Sustainability Conference attended by S.A.V.E. Volunteers
Rocky Mountain Sustainability Summit
by
Charlie Speicher, Carroll Student and S.A.V.E. Board Member
Sustainable Development, as defined by the Bruntland commission in 1978, is the ability of the present generation to meet their needs without affecting the abilities of future generations to meet their needs. These “needs” consist of institutional, environmental, financial, and social amenities which every society depends upon. For example, a societies “needs” could qualify as healthy ecosystems, sound social programs, adequate jobs for people with adequate pay, and non-corrupt governments. The notion of sustainability is the keystone of any development, because any changes or alterations made by a society must be healthy and they must last indefinitely. Thus, the discourse concerning Sustainable Development must be present in any group or societies decision making processes.
Boulder, Colorado is a very different town than Helena, Montana. Despite its’ location and size, Boulder has a much larger University campus within its’ city limits. This University is home to roughly forty thousand students which seem to dominate the downtown area. The University of Colorado at Boulder is known for its’ Environmental Studies program and its’ general pro-environment stance taken on many social and political issues. The town of Boulder itself is known in the rocky mountain region for being a progressive community where liberal environmentalists can dwell and prosper in while being surrounded by likeminded people. Helena, Montana with its tiny Carroll College is quite the opposite.
The Sustainability Summit Kyle and I attended was held at Boulder’s University campus. We were greeted by a panel of speakers discussing the role that institutions of higher education should play in sustainability (note – there was never any mention, not one at all of “Sustainable Development”, more on this later). They concluded that, yes, institutions of higher education should play a role in sustainability. There was much colorful language and vague metaphors employed to solidify that point, but little else worth mention. Following the panel discussion, we participated in round table discussions on renewable energy and climate change.
In the afternoon of the first day of the summit, we attended three consecutive workshops. The first one was a lesson in the teaching of sustainability to people that know nothing about it. The predominant message I took from this workshop was how to connect the economy, the environment, and society and how to illustrate how interconnected those three notions are. The workshop provided “tips” on teaching, such as providing definitions of sustainability and ways to address tough environmental issues. The second workshop was an initiative to green college campuses. A Californian environmental research group has developed software which can be placed in buildings on college campuses which would display up to the minute information on how much energy the entire building, room by room, is using at any given time. This software, of course, costs between 10 and 200 thousand dollars.
The third workshop was by far the most applicable to SAVE’s interests. It was titled, “Sustainability and Self-Sufficiency: How to capitalize your community’s conservative values into sustainability resources.” This workshop was interactive, and everyone worked in small partnerships to outline the challenges that living in conservative communities can pose to sustainability. We also brainstormed on ways to mitigate those challenges and foster progressive results in the face of those challenges. This workshop was unlike the others because it didn’t adhere to the usual approach to environmentalism that we see in wealthy areas, where a common thought exists that the only thing an environmental issues needs is heaps of money thrown at it. The woman leading this workshop was from a conservative area in rural Idaho and seemed genuinely impressed with mine and Kyle’s ideas of environmentalism. We gave her a SAVE bumper sticker and told her all about our program. She told us to let her know if we need help finding money! The first day concluded with an informal social mixer where Kyle and I handed out SAVE bumper and cell phone stickers to pretty girls.
On to the second day. Most of the day consisted of a green products expo and a tour of the facilities at Boulder’s campus. The green products expo was pretty straightforward. Most of Boulder’s non-profits and green guilds were present to display their environmentally sound products. We saw new compact fluorescent light-bulbs, real-time software to display a building’s energy output, photovoltaic panels, miniature wind-turbines which can be placed on the side of a building, and recycling bins which had pre-labeled spaces for storing materials. Unless we received a grant, most of the products were, ahem, beyond SAVE’s budget. We also attended a workshop that day which discussed the benefits of sustainable food, such as purchasing locally grown organic products, and offering healthy foods on college campuses.
Overall, the conference was extremely informative, but unfortunately failed to address what I (and Kyle) feel to be the most critical issues facing sustainability not only in the United Stated but globally. The very title of the conference was misleading: “Rocky Mountain Sustainability Summit”. The fact that these two words, Sustainable and Development were never mentioned together was very disappointing. A conference on sustainability that doesn’t mention the global and pressing concept on sustainable development seems to me to be unsustainable, right? The United States is obviously light years ahead of the international community in terms of development, so I think it’s easy to forget about the actual development portion of sustainability when discussing environmental issues here. We are already “developed”, yet there are many unsustainable things happening here in the states, such as our dependence on foreign oil, our energy usage, our GHG emissions, etc. So wouldn’t it make sense to talk about re-development. To perhaps question the way we were developed in the first place? I have come to the conclusion that the only way any environmental progress will be made in the United States and elsewhere is not to buy millions of dollars worth of green products (which is itself an industry, and an unsustainable one at that) but to shift the way people think about the environment. There needs to be some serious philosophical undertakings to occur to make a positive change. So in a sense, the attitude and approach that many Americans take toward environmental issues must be developed, and that development must be sustainable. In the third world, the United Nations has placed an emergency like importance on sustainable development by adopting the millennium development goals which attempt to reduce carbon emissions in the third world by 50% by the year 2015.
This conference placed an enormous emphasis on the purchase of green products and the importance of fostering environmental stewardship, but little or no emphasis on the foundation of grassroots environmentalism and sustainable development, which Kyle and I feel to be the most important issue facing SAVE and Montana’s environmental issues. Though the subject matter of the conference fell short of mine and Kyle’s expectations, we certainly learned a lot about the state of environmentalism in the western United States. We realized the nature of the work that must happen here in Montana to make positive changes, and those changes will not come about by solely relying on grants to fund initiatives, but to be on the ground working hard and leading by example and to facilitate open-minded conversations with Montanan’s that generally wouldn’t care about environmental issues. SAVE seems to me to be beyond other local and regional non-profits in this regard. Most non-profiteers that we spoke to in Boulder were astonished that SAVE had actual work to do, rather than just operate as a think tank or public interest group.
by
Charlie Speicher, Carroll Student and S.A.V.E. Board Member
Sustainable Development, as defined by the Bruntland commission in 1978, is the ability of the present generation to meet their needs without affecting the abilities of future generations to meet their needs. These “needs” consist of institutional, environmental, financial, and social amenities which every society depends upon. For example, a societies “needs” could qualify as healthy ecosystems, sound social programs, adequate jobs for people with adequate pay, and non-corrupt governments. The notion of sustainability is the keystone of any development, because any changes or alterations made by a society must be healthy and they must last indefinitely. Thus, the discourse concerning Sustainable Development must be present in any group or societies decision making processes.
Boulder, Colorado is a very different town than Helena, Montana. Despite its’ location and size, Boulder has a much larger University campus within its’ city limits. This University is home to roughly forty thousand students which seem to dominate the downtown area. The University of Colorado at Boulder is known for its’ Environmental Studies program and its’ general pro-environment stance taken on many social and political issues. The town of Boulder itself is known in the rocky mountain region for being a progressive community where liberal environmentalists can dwell and prosper in while being surrounded by likeminded people. Helena, Montana with its tiny Carroll College is quite the opposite.
The Sustainability Summit Kyle and I attended was held at Boulder’s University campus. We were greeted by a panel of speakers discussing the role that institutions of higher education should play in sustainability (note – there was never any mention, not one at all of “Sustainable Development”, more on this later). They concluded that, yes, institutions of higher education should play a role in sustainability. There was much colorful language and vague metaphors employed to solidify that point, but little else worth mention. Following the panel discussion, we participated in round table discussions on renewable energy and climate change.
In the afternoon of the first day of the summit, we attended three consecutive workshops. The first one was a lesson in the teaching of sustainability to people that know nothing about it. The predominant message I took from this workshop was how to connect the economy, the environment, and society and how to illustrate how interconnected those three notions are. The workshop provided “tips” on teaching, such as providing definitions of sustainability and ways to address tough environmental issues. The second workshop was an initiative to green college campuses. A Californian environmental research group has developed software which can be placed in buildings on college campuses which would display up to the minute information on how much energy the entire building, room by room, is using at any given time. This software, of course, costs between 10 and 200 thousand dollars.
The third workshop was by far the most applicable to SAVE’s interests. It was titled, “Sustainability and Self-Sufficiency: How to capitalize your community’s conservative values into sustainability resources.” This workshop was interactive, and everyone worked in small partnerships to outline the challenges that living in conservative communities can pose to sustainability. We also brainstormed on ways to mitigate those challenges and foster progressive results in the face of those challenges. This workshop was unlike the others because it didn’t adhere to the usual approach to environmentalism that we see in wealthy areas, where a common thought exists that the only thing an environmental issues needs is heaps of money thrown at it. The woman leading this workshop was from a conservative area in rural Idaho and seemed genuinely impressed with mine and Kyle’s ideas of environmentalism. We gave her a SAVE bumper sticker and told her all about our program. She told us to let her know if we need help finding money! The first day concluded with an informal social mixer where Kyle and I handed out SAVE bumper and cell phone stickers to pretty girls.
On to the second day. Most of the day consisted of a green products expo and a tour of the facilities at Boulder’s campus. The green products expo was pretty straightforward. Most of Boulder’s non-profits and green guilds were present to display their environmentally sound products. We saw new compact fluorescent light-bulbs, real-time software to display a building’s energy output, photovoltaic panels, miniature wind-turbines which can be placed on the side of a building, and recycling bins which had pre-labeled spaces for storing materials. Unless we received a grant, most of the products were, ahem, beyond SAVE’s budget. We also attended a workshop that day which discussed the benefits of sustainable food, such as purchasing locally grown organic products, and offering healthy foods on college campuses.
Overall, the conference was extremely informative, but unfortunately failed to address what I (and Kyle) feel to be the most critical issues facing sustainability not only in the United Stated but globally. The very title of the conference was misleading: “Rocky Mountain Sustainability Summit”. The fact that these two words, Sustainable and Development were never mentioned together was very disappointing. A conference on sustainability that doesn’t mention the global and pressing concept on sustainable development seems to me to be unsustainable, right? The United States is obviously light years ahead of the international community in terms of development, so I think it’s easy to forget about the actual development portion of sustainability when discussing environmental issues here. We are already “developed”, yet there are many unsustainable things happening here in the states, such as our dependence on foreign oil, our energy usage, our GHG emissions, etc. So wouldn’t it make sense to talk about re-development. To perhaps question the way we were developed in the first place? I have come to the conclusion that the only way any environmental progress will be made in the United States and elsewhere is not to buy millions of dollars worth of green products (which is itself an industry, and an unsustainable one at that) but to shift the way people think about the environment. There needs to be some serious philosophical undertakings to occur to make a positive change. So in a sense, the attitude and approach that many Americans take toward environmental issues must be developed, and that development must be sustainable. In the third world, the United Nations has placed an emergency like importance on sustainable development by adopting the millennium development goals which attempt to reduce carbon emissions in the third world by 50% by the year 2015.
This conference placed an enormous emphasis on the purchase of green products and the importance of fostering environmental stewardship, but little or no emphasis on the foundation of grassroots environmentalism and sustainable development, which Kyle and I feel to be the most important issue facing SAVE and Montana’s environmental issues. Though the subject matter of the conference fell short of mine and Kyle’s expectations, we certainly learned a lot about the state of environmentalism in the western United States. We realized the nature of the work that must happen here in Montana to make positive changes, and those changes will not come about by solely relying on grants to fund initiatives, but to be on the ground working hard and leading by example and to facilitate open-minded conversations with Montanan’s that generally wouldn’t care about environmental issues. SAVE seems to me to be beyond other local and regional non-profits in this regard. Most non-profiteers that we spoke to in Boulder were astonished that SAVE had actual work to do, rather than just operate as a think tank or public interest group.
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