Maggie Mordecai
Gleeson Plaza buzzed as laughter and goats’ bleating filled the air on Tuesday, April 22. The Office of Sustainability held its annual Earth Day Celebration, which included various activities to promote the importance of environmental sustainability and protecting the planet.
Emiko Uohara, a sophomore chemistry major, led one of the most popular parts of the event. “The Office of Sustainability and ASUSF brought back the bicycle-powered smoothie blender to campus, and it was definitely my favorite part of this year’s event,” Uohara said. “After years in storage, the bike made students’ faces light up as they pedaled and blended their custom smoothies.”
“I loved a lot of the events at Earth Day, and the bicycle-powered blender was pretty cool,” said Benjamin Getchell, a senior politics major. “But I have to give it to the build-your-own-BART train and endangered species temporary tattoos. I know that they are trying to sell something to me, but those kinds of small things get to me.”
The goats were another big hit that students couldn’t stay away from. “My favorite activity at the Earth Day event was the goats,” Caton Daval-Santos, a junior advertising major, said. “I love animals and I love that they [get to] graze the grass of this beautiful campus.”
Celebrating Earth Day helps to remind and educate students on the importance of being environmentally sustainable in their everyday lives. “I find it hard not to be environmentally conscious,” Getchell said. “Every purchase we make or action we take has a part to play in supporting the environment. I like to think that even the small actions still make an impact, whether that be composting, growing my own herbs, or properly cleaning out containers before recycling them.”
Many students noted how talking about environmental sustainability and climate change is important to continue, because it’s also a crucial part of politics, which drastically affects our future. “I try to be environmentally conscious on campus by disposing of the trash properly, but also being engaged in conversation about the environment of our only home,” said Daval-Santos.
As a politics major, Getchell also stressed the importance of environmental consciousness. “We really have to radically rethink how we interact with our environment. However, I do think a lot of solutions for both environmental issues and social and political issues lie in sustainability. A ‘sustainability’ framework can be used to reach out to people that we may disagree with on a wide variety of issues and reach common ground,” he said.
Climate change has drastically affected the Earth, with the sea level and heat rising significantly every year, wildfires raging around the world, and beloved species beginning to die out. “It’s scary to think about what the Earth might look like in ten years, which is why it’s so important to be sustainable and caring for our planet,” said Mishti Katariya, a sophomore data analytics major. Daval-Santos shared a similar sentiment with Katariya. “Environmental sustainability is important, especially right now, because of the speed and rapid change our world faces due to climate change. We only have one home,” he said.
Uohara highlighted the reality of the situation our planet is in, and why this event was so important to her. “We are exploiting the Earth every day. As humans, we have placed ourselves at the top of a pyramid, acting as if we could survive without a diverse ecosystem and a healthy planet,” she said. “We are burning through resources, introducing threats to the planet because they’re considered innovative, and polluting our land, water, and air, treating them as secondary to our profit. Environmental sustainability is vital to ensuring we have a future where we can roam freely, breathe clearly, and live peacefully.”
Editor-in-Chief: Jordan Premmer, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia McCrackin, Managing Editor: Jordan DelFiugo, Opinion Editor: Dakota Duran, Scene Editor: Elina Graham
