The recession makes the holidays even more exciting, yes? The stress and fear of minimal funds leads to killer adrenaline rushes, which is always fun. Adults are always freaking out about the gift-giving season because they have no idea how to chill the eff out and stop trying to constantly up the ante. College students have the advantage: You’ve been starving for lots and lots of semesters and know how to work the gently-used and regifted items into glorious gifts, all wrapped up in shiny paper (or the Sunday comics, to be more realistic).

I myself am a frugal little spaz who was creatively thrift-store shopping and regifting before it was all hip and trendy and green and s**t. Just so there’s no confusion.

A close family friend of mine recently retired (she was my Dad’s high school sweetheart and I’ve known her all my life). I purged the hell out of my Already Read stacks of books and gave her a huge, delicious collection of retirement leisure reading. She was happy, and told me she’d start in as soon as she gets back from Peru.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(book-stack sculpture)

Stop killing trees, you Wi-Fi addicted bastards! Do you see what happens when you try to technologically advance yourselves? Very bad things! Evolve without the Internets! And leave the trees alone, for the love of all things holy! Sit somewhere else! You get one dead tree per holiday season, reams of dead trees for hard copy media sources, several stacks of lumber for home building and that is it, people.

Some research types in the Netherlands did a study to see if weird abnormalities in trees were caused by the radiation created by wireless LANs and mobile-phone networks. Here’s what the study found, according to PC World:

The study exposed 20 ash trees to various radiation sources for a period of three months. Trees placed closest to the Wi-Fi radio demonstrated a “lead-like shine” on their leaves that was caused by the dying of the upper and lower epidermis of the leaves. This would eventually result in the death of parts of the leaves.

The researchers urged that further studies were needed to confirm the current results and determine long-term effects of wireless radiation on trees.

Dang we’re self-destructive little animals. Us and the lemmings, of course. The cute and fuzzy guys just off themselves on instinct; we’ve got the humiliating combination of higher thought and lack of foresight to blame.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(innocent trees)

National Geographic and Procter & Gamble have joined forces to hold the Find Your Footprint conservation competition for K-12 classrooms. Basically, the teachers use the save-the-planet lesson plan to educate their students, the kids learn about how deeply their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents have screwed up the planet, and are then inspired/super-pissed enough to make sound, environmentally responsible changes at home and in the classroom. Watch out, all ye generations of planet-wreckers, the short people are effing cranky.

There are lots of prize incentives, naturally, including the grandest prize of them all: $36,000 worth of educational materials for the winning classroom. I’ve heard some rumors lately about teachers being taken for granted more than they usually are, and school budgets shrinking to oblivion. While I think having the students learn how to be environmentally wise is prize enough, I fully support the stash being educational.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release to sum up the factual bits for you:

WASHINGTON/CINCINNATI (Oct. 12, 2010)—P&G Future Friendly today announced it has expanded its signature partnership with the National Geographic Society through the launch of an integrated in-school conservation education program called “Find Your Footprint.” Developed to inspire students and schools to monitor and reduce their environmental footprint this school year, the multimedia program focuses on energy, waste and water tips that can then be applied to participate in a national classroom conservation contest.

“We know that children can inspire more sustainable lifestyles. By supporting interactive conservation tools like Find Your Footprint, Future Friendly will help educate and motivate families to make simple changes in their homes and schools that add up to meaningful reductions in our environmental footprint,” said Maurice Coffey, marketing director, P&G Future Friendly. “We’re equally excited that this announcement represents the next step in our partnership with National Geographic to promote conservation-minded lifestyles through dynamic communications.”

Rules and details about how to enter and who is eligible for the classroom conservation contest are at www.nationalgeographic.com/findyourfootprint. Teachers can download a comprehensive lesson plan, “How Big Is Your Human Footprint?”, and competition entries must be received by Friday, Dec. 3, 2010. The grand prize for the winning classroom is five state-of-the-art Promethean interactive digital whiteboards (ActivBoards), five classroom sets of Promethean Learner Response Systems (ActivExpressions), $1,000 in National Geographic educational materials and 30 subscriptions to National Geographic Kids magazine. In addition, the campaign features educational resources on saving water, saving energy and reducing waste in an interactive online hub; on-air elements on National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD, including contest spots and PSAs; and is featured in upcoming issues of National Geographic magazine and National Geographic Kids magazine.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Harsh. Maybe exploding school kids was going a bit too far?

Yes, anyone who fears a dead-planet future has strong feelings about the humans who actively contribute to global warming at an alarming hourly rate. But I don’t think those incomprehensibly asinine poopheads deserve instantaneous annihilation.

Or, perhaps they do, but let’s be the better people and let them survive long enough to be convinced, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that global warming isn’t a hoax. Being able to say “I told you so, you sons of b%&@#es!“ will be waaaay more satisfying. (It totally won’t be, but the anger-fueled destruction of an entire group of people always smells Hitler-esque to me, and he’s a man to never emulate.)

Now I feel dirty. I must recycle or reuse something immediately. If anyone knows how to weave a fishing net out of plastic bags, I am all ears.

Further Reading:

Sony Drops Out of Climate Change Campaign After Exploding Kids Ad
10:10 Global Campaign
Sustainability Degree Offered at Arizona State University
Saving the Planet is a Solid Career Choice
Green Toilets at ASU Polytechnic
Penguin Games
It’s Not Easy Being Green
Consider a Well-Rounded MBA
Free Money for Textbooks
No More Tray Sledding for You!
M.S. in Sustainability Management: Earth Institute, Columbia University
Guide to 286 Green Colleges
Institute on the Environment Joins Forces With Stanford’s Natural Capital Project
14 Ways to Save Green While Increasing Greenness
BookRenter.com

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Purchasing spankin’ new copies of textbooks unrelated to your future field is unnecessary. I’m the first girl to yell in lecturely tones that keeping relevant texts around for future reference is just plain common sense (what dumb-ass wouldn’t?).

However, unless you’re majoring in psychology, you do not need to buy a mint copy of the Psych 101 text. At the very least, buy it used and vaguely highlighted. Even better: rent it. It saves money, trees, and fights the Textbook-Publishing Man (he’s a corporate sh**head).

BookRenter is worth a perusal; they guarantee customer satisfaction and have free shipping.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image)

Arjun Muralidharan, aka the Productive Student, has a list of 14 ways college students can strive for greenness on Earth. You’ll want to do them all to slow the destruction of the planet, but you’ll actually do them to save yourself some coinage.

14 Ways to Be a Greener Student (and Save Money Doing It):

-Eat less meat or go vegetarian
-Do more efficient laundry
-Buy groceries with less packaging
-Eat out less
-Buy a greener computer
-Optimize your commute
-Decompose organic waste
-Bring your own bag for shopping
-Recycle paper
-Buy recycled notepads and textbooks
-Put old and unwanted textbooks up for sale
-Use a durable water bottle
-Be conscious about lights everywhere
-Reduce and manage electronic devices

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(recycled notebooks)

Meat school! That might be it. That may be all I’ve got to say about this NPR story. Meat school. One can attend meat school. It makes sense, of course. How else would one learn to cut meat in the days of supermarkets, Styrofoam, and the possibly extinct neighborhood butcher?

Meat school, however odd it sounds, is actually a good thing. The month-long intensive certificate course at SUNY’s meat lab in Cobleskill, near Albany, teaches everything a student needs to know to run their own small meat-processing business. Graduates can then do good things, like keep well-raised, local, small-farm meats local. The farmers can send their animals to a nearby small slaughterhouse, have their meat prepared and handled by a professional.

Raising meat that has been treated well is a lot of work. In the end it’s worth it, as it’s better for the animals, the planet, and the consumer. It would be a shame, and a bit of a backward path, if the animals were raised so particularly only to be shipped off to a slaughterhouse and a market hundreds of miles away. It’s better to do all that work for yourself and your neighbors.

The phrase “meat school” is still weird. Meat school meat school meat school meat school. I’ve thought it too many times. The phrase has lost all meaning.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

It’s a marvelous sign when institutions of higher learning join forces to make the world a better place.

From the UMN press release:

– New partnership links IonE with Stanford University, The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund –

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/30/2010) —The University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment today announced a new partnership with the Natural Capital Project, a worldwide effort to align economic forces with conservation. The other partners include Stanford University, The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund.

Founded in 2006, the Natural Capital Project aims to mainstream the values of nature into major resource decisions. Working with public, private and nonprofit partners around the world, “NatCap” is developing practical, science-based software for mapping and valuing societal benefits provided by healthy ecosystems. The Natural Capital Project is using this software in major policy decisions now underway in Canada, China, Hawaii, Indonesia, South America and Tanzania.

The Natural Capital Project is led by an interdisciplinary team of scientists and project leaders from Stanford, The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund. U of M applied economics professor Steve Polasky, an IonE resident fellow, is one of the leaders of the project’s ecosystem service mapping and valuation effort. This new partnership will increase opportunities for collaboration between IonE and other Natural Capital researchers and collaborators.

“We would be nowhere without the world-class expertise and experience from U of M, and we’re thrilled to recognize that formally now by teaming up as full partners,” said Gretchen Daily, Stanford-based co-founder and chair of the project.

“The Natural Capital Project is one of the most important environmental projects in the world,” said Jon Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment. “It’s answering one of the really big questions: How much is nature worth, and how do we start to include ecosystem goods and services into our economic system? By joining this project, the Institute on the Environment will be working with world-class ecologists, economists and practitioners, and in return, we will be contributing our expertise in ecological economics, land use and agriculture, and environmental systems modeling. It’s a fabulous partnership for everyone involved.”

You can learn more about the Natural Capital Project here: http://www.naturalcapitalproject.org.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image source)

The Princeton Review and the U.S. Green Building Council have just released their Guide to 286 Green Colleges. I require people who review and/or guide young adults anywhere along their college path to prove that they aren’t out to sell biased information for a profit (e.g., the U.S. News and World Report’s annual college ranking lists are against all laws of good and the back-boned members of humanity and isn’t worth wiping one’s college-bound heinie on). This guide may have some merit as it has, at the very least, aggregated planet-saving information and it’s free. Also: downloadable (saves the trees and whatnot).

Here’s the pertinent info:

NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 2010 — In an effort to recognize the impressive environmental and sustainability programs at universities and colleges across the country, The Princeton Review, in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), today announced the release of “The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges” — the first, free comprehensive Guidebook solely focused on institutions of higher education who have demonstrated an above average commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives.

Just in time for the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day (April 22nd), the Guide — which is based on a survey of hundreds of colleges nationwide — profiles the nation’s most environmentally-responsible campuses. From solar panel study rooms to the percentage of budget spent on local/organic food, “The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges” looks at an institution’s commitment to building certification using USGBC’s LEED green building certification program; environmental literacy programs; formal sustainability committees; use of renewable energy resources; recycling and conservation programs, and much more.

You can download the entire guide (in four bite-sized chunks) at The Princeton Review or at the U.S. Green Building Council’s site. You can also see the full list of schools or the full list of schools by state.

Not every starving college student in this economy can afford to buy organic all the time (seriously, organic chickens are $12), but attending a college or university that’s making a palpable effort to be green is a huge help toward saving the planet.

Further Reading:

M.S. in Sustainability Management: Earth Institute, Columbia University
UCLA Anderson MBAs Go Global
It’s Not Easy Being Green
Green Toilets at ASU Polytechnic
Saving the Planet is a Solid Career Choice
Beware the College Rankings Machine
New System for Ranking Colleges
College Rankings
U.S. News and World Report 2008 College Rankings

Posted by Alexa Harrington

I just lerves me some forward motion! The University of Minnesota’s News Service sent this press release my way:

University of Minnesota to host Idealist.org Nonprofit Career Fair and Working for Change Conference

– Joint events provide opportunity to learn about and apply for careers in social justice, health care, nonprofit and government work -

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (04/07/2010) — For those interested in pursuing or advancing a career in social justice, nonprofit or government work, the University of Minnesota is hosting the 2010 Idealist.org Nonprofit Career Fair and Working for Change Conference on Tuesday, April 13, at Coffman Union, Great Hall, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis. Both events are expected to draw attendees from across the region. The events are free of charge and open to the public, with no registration required.

“The goal of the conference and career fair is to help people answer the key question, ‘What’s in my future?’” says Laurel Hirt, director of the university’s Community Service-Learning Center, which helps organize the event. “There is a great interest in social justice and nonprofit careers among both students and non-students, and we are excited to provide a forum for exploration and getting the proverbial ‘foot in the door.’”

The Working for Change Conference will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and provide an opportunity to learn about a range of social justice-oriented careers, with a particular focus on jobs, internships and volunteer opportunities in the nonprofit sector and government. The conference will feature panel discussions and workshops. A schedule and list of sessions is available at www.servicelearning.umn.edu/Events/idealistfair.html.

The Idealist.org Nonprofit Career Fair is open to students and non-students and will feature a broad range of organizations looking for prospective employees. Attendees will be able to network, distribute resumes and meet with recruiters about job, internship and volunteer opportunities. The fair will take place from 12 to 4 p.m. A list of organizations attending is available at http://bit.ly/9ZQ8Bo.

A special health professionals careers fair will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in rooms 304 and 305, with advance registration required at www.healthcareers.umn.edu/shortcourses/home.html or by phone at (612) 624-6767.

The workshop and fair are co-hosted by the university’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, the Community Service-Learning Center, the Health Careers Center and the Carlson School of Management Undergraduate Business Career Center. Other partners include the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, Minnesota’s Private Colleges Career Consortium, Minnesota College and University Career Services Association, Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA) and the Minnesota Association for Experiential Learning.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image source)