard an estimated 155 million cell phones, 48 million personal computers, and even more television sets, iPods, Blackberries, Fax machines, printers, and more. Not only does the production of technology like IPhones and TVs have a large carbon footprint (destroying entire ecosystems to mine for minerals, using up fossil fuels to make plastics and packaging, and emitting CO2 to create and transport the products), but then people dump their technology after less than five years time into a landfill, furthering the detriment of the environment. That’s why students will be able to recycle their electronics at the sustainability station and that’s why there will be information on the board about how bad the production of electronics is for the environment. In fact, I want to commission graphic designers and visual arts majors from Fordham to paint/apply large informational murals in the stairwells to raise awareness of environmental issues. This got me thinking about all of the social problems that exist in environmental destruction. The inability for an institution like Fordham Unviersity to do things like compost is not just an economic or an environmental problem, but a psycho-social problem as well; what it means to be a responsible human in our modern age. Why do we do things they way we do? Why do we feel OK to trash the planet? What about our consciousness wants a BMW more than an Amazonian rainforest? We live in an unapologetically wasteful culture that is praise in the media and it continues to encourage people to live an extravagant lifestyle.
I also had increased zeal to start urban farming and organic cooking classes at Lincoln Center after watching Food INC. I have learned a lot about how organic and well-designed farming can be sustainable and I want to employ those principles in Fordham’s community garden if I get the chance. I know that we can make and use our own compost to (1) save putting more crap in our landfills and (2) give life-sustaining nutrients back into the land to replenish the quality of the soil. I know we should plant a diversity of crops to avoid the monoculture farming that pervades modern industrial agriculture and efficient drip houses can have up to a 95 percent efficiency distribution (instead of China’s popular flood irrigation process, which wastes exorbitant amounts of water). As a result of my classwork, I also understand how using unsafe chemicals and fertilizers, even in a city setting, can make their way into our waterways, put too much nitrogen in the water, and choke our water ecosystems. Another unseen problem of modern industrial agriculture is the distance it has to travel before it gets into our homes. Shipped by boat, truck, and plane, getting our food from long distances away and overseas is dangerous for our nation’s food security, burns an insane amount of fossil fuels, and emits a crazy amount of CO2 in the air, further increasing the urban heat island effect (which can cause mortal health affects in the population) and eating away at our precious ozone layer. Protecting our ozone layer is the key to our survival and our current food systems heavily exacerbate global warming. Projects like a community garden are small but necessary steps for a nation to change their consciousness and relationship to their food, their waste, and the natural world.
allthingsconnect 