Blog

On Earth Day 2013, April 22nd at noon, students from USF Tampa's Student Environmental Association gathered for a Divestment Workshop Teach-In. Kevin Blossfeld of the St. Petersburg USF campus and a journalist of the campus paper, The Oracle, joined the meeting as well. While invitations had been sent to many administrators and offices of the Tampa campus to join them in the president's conference room in the Patel Center for Global Solutions, none attended this meeting.

As yet another semester at Bowling Green State University inches towards its conclusion, I realize how difficult it is to adequately summarize the accomplishments of Environmental Action Group in the form of the written word. Our campaign for 100% clean energy at BGSU by 2020 has reached heights that attest to the dedication of all students and community members who have been directly involved or have expressed valuable support and that highlight the urgent situation escalated by continued fossil fuel usage.

Today is Earth Day, but this year the usual corporate greenwashing and symbolic gestures aren’t going to cut it. This year, we’re taking it back.

Students on dozens of campuses are organizing Take Back Earth Day events to demand their colleges and universities address the climate crisis with more than just words. At the same time, a movement-wide coalition is pushing on the national level by flooding the State Department with over 1 million public comments against the disastrous Keystone XL Pipeline.

#TakeBackEarthDay: Join the students taking action across the country by demanding the Obama Administration reject Keystone XL!

Whether it’s your administration on campus or the administration in Washington, we’ve got to hold our leaders accountable to their climate commitments, and push them to make a clean break from big polluters: divesting from fossil fuels and moving to 100% clean energy.

That’s what Earth Day needs to be about.

Last month, I attended the Sierra Club’s Global Population and Environment Program Fellowship training in Washington, DC.  I was joined by several other youth from across the country who were interested in making the connection between empowering women and sustainable development.  I applied for this fellowship as I have become increasingly interested in learning more about gender issues due to the Gender Economics class at American University that I am taking this semester.  Through this class, I have been learning more about the importance of incorporating gender when developing macroeconomic policies.  Many of our initial readings for the class discussed how much of the work that women do such as cooking, giving birth to and taking care of children, and other household tasks are not accounted for in the formal economy or in the country’s GDP.  Yet, women’s role in the care or reproductive sector, while often unacknowledged in formal economic policies, is crucial to the continued development of a country.  For without women to give birth and take care of children, there would no future generation and no future economy to talk about.

Despite women’s importance in the economy, the impact of economic policies on women are rarely given special consideration when country leaders develop economic policies.  As a result, these policies often have a disproportional impact on women.  For example, policies to increase trade between countries may seem beneficial for both of the countries’ economic growth.  However, in countries where human labor is their main resource, this means that women are increasingly employed to work in the factories as they are considered a source of cheap labor.  As the women may not have many other options, the factory bosses can pay them low wages and force them to work long hours without breaks.  (This is greatly simplifying the situation as each country is different, but I am trying to be brief.)  Additionally, the women often still have to take care of children and perform other household tasks, placing a huge strain on their welfare.