Wow, that was a really great conference at St. Olaf last weekend. Their are a lot of great sustainability initiatives moving forward at Lawrence and our peer schools, hopefully we can all keep moving forward!

As a final activity, the LU contingent worked together to come up with a to do list, here it is:

1. Small house energy challenge

2. Green roof retrofits

3. Make a campus sustainability map (stolen from Beloit who stole it from Macalester!)

4. Launch a labeling campaign to help make the “invisible” environmental choices we make more visible.

5. Write a Sustainability Strategic Plan which will be a part of the new LU strategic plan.

These are just some of the many ideas that we had (can we compost ALL of our food waste? – St. Olaf does).

All in all, I came away feeling like we have done some great things that were lauded by others (trayless dining, LEED building, etc.) but there is a TON more that we can do.

As a final challenge, it was suggested that each school in the Consortium sign on to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 2% by next year. Let’s do it!

Lawrence’s new campus center has certainly made a number of efforts towards energy efficiency and eco-friendliness. One very important aspect of its ‘green’ design is its rooftop. The roof is composed of five different sections. The main two portions of the building are covered by slightly sloped standing seam metal rooftops. Metal rooftops have a number of advantages, they: (1) are very durable and long lasting, (2) require little maintenance, (3) are fire resistant, and (4) come in a variety of colors and styles. As these roofs are generally made out of sheet metal, they are easily cut to fit on site. One disadvantage of the metal rooftops may be that they get hot very easily, especially if they are a dark color. However, since the material is so thin, they also cool down very quickly for they cannot retain the heat that they absorb.

Another type of rooftop that is used on the campus center solves this problem. The flat rooftops are covered by a thick white reinforced TPO (Thermoplastic Polyolefin) membrane. This is a fully adhered roof system that also has a number of advantages. Unlike the metal roofs, these roofs do not absorb much heat at all. When membranes absorb heat they tend to deteriorate and self-destruct more quickly, creating cracks and holes that create leaks from expanding and contracting depending upon the amount of heat they absorb. Instead, because the campus center’s flat roofs are white and fully adhered, they reflect the majority of the suns energy and experience minimal heat expansion.

But why reflect the sun’s energy when you can utilize it instead? The campus center answers this question with a modular live-roof system. This is a series of rectangular containers that are set up in rows (and spaced for easy maintenance) and house pre-planted, fully matured plants that are drought and winter resistant. This includes Gold Leaved Goldmoss Sedum, White Flowered Sedum, Kamtschatica Sedum, Neon Sedum, Tricolor Sedum, Voo Doo Sedum, and Vera Jameson Sedum. The containers are placed on top of the TPO membrane mentioned above, and can easily be removed if needed. The plants use the sun’s energy to survive and grow and help keep the roof cool via evapotranspiration. The eight inches of soil they are planted in also acts as an insulator soil keeping the roof it cooler in summers, and a little warmer in winters. The plants also use rainwater for their survival, which cuts back and unwanted runoff, puddling, and rooftop water management. The only disadvantages of a live-roof system are that they currently can only be used on flat roofs, and they increase the needed load capacity of the roof. However, because the advantages of a live-roof system are so numerous in comparison to their costs, we might to see an increase in their utilization around campus (especially where ballasted rooftop currently exists).

Written by Vince Dyer

If you are following environmental issues on the Lawrence campus — or if you just want to know what you might be eating next year here — you probably know that we have contracted with Bon Appetit Management Company to provide food services to Lawrence next year. Bon Appetit offers organic, local and healthy food options, and by hiring them, Lawrence has taken another step towards sustainability.

Good news, right? There’s another reason to be happy about Bon Appetit, though. The company has made an agreement with labor organization The Coalition of Immokalee Workers to set working condition and wage standards for laborers who grow tomatoes in Florida. Bon Appetit has agreed to buy tomatoes only from growers who abide by the standards. The company buys almost 5 million pounds of tomatoes per year, so their decision could have a real impact on Florida growers who don’t want to play by the new rules.

Want to read more?

Bon Appetit’s press release can be read here. For more about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, go here. And here’s an April 29 article from the Washington Post.

Gregory Summers will be speaking at Lawrence next week on the topic: “Thinking Like a Homeowner: An Environmental Ethic for the Twenty-first Century.” Greg is the author of Consuming Nature: Environmentalism in the Fox River Valley, 1850-1950, which is in my opinion a must-read for anyone interested in the history of this area. He teaches environmental history at UW Stevens Point. I’m really excited about his presentation, which I suspect is drawn from his current research project, tentatively entitled, The Comforts of Nature: A Natural History of the American Home.

Greg’s talk will be on Monday, May 4 at 4:30 pm in Science Hall 102. I hope to see you there!

Yesterday afternoon, sculptor Patrick Dougherty capped a day spent with Lawrence students in their art studios by discussing some of his work in a lecture. To understand what Dougherty does, you really have to see his work, because it’s tough to describe in words. He’s a builder, a weaver, a crafter, and yes, an artist. He’s also a very approachable, down-to-earth person who graciously answered questions and asked quite a few of his own.

One thing that Dougherty talked about was the need to find the “animal heart” that we all still have. It’s easy to slide from this idea into some embarrassing territory: exotic-primitive fantasies of running around naked in the woods. But we are animals, of course, and we seem sometimes to be willfully bent on forgetting this fact. As we wrap ourselves up in new clothes, drive around in cars, plug ourselves into headphones, exercise on machines, and eat food full of chemicals whose names we can’t even pronounce (cf. Jess’s post on Annie Leonard’s talk), we get farther and farther away from our animality. Patrick Dougherty’s work reminds us that while humans are builders, so are many other creatures. Think of wasps, beavers, coral. What if we started imagining our own structures as akin to the things that other organisms create? What would that mean for our architecture? Our cities?

As part of Earth Week, yesterday, Lawrence University had the pleasure of having the esteemed Annie Leonard, of The Story of Stuff fame, on campus. The Story of Stuff is a short internet film crafted by Leonard explaining the socio-political systems and factors driving our modern American materialistic culture of excessive consumerism and consumption. (See Leonard’s video here.)

Alright. I cannot reign in my enthusiasm while writing this post any longer. Annie Leonard was phenomenal! She was the most inspiring, energetic, fascinating, knowledgeable speaker on the subject of sustainability and environmental activism I have ever seen in my life! I not only got the opportunity to see her speak in the scheduled evening lecture, but I participated in a Q&A session earlier in the day, introduced her evening lecture, and got to go out to dinner with her afterwards! It was more than 6 full hours of pure inspiration!

(For those of you who missed Annie Leonard’s talk on The Story of Stuff, it was recorded and will soon be available through the Lawrence University website. As soon as it becomes available, I’ll be sure to link to it here!)

Annie talked primarily about how in today’s world, we increasingly turn to stuff and things as a replacement for human interaction and connection. College students, she said in last night’s address, tend to have “a surplus of friends and a deficit of stuff.” However, as we go through life, she continued, we begin to have fewer and fewer friends and more and more stuff. This results in a three-part problem in society, she says:

“We’re trashing the planet.

We’re trashing each other.

And we’re not even having any fun.”

There is so much more in her arguments, but the crux of it is this: Because of the deterioration of community, we’re buying more and more stuff that we don’t need and is full of toxic chemicals anyways. And in order to pay for this consumption, we’re working more and more, and have less and less time to enjoy ourselves. And, of course, all this stuff we buy uses tons of natural resources, the extraction of which is destroying ecosystems and causing massive ecological crises. So we’re destroying the planet, ourselves, and we’re not even enjoying ourselves in the meantime.

Annie’s thoughts and ideas are essentially the culmination and articulation of things I’ve been stewing over since the start of my undergrad. In today’s world, we are increasingly disconnected from other people and from the ecological reality of our planet. As community deteriorates–perpetuated by urban sprawl, large yards with fences to barricade us from our neighbors, store-to-door delivery of everything from books to groceries, and fear of crime–it becomes harder and harder to even know the name of your neighbor, much less create meaningful relationships. Our daily needs become farther and farther away from where we live and so we increasingly rely on the fossil-fueled car to take us to work, the shopping mall, the internet café, etc. All so we can work more to buy more stuff!

As I said in my introduction to Annie’s talk, modern society often measures how “successful” we are by how much “stuff” we have. This concept–often termed “keeping up with the Jones’”–is not at all unfamiliar to us: how many times has each of us looked at our neighbor’s house or pool and wished we had something “as nice as they did”? We are constantly seeking to prove our worth to those around us by how much we have–do we have the latest flat screen HDTV? Do we have the newest iPod? Is the car we drive fancy enough, new enough, big enough? Even proclaimed “environmentalists” often define their status and commitment to the cause by what they have: do you drive a Prius hybrid, or ride your bike?

But Annie Leonard (not to mention the many others with similar ideas–Paul Theobald, David Orr, Richard Louv, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, et al.) is not all about the doom and gloom inherent in the destruction of community and the environment. Ms. Leonard, especially, more than any others I’ve come in contact with, is a true optimist and makes it clear that there are so many things we can do to help.

“One of the good things about such a pervasive problem,” she said yesterday, “is that there’s a lot to be done in terms of solutions.”

We can be more conscious of what we buy and whether we need it. We can send letters, emails, make phone calls and visit our legislators lobbying to get the toxics out of all the stuff we buy. We can get internships, volunteer, or work for the many organizations designed to help develop and implement solutions to these socio-ecological crises. We can talk to our neighbors and figure out how to share things so we don’t need to buy as much stuff for ourselves. We can start thinking about how to redesign the system.

One of the many tools people can use to start making a difference is Wiser Earth. Created by Paul Hawken, Wiser Earth is an open-source, wiki-based networking site for individuals, organizations, resources, solutions–everything dedicated to creating a sustainable earth. I recommend that everyone get connected on this website, and start finding the people in your area dedicated to sustainability and community activism. Then we can connect with each other, get organized, and start formulating plans for how to start the sustainability revolution!

My Wiser Earth page.

Endnote: For those who are hungry to know more about The Story of Stuff and the deeper reasons behind our consumerist society, Annie Leonard is fast at work on a book to accompany the internet version of The Story of Stuff. It is set to be published March 9, 2010, and I can’t wait to read it!

(This entry was originally published in Jess’ personal blog, Adventures In Sustainability, found at: http://adventuresinsustainability.wordpress.com/)

My Father’s Garden

April 1, 2009, 6:30 PM at Bubolz Nature Center, 4815 N. Lynndale Drive (Cty A), Appleton.

The story of two farmers with the common goal of producing healthy food. One of the farmers is a hero from farming’s past: dedicated, innovative, a champion of the new miracle sprays of the 50s. His fate lies at the heart of this film. The other, Fred Kirschenmann of North Dakota, is a hero for farming’s future. Faced with a shattered economy and the devastating environmental effects of conventional chemical farming, Fred steered his land through the transition to organic farming. Twenty years later, the Kirschenmann farm proves that sustainable agriculture is a viable alternative.

Free–donations appreciated. Sustaining Life Environmental Film Series is co-sponsored by NEW Audubon Society, Bubolz Nature Preserve, Fox Valley Sierra Group Club.