Earth Week events held on campus
Chelsea Plushanki
Issue date: 4/24/09 Section: News
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According to Catherine Burtness-Adams, a sophomore hospitality major and president of the Sierra Club, there are three main points that the Sierra Club's petition stresses. First, it wants Drexel to sign a written commitment to green sustainability that will include a promise to reduce 80 percent of Drexel's 1990 practical carbon levels by 2050 - a reduction of about 2 percent, which is a national standard.
"We want [Drexel] to get credit for what they are doing by putting [their goals] in their mission statement or somewhere online that would indicate that [Drexel] is a leader in the field of green campuses," Burtness-Adams said.
She said a written commitment would make it possible to see Drexel's goals and help the Sierra Club in their efforts to help Drexel achieve those goals. It would also allow them to hold Drexel accountable if it does not meet its goals by the deadlines it set for itself.
The petition calls for the creation of an office of sustainability and the Sierra Club wants Drexel to establish a full-time staff position on campus that strictly deals with promoting and improving Drexel sustainability.
"We want to have an office that is accessible to the students and to the staff that will have [its] full focus on the sustainability of Drexel," Burtness-Adams said.
The final point the petition makes is the creation of a revolving loan fund. The Sierra Club is asking Drexel to invest 1 percent of their 2009 endowment in sustainable projects, specifically efficiency projects like fluorescent light bulbs, energy mizers for vending machines and low flow showerheads.
As a part of the celebration of Earth Week and their effort to spread awareness, the Sierra Club and the Drexel Engineers Without Borders hosted Water Day April 20.
"Water Day focused on global water issues, which is kind of the next global issue," Burtness-Adams said.
Students had the opportunity to blindly taste bottled, filtered and tap water to see if they could tell the difference.
Lisa Quinn, a pre-junior nursing major who attended Water Day, said she had difficulty telling which water was bottled and which was filtered.
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