#arcCOMPOSTS

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Reidd

As you may know, next Monday is Earth Day and I’m happy to report that in celebration, American River College will begin pre- and post-consumer composting in the Student Center Food Court with plans to begin over in our Fine & Applied Art’s Hospitality Management program as well! New 3-bin COMPOST / RECYCLE / LANDFILL containers have been purchased and should be installed very soon. compost-signage-2050x1538

In preparation for this step, Aramark has moved into their new building and left all the Styrofoam containers in the Portable Village. What this means is that just about everything that comes out of there can either be recycled or composted. This effort will go a long way in helping us meet the regulations mandated by California Assembly Bill 341 which requires us to have a 75% diversion from land fills by 2020.

ab341

WE NEED YOU!

Attached you will find signage that will be going up. During the first week or so, we would like to have volunteers spend their lunch break helping students & staff to understand what can go into each of the bins—your help will go a long way in educating everyone of this important change. If you are interested in spending your lunch hour answering questions about trash, please feel free to hit the REPLY button and let us know!

Recycle reminder

I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we currently recycle:

Batteries
CFL lightbulbs
Toner cartridges from ink jet & laser printers / office copiers / etc…

So bring those in to Printing Services and drop them off at our counter instead of putting them in the mail or worse, in to the trash. Thanks for your time. recycle-signage-2050x1538

College Hour

The Latest in Global Climate Change Science

Thursday, April 18
12:15pm – 1:15pm
Location: Raef Hall 160

Facilitator: Robert Christopherson

Author and teacher Robert Christopherson highlights the latest global climate change science from the pages of his best-selling physical geography texts, including the dramatic changes underway in the Polar Regions. See recent photos and observations from expeditions with Christopherson and his nature-photographer wife, Bobbe, who have completed twelve trips to the Arctic and Antarctic regions since

2003.

The scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, the latest information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific reports—weather anomalies and increasing tornadoes and hurricane intensity, ocean freshening and ocean acidification, the relation of climate change and record western wildfires, losses to the Colorado River, the Greenland and Antarctic meltdowns, the 2012 record-low sea-ice extent in the Arctic, and the latest 2013 data on atmospheric carbon dioxide (and more!) highlight his illustrated talk.

Student Corner

In celebration of Earth Week, the Student Sustainability Committee & ARC ECOS club are working together to help raise awareness of all things sustainable with invited guests & events scheduled throughout the week. If you would like to participate, please send an email over to khinton.asbarc@gmail.com.

LRCCD's new Chancellor, Dr. Brian King

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Reidd

I’d like to take a moment to give a big welcome to our new chancellor, Dr. Brian King from Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz. In looking into the progress made on sustainability efforts under his leadership, I am very pleased to see that he is a signatory of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) agreement, which signals leadership on sustainability during his tenure there. In looking through Cabrillo’s GreenSteps website, it looks as though they have several things worth bringing to not only American River College, but to the entire the Los Rios Community College District.

It’s my hope that we’ll be able to begin developing Sustainability Committees across Los Rios similar to Cosumnes River College’s Sustainability Committee, or as Citrus College’s as outlined by the California Community College State Chancellor’s office so that we can buy cialis online begin working on climate action plans and meeting AB32 requirements.

Other highlights I came across on Cabrillo’s GreenSteps site include:

Cabrillo’s ACPUCC 2008 & 2010 Carbon Emissions Report
Mini-Grants available for sustainable curriculum development
Cabrillo Online Carpool/Rideshare sign up
Zero Interest Bicycle Loan Program for Cabrillo Students
Climate Initiative Task Force
Green building tours
A private Faculty Inquiry Network to share their “special sauce” ingredients with each other

Because of Dr. King’s background; the strong student support we are beginning to see; the roadmap to a Sustainability Committee from the State Chancellor’s Office; the addition of sustainability language in our District Strategic Plan Goals / ARC Focus Areas (see 5.5); and our Vision, Mission & Values statement, I believe the opportunity for working

together towards a stronger green presence for all of Los Rios is upon us!

No More Plastic Bags Recap

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Reidd

Negligence is described as doing the same thing over and over
even though you know it is dangerous, stupid, or wrong.
Now that we know, it’s time for a change. Negligence starts tomorrow.
“Cradle to Cradle” by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

December’s #NoMorePlasticBags student temporary art exhibit brought 1,020 bags to American River College. It took 8 hours and nearly 50 people to put up.

To put those numbers into perspective, here in the US, we go through 60,000 plastic bags per second and of those, only 1-2% of them are recycled. This item is made to last about 15 minutes and yet takes 500 years to decompose. The goal of this installation was to make you think about those numbers the next time you are at the grocery store and you watch the bagger put your 6 items into 8 bags and to consider alternatives. The entire life cycle of a product needs to be factored into it’s cost. Bottom line, please consider using reusable bags when doing your shopping.

Art New Media Professor Jiayi buy cheap cialis online Young’s Fall class project was to give a jump start to our Sustainability @ARC website. They came up with posters; redesigned this site to have a better flow; and the #NoMorePlasticBags event as a way to bring a large scale art project to launch it all off with. One major addition worth watching is the new Student Corner where we’ll be incorporating information from the student ECOS Club & Student Sustainability Committee as well as whatever they have to say…a centralized place for their voice.

We asked that people passing by take photos and share them with the hashtag NoMorePlasticBags so that we could find them after it was all over. The gallery below is comprised of some of what turned up. I’ve posted all of them to the Sustainability at ARC Facebook photo gallery, so follow that link if you’d like to see viagra online pharmacy them in their entirety.

All in all it was a very solid day. A great big thank you to the students, staff & faculty involved in this event, some of whom are shown below.

Wishing Bags: A Temporary Art Project on ARC Campus

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Reidd

ARC Sustainability, ArtNewMedia 331 class and ArtNewMedia 410 class have collaboratively created a temporary public art project to promote the concept of “sustainability” on American River College campus. American River College faculty member, Jiayi Young’s Artnm 410 class, has been working with Don Reid of ARC Sustainability to redesign green.arc.losrios.edu web site and dowloadable posters to promote more green efforts to take place on campus. With this public art project, we are hoping to:

Announce the new green.arc.losios.edu web viagra cheap site
Get more faculty and staff to participate in the ARC Acorn Games for greener offices
Increase awareness of green practice in our daily lives

Artwork Design & Installation Process
The artwork will utilize thousands of used white grocery bags. The bags will be strung together in rows between the trees like lanterns. Since the bags are very light, they will naturally take in wind/breeze, quietly swing in the air. The overall installation will resemble “Wish Flags” which embodies rich tradition cross-culturally. Faculty, staff and students are invited to participate by bringing and hanging their own bags on the day of installation.

The design buy cialis online and installation of the artwork will be managed and guided by Don Reid, Jiayi Young and Dolores White (Art Dept IA), and created by a group of Jiayi Young’s students on Friday December 14, 2012.

Site Description
The artwork will be installed in the large lawn area between the Fine & Applied Arts Theatre and the Administration buildings.

Experiment and photos by Stacy Bernstein, student from artnm410

The Story of Stuff visits ARC

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Reidd

In the second part of the 3 part series on sustainability, Professor Rick Topinka & the Center for Teaching & Learning presented Allison Cook from the Story of Stuff Project to discuss what goes into the making of one of the most watched environmental-themed online movies of all time.

Raef Hall was packed as she shared her story of realization that talking about environmental sustainability was not a political discussion, but one of a responsible citizen. One cartoon in her program for instance showed a person in a strong man pose that asked the question “which muscle are you flexing, your citizen muscle or your consumer muscle?”

From their latest short film, The Story of Change…

I’ve come to see that we have

two parts to ourselves; it’s almost like two muscles – a consumer muscle and a citizen muscle. Our consumer muscle, which is fed and exercised constantly, has grown strong. So strong that “consumer” has become our primary identity, our reason for being. We’re told so often that we’re a nation of consumers that we don’t blink when the media use “consumer” and “person” interchangeably.

Meanwhile, our citizen muscle has gotten flabby. There’s no marketing campaign reminding us to engage as citizens. On the contrary, we’re bombarded with lists of simple things we can buy or do to save the planet, without going out of our way or breaking a sweat.

My favorite question asked on this day, What kind of changemaker are you? So, really–what kind of changemaker are you?

Some of the other videos on their site you can check out:

The Story of Broke
The Story of Change
The Story of Citizens United v. FEC
The Story of Electronics
The Story of Cosmetics
The Story of Bottled Water
The Story buy cialis online of Cap & Trade

Annie Leonard founded the non-profit Story of Stuff Project in 2008 to respond to tens of thousands of viewer requests for more information and ways to get involved. Be sure to click the big Facebook LIKE button, follow them on Twitter and share their YouTube vids!

Sustainability@ARC

Coordinating Green Efforts at American River College

Author Archives: Reidd

#arcCOMPOSTS

WE NEED YOU!

Recycle reminder

College Hour

Student Corner

LRCCD's new Chancellor, Dr. Brian King

No More Plastic Bags Recap

Negligence is described as doing the same thing over and over
even though you know it is dangerous, stupid, or wrong.
Now that we know, it’s time for a change. Negligence starts tomorrow.
“Cradle to Cradle” by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

Wishing Bags: A Temporary Art Project on ARC Campus

The Story of Stuff visits ARC

WE NEED YOU!

Recycle reminder

College Hour

Student Corner

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Negligence is described as doing the same thing over and over even though you know it is dangerous, stupid, or wrong. Now that we know, it’s time for a change. Negligence starts tomorrow. “Cradle to Cradle” by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

Share this:

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Share this:

Negligence is described as doing the same thing over and over
even though you know it is dangerous, stupid, or wrong.
Now that we know, it’s time for a change. Negligence starts tomorrow.
“Cradle to Cradle” by William McDonough & Michael Braungart