Boston College EcoPledge

Besides turning the lights off, there are dorm competitions, smarter shopping, and even data tracking.

Welcome back EcoPledgers! Here are some tips for making your dorm room as sustainable as you can be this year! 

Happy Greening! 

James Balog is coming to BC to host the showing of his movie Chasing Ice on Thursday, April 25th at 8pm. Balog graduated from BC in 1974 and he went on to launch The Extreme Ice Survey, which uses time-lapse cameras to document changes in the glacial landscape of the Arctic. This is what the documentary Chasing Ice depicts and it has won Sundance's Excellence in Cinematography Award for U.S. Documentary Filmmaking. Check the trailer out for yourself (see link below) and if it intrigues you then come to Devlin 008 on April 25th to see the whole thing and talk to James Balog himself. 

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/environment/2011-03-03-1Apurewater03_CV_N.htm

Each year on April 22nd Earth Day is celebrated by people all around the world in an effort to bring support and awareness for environmental protection.  If you’re one of the many people making the effort to be more green this Earth Day, here are a few great apps that can help.

  iRecycle

Improving your recycling habits is one of the best ways to be more green and the iRecycle app is a great way to find convenient recycling opportunities.  This app uses your location to find collection sites near you and gives you vital information such as phone number, directions, hours of operation, and the types of materials that are collected.   iRecycle even provides you with over 1,500,000 ways to recycle over 350 materials.  With helpful tips like this it’ll be hard not to recycle!

                    Zero Carbon

Considering the fact that CO2 emissions are one of the major contributing factors to global warming, reducing your own carbon footprint is another good way to show your support for the environment this Earth Day.  Before you’re able to reduce your carbon footprint however, you need to know what it is.  The Zero Carbon app allows you to calculate what your carbon footprint is based on your energy consumption and the modes of transportation you choose.  It will then give you helpful suggestions on how you can reduce your footprint. 

                 Make Change, Not Waste

If you already shop at Whole Foods this app is a must, and if you don’t shop there yet this app is great incentive to start.  The Make Change, Not Waste app rewards Whole Foods shoppers for living a green lifestyle.  If you do things like use a reusable bag, recycle, or bike to work, Whole Foods will reward you with coupons and badges.  And if you want to make an even bigger impact you can choose to donate a percentage of the coupon value to the Whole Planet Foundation, which aims to alleviate global poverty.  With this app, Whole Foods is definitely making it easy for us to stay green and help the planet!

                Earth Day Guide

And here’s one final app to help you make the most of this Earth Day.  With features such as History, News, Resolutions, and Podcasts, the Earth Day Guide will ensure that you know everything there is to know about Earth Day.  You can make pledges as to how you will work to be more environmentally friendly this Earth Day and then view tips and suggestions on how to make it happen.  Put to use all the features in this app and you’ll be on your way to making an impact this Earth Day!

Going Green, Going Paperless

Ale Cabrera, Lauren Audi, Joseph Manning, Kasia Hart and Professor Juliet Schor joined us this evening for our Student Showcase: From Academics to Activism. In the photo above, Ale Cabrera views the final result of her "Hands Across the Sand" program with Environment Florida, in which over 700 people joined hands across the beaches of Miami to protest offshore drilling.

This year's Green Week begins TOMORROW! Our annual 7-day celebration of BC's sustainability efforts is social justice themed this year, which means we'll be exploring topics like environmental ethics, environmental justice, sustainable water use, sustainable building practices, green jobs, and more. We'll be photographing and blogging these events all week, so keep checking back for updates!

Students, faculty, staff, and alumni: Don't forget to sign our Green Week Pledge: http://www.change.org/petitions/bc-green-week

If you haven't received a copy of our event schedule yet, here it is:

ALL WEEK: Dining offers sustainable, organic, and local meal options and a sizable discount for using china instead of disposables! The Libraries will be sponsoring a showing of Gasland (Wed and Thurs at 12pm in the 2nd floor media room) as well as highlighting their new Green Book Guide.

The world population is placing a higher demand on the earth’s resources every year. Oil is one of the most significant energy sources, but a great portion of accessible oil has already been tapped. This has led companies to drill for hard to reach oil in order to meet consumer demands. Offshore drilling is a dangerous and expensive means of retrieving oil, but it is still widely practiced. Moving towards renewable energy sources in the United States would reduce our carbon emissions, cut back on the money spent on imports, and slowly remove our nation from the geopolitics that the oil economy has brought many nations into. Cape Wind is a wind farm that proposes to build 130 turbines off the shore of Cape Cod. This wind farm will provide electricity to residents of Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard and help pave the way for the construction of more offshore wind farms along the coasts to reduce the nation’s demand for oil, gas, and coal. The figure below shows a break down Massachusetts’s current sources of electricity (Cape Wind Associates, 2010). It should be goal of citizens and governments to move towards smaller percentages of gas, petroleum, and coal.