Communal Composting has begun!

The Magis Row Meditation Houses, Georgetown Energy, GUSA, the Georgetown Garden, and EcoAction are excited to announce that a communal compost has been started at Georgetown! A large, sealable compost bin is now set up in the backyard of 3611 O Street, which is one of the two Magis Row Meditation townhouses, associated with Georgetown’s John Main Center for Meditation.

How will it work? In this first pilot phase, thirty residents on Magis Row and in other off-campus housing who have demonstrated interest are receiving individual composting buckets for their kitchens. They will empty these buckets into the communal bin whenever they are full. Many thanks goes to GUSA for the money for these buckets, and to the Georgetown Garden for the communal bin!

If this goes well, we hope to order more buckets for even more residents, both on- and off-campus, to use, so email us if you’d be interested in receiving a bucket in the future! When the communal bin is full, we’ll bring the compost up to the Georgetown Garden by Kehoe Field, where it will provide fertilizer for students’ plots.

Lots more information after the jump...

Tar Sands Rally - 10/7

What are you doing this Friday at 12 PM?

A. Nothing.

B. Something I don’t feel like doing anyway.

C. Something important that I can’t miss.

I’m going to guess that 95% of you answered A or B. In that case, I’ve got something exciting and worthwhile for you to do! Come to the Tar Sands rally at the Ronald Reagan Building, for the final State Department hearing on the Keystone XL pipeline. (Don’t worry, there’s no risk of getting arrested this time.) Here’s a link to the Facebook event, and here’s the invitation:

"Three months ago when Bill McKibben and others put out a call for a sustained nonviolent action at the White House against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, we didn’t know what the response would be. But the urgency of the issue drove 1,253 people to take a leap of faith, and risk arrest to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.

We made history from August 20 – September 3. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is now the biggest environmental decision facing the President before the next election. We have an opportunity to hold President Obama to his campaign promises and begin to put a dent in the flow of carbon into the atmosphere.

EcoAction News!

Here's the news for EcoAction this week! 

First of all: Like our Facebook page!

Thanks to all of you for coming out to our movie screening of Tapped last Wednesday. 

A big shout out goes to Patricia Cipolliti for helping with the awesome flyers!

Our next meeting will be next Wednesday, October 12 at 8:30pm (Location TBD). 

Upcoming Events in October

Afternoon Power Clean-Up with Office of Off-Campus Student Life (OCSL)

Friday, October 14th | Time: 1:00 PM | Location: meet at OCSL office

Join OCSL and EcoAction, as clean-up our Georgetown neighborhood. More details to come. 

Trip to the Farmers Market in Burleith 

Saturday, October 15th | Time TBD | Meet at front Gates

Join the board and go to the farmers market in Burleith to buy groceries

Nature Walk and Birdwatch / Picnic

Sunday, October 16th | Time: 8AM | Location: Dyke Marsh Wildlife Refuge

Venture off into the nature with an expert and observe the birds. We will walk through the picnic area, the marina, and down Haul Road. The dirt trail that goes through Dyke Marsh and ends in a boardwalk and observation platform. Contact Megan (mag293) for more information. 

Lots more after the jump!

Obama and Environmental Regulation

This post is by Claire Austin (SFS '12), co-president of EcoAction.

When I voted for Obama in 2008 (take that, underclassmen) I was sure he’d be the meanest, greenest President we’ve ever had. At first it seemed to be the case: the administration made strengthening environmental regulations a policy priority, and started programs like Cash for Clunkers. This was the administration when the Waxman-Markey bill passed in the house (gasp!) and the EPA, now under the guidance of Lisa Jackson, was well on the way to setting a maximum ground-level ozone limit recommended by the panel of scientists that advise the EPA on Clean Air Act Issues. We were sure that when the Affordable Care Act passed, the environment would be next on the agenda.

Ground-level ozone is the main component of smog, and is created when sunlight interacts with chemicals released from combusting fuels and other industrial processes. It has the same chemical composition as the layer of the stuff in the atmosphere famous for its hole, but the O3 molecule’s concentration in the lower levels of the atmosphere is dangerous for living things. Ozone, like other gases, is measured in parts per billion. If you have a billion marbles, the EPA says that 75 of these marbles can be ozone. This means manufacturers have to work to reduce their emissions of the gases that lead to ozone buildup at the local level. The limit was set in 2008, when former EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson lowered the limit from 84ppb. The EPA was recently told to stop its progress in drafting a regulation that would lower the limit further to between 60 and 70ppb.

Tapped: the Movie

This Wednesday at 8:30 PM in ICC 119, EcoAction is screening Tapped: the Movie, an award-winning documentary about the bottled water industry. There will be delicious food and awesome people, so make sure to come along, and bring your friends!

"Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other article of commerce? Stephanie Soechtig's debut feature is an unflinching examination of the big business of bottled water.

From the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car and I.O.U.S.A., this timely documentary is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a commodity: our water.

From the plastic production to the ocean in which so many of these bottles end up, this inspiring documentary trails the path of the bottled water industry and the communities which were the unwitting chips on the table. A powerful portrait of the lives affected by the bottled water industry, this revelatory film features those caught at the intersection of big business and the public's right to water."

Sunday blogroll

In Minnesota, colleges are facing a backlash after banning the sale of bottled water. The reason for the backlash? College Republicans say that the ban restricts "what students can and cannot do in their own free will."

(Psst...interested in bottled water? Come to EcoAction's screening of "Tapped" on Wednesday, September 30 at 8:30 PM, location TBD!)


Rolling Stone lists ten things Obama must do to protect the environment. Number one: stop the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Obama did do something right, though - in a message to Congress on Thursday, he announced diplomatic sanctions on Iceland over their commercial whale hunting.

"To the surprise of almost no one," the New York Times writes on its Green blog, the EPA is delaying issuing new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. A commenter asks, "Can the EPA do anything about the smell emanating from the current Administration?"

More news after the jump!

Green $HOUTOUTs

This post is by Claire Austin (SFS '12), co-president of EcoAction. 


Hey everyone, this is my very first blog post (embarrassing, I know) and since I have stagefright I’m going to keep this short and sweet. This is the first of what I’m sure will be many $HOUTOUTs (yes, I wrote it like that) to University administrators working to green the hilltop.


First off is Audrey Stewart, our alpha and omega of sustainability. Audrey is the Program Coordinator for Sustainability at Georgetown and she has been instrumental in getting students’ projects off the ground and connecting them to campus or D.C. resources. Since she arrived on campus, she has worked tirelessly on projects large and small within university administration to reduce our carbon footprint.


Erika Cohen-Derr, Director of Student Programs, is also a great friend of EcoAction and a proponent of sustainability on campus. She takes special care to incorporate student suggestions on how to reduce waste at student events like SAC Fair and Georgetown Day, and is helping us develop materials to train student group leaders in sustainability and reward them with “Green Organization” status.


More $HOUTOUTs after the jump!

Sunday blogroll

It's a new semester, and Renewable Energy Turns Me On is going to be continuing the Sunday blogrolls that started last semester. If you find any interesting articles throughout the week that you think should be featured, email them to mec234@georgetown.edu!  


Top news this week was Obama's decision to pull back proposed air pollution standards for ground-level ozone, as The Washington Post reports. Obama considered the regulations too burdensome for the economy. 

Students rally at the University of Richmond
Photo credit: Green UR's Flickr photostream

The tar sands protests didn't stop at the White House. When Obama visited the University of Richmond last week, students there organized a rally of their own to greet him. 


Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that in the absence of strong federal oversight, pipeline operators are basically regulating themselves. 


Jimmy Fallon and Eddie Vedder harmonize about the tar balls from last year's oil spill, which are washing ashore in the south because of Tropical Storm Lee. 


An economist at the Environmental Defense Fund made a bold claim in the New York Times on Wednesday: without the right economic policies, individual action to protect the environment simply "does not work."


For all you vegetarians and vegans: Mother Jones looks into the growing science of in-vitro meat. It could be great for the environment, but would you eat it? 


Greenpeace has good news: Google has finally decided to be transparent about its energy usage. Their stats are in - now it's Facebook's turn to come clean about its carbon footprint. 

Tar Sands Action: Why I got arrested

N.B. : EcoAction does NOT endorse getting arrested. This article is written by a member of EcoAction but does not represent EcoAction as a group. The author did this action on her own, totally separate from EcoAction. 

Getting arrested wasn’t part of my back-to-school plans. But there I was, a week after moving in for my junior year, in handcuffs in front of the White House.

Photo credit: Josh Lopez (http://joshlopezphoto.com/) 

The reason? A 1,700 mile pipeline that would carry viscous, dirty oil from the tar sands in Albert, Canada, through the United States to refineries in Texas. The pipeline, called the Keystone XL, would carry 900,000 barrels of oil a day. It would cross six states and over seventy rivers and streams, including the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. It would cross aquifers like the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies water to two million Americans and supports $20 billion worth of agriculture. It would cut through farms and backyards, and disrupt indigenous communities like First Nations tribes in Canada and native tribes in the United States.

First Meeting & Upcoming Campaigns

Hello EcoAction! Thanks for stopping by our table yesterday at SAC Fair. It was awesome to see new and familiar faces.

In the spirit of Georgetown, this year EcoAction is going to "think globally, act locally." We'll focus on university-based issues in our initiatives and campaigns, and on global issues for our larger events. 

Our first meeting will be this Wednesday (9/7) at 6:30pm @Healy Lawn. We'll be eating delicious food from the Farmers Market, introducing EcoAction to new members, and talking about what's to come this year. 

Psst...like us on Facebook to stay updated on all EcoAction's events this semester! 

On-campus initiatives & campaigns after the jump!