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Greetings!
When you signed the Live Green pledge, you
committed to stay informed and make decisions
that
will positively impact the planet. Each
month, the Live
Green newsletter features a different topic
with tips,
tools and resources to help you achieve this
goal.
Read on for information on how you can
celebrate Earth Day - today and throughout
the year.
| CU Earth Day Bazaar - April 22, Tuesday |
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Celebrate Earth Day at the heart of the
movement: Right on your local campus.
CU-Boulder will be hosting a number of Earth
Day events all Tuesday long. Stop by and
celebrate!
- UMC Fountain,
10:30am-3:30pm.
Social Action
Station with FREE ice cream and FREE Clif
bars for participators, Exhibitors, Voter
Registration, Student Groups.
Sponsored by CU Environmental Center
in collaboration with UCSU Environmental
Justice Steering Committee, Students for
Peace and Justice.
Join us all day
for the greatest Earth Day bash in town.
There will be games, art, sustainable
businesses, voter registration, social action
station, a creation station, live acoustic
music, and biodiesel wrestling. Make a
difference and have a great time doing it!
Win some prizes and get some free food, as
well.
- Norlin Quad, 10:30am-3:30pm
Creation Station, Field Day Games,
Student Groups, Acoustic Music, Voter
Registration.
Brought to you by: UCSU
Environmental Justice Steering Committee, CU-
COPIRG, CU- Conscious Alliance.
- UMC 417, 1-4pm
Fashion
S.W.A.P.
(Sustainable Women's Apparel
and Paraphernalia.)
Bring reusable
clothing items for exchange; Refreshments and
Prizes.
Sponsored by CU Environmental
Center, Women's Resource Center.
Give away your old clothes, and get
some groovy ones in return. Donations can be
brought to the E-Center beforehand, and they
will all be on display for people to choose
from at the event. There will be a raffle for
those who give clothes, and there are some
really awesome prizes for winners. Any
clothes that people do not adopt will be
given to a local homeless shelter or
charity.
- Humanities 1B50, 7pm and 9pm
EarthDance: The
Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film
Festival.
Helping You See Green.
Sponsored by CU Environmental Center.
7:00 p.m. - 90 minutes of weird and
wonderful environmental films.
9:00 p.m.
- 90 minutes of more weird and wonderful
environmental films.
EarthDance is
not your average film festival. The 20 short
films (30 seconds to 30 minutes each) are a
fun, funny, and provocative lot. Compiled
into 90 minute blocks, the juried compilation
of comedies, documentaries, animations, and
adventures invite you to laugh and celebrate
your relationship to the natural world. These
unique films help individuals to feel
connected to and inspired by a growing
community of people who are actively engaged
with the planet - from business people making
green from going green, to artists,
designers, and architects inspired by the
natural world, to extreme athletes and
comedians sweating and poking fun at green.
Whoever said you had to sacrifice
entertainment for ecology? Or sexiness for
sustainability? EarthDance: Helping You See
Green.
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| Raise Your Voice and Sign the Pledge |
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As Vice President Gore has said, we are in a
planetary emergency--an emergency that
demands bold and courageous action.
To stop
global warming and to reverse the
extraordinary environmental destruction that
is taking place around the world, we must
tell Congress that if they want to keep their
jobs they must take stronger and immediate
action.
Sign the Earth Day Network pledge
and let Congress know that we cannot wait any
longer
Sign the pledge by clicking
here.
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| Upcoming Events |
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- April 29 - Environmental Art Open
House and Charrette
Tuesday April 29
12-7pm ATLAS room 105
Join students,
faculty, staff, and the community to develop
an outdoor public art piece on the CU campus
about student commitment to the environment.
CU's student government (UCSU), has
commissioned an award-winning artist for a
campus installation about student
environmental protection. The goal of the
artwork is to inspire and enlighten on a
deeper level than mere words. The artwork
will also complement the natural beauty and
campus aesthetic CU is renown for.
Over twenty tons of steel and stone
have been salvaged from the recent demolition
of CU's Fine Arts building and will serve as
the primary materials for the art piece. The
installation may coincide with the
construction of the new arts building or
could be in another, more visible location
that would have a shorter timeframe for
installation. Take advantage of this
opportunity to participate! For more
information, contact the Environmental Center
at 492-8308 or email cure@colorado.edu
- April 30 - CU Going Local
Documentary Series presents The Real Dirt
on Farmer John
Duane G1B20, 6pm
The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a
personal documentary about John Peterson, a
farmer, artist, and eccentric/innovative
thinker cast in rural Illinois. The film
documents John's struggle to redefine his
family farm for over twenty years, witnessing
the colorful drama of John's life. With the
death of his father during the late 60's John
turns his traditional family farm into an
experiment of art and culture, making it a
haven for hippies, radicals and artists. The
Real Dirt on Farmer John charts the end of
this idealistic era as the farm debt crisis
of the 1980s brings about the tragic collapse
of the farm. As the intricate weave of rural
America unravels, vicious local rumors turn
John into a scapegoat, condemning him as a
Satan-worshipping drug-dealer. Threatened
with murder, his home burned to the ground,
John defies all odds to transform his land
into a revolutionary farming community. At
the film's close, the Peterson family farm is
one of the largest Community Supported
Agriculture (CSA) farms in the United States.
Out of the ruins of single-crop agriculture,
John creates an extended farm village where
people and art can thrive alongside
agriculture. Contact: Lilly Justman,
LJustman@gmail.com
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| Live Green Spotlight |
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Let us know about the creative ways that
you're living green. Each month, the Live
Green newsletter will feature tips submitted
by readers. E-mail us your tips at
livegrn@colorado.edu.
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| Help Us Help CU |
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See room for improvement? Give us your
feedback on ways that CU can become more
environmentally friendly.
E-mail us at
livegrn@colorado.edu.
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April 22: A Day Revolving Around the Earth |
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Chances are, when you envision the earth this
Earth Day (April 22), you picture a blue
ornate sphere, incandescent against the
nothingness of space. Boulder, invisible
from this vantage, is nothing more than an
iota of that sphere. You and your fellow
Boulderites are infinitesimal specks in that
teeny iota.
It's humbling. But in an
empowering way. For as you reflect on the
environmental movement this Earth Day,
remember what such miniscule specks are
capable of.
Take that image of the
earth that you hold as an example. It has a
name: The Blue Marble. A few people-a few
tiny specks-on the Apollo 17 spacecraft took
this picture in 1972 as they journeyed toward
the moon. As Al Gore explains, The Blue
Marble is the most widely distributed image
in history, and it was created by just a few
people who shot for the moon.
Some maintain that the environmental movement
was incited by another little speck named
Rachel Carson, who got the marble rolling
with her 1962 book entitled Silent
Spring. At the height of the Cold War,
Carson's book warned ardently against the
ecological and social dangers of
indiscriminate pesticide use. More
fundamentally, it argued for an environmental
ethic. The Environmental Protection Agency
credits its own formation-and countless
ensuing environmental policies-to Carson's
ethic. All of America heard Silent
Spring's message. Indeed, Carson's voice
was heard throughout the entire
world.
Others pinpoint the first Earth
Day teach-in as the start of the
environmental movement, which was conceived
of by a single man. Earth Day founder
Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from
Wisconsin, proposed the first nationwide
environmental protest in 1970. On April 22 of
that year, 20 million American specks united
in defense of the Marble. Coordinator Denis
Hayes and his staff organized national
rallies, and thousands of universities held
high-profile protests against issues ranging
from oil spills to sewage leaks, from
wildlife extinction to factory pollution.
Over half a billion people in 175 countries
now observe Nelson's Earth Day every April
22. They unite in celebration of the
movement's global-scale successes, including
international pollution regulation standards,
endangered species preservation, and gradual
recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole. They
also unite in hope of ameliorating current
environmental crises, such as anthropogenic
global climate change. They are encouraged
by the collective power of 500 million human
specks.
Zooming in on The Blue Marble,
the University of Colorado is itself a
worldly force. Through the cooperative
action of its students, CU established its
Environmental Center in 1970-the same year
Gaylord Nelson founded the first Earth Day.
The CU Environmental Center is one of the
pioneer university environmental centers and
has since burgeoned into a national
environmental leader. Here in the Boulder
iota, the CU E-Center continues to promote
and foster greater recycling, greener
transportation, cleaner water and energy, and
environmental justice in Colorado and across
the nation.
This is where you can play a role in the
environmental movement story.
If you haven't already planned to, join in on
CU's Earth Day celebration on Tuesday the
22nd. The Earth Day Bazaar will be held from
10:30am until well into the evening, with its
roots spread throughout campus. Stop by the
Social Action Station at the UMC Fountain,
participate in the activities on Norlin Quad,
or get inspired by the EarthDance Film
Festival. Your contribution is important,
because, as the environmental movement
demonstrates, astronomical things happen when
ionic specks join together. Click
here for more information.
Most importantly, keep The Blue Marble in
mind throughout the year. Change happens
collectively, between person to person, day
to day, year to year. Tuesday is a symbolic
day revolving around the earth. But as
environmental leaders have proven, specks
become stars when they center their whole
world on the world.
(Source: earthday.net)
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