'Greenspiration' launched by student groups

Environmental clubs aren’t the only ones thinking green.

Friday kicks off a new endeavor for student groups towards green living—a 10-day, student-organized initiative of activities and events meant to jump-start environmental thinking and action. The initiative, called “Greenspiration,” has brought over 30 cultural, political, and religious campus groups together to plan events that organizers hope will appeal to a variety of interests and draw students who would not normally participate in environmentally focused activities.

Hillel President Sarah Brafman, CC ’10, said that developing a sweeping environmental initiative on campus had been one of her dreams last summer when she was the Hillel social justice coordinator.

“I was thinking about areas of social justice that I wanted to focus on for the year, and environmentalism is something near and dear to my heart,” Brafman said. “I just wanted to think about how we could bring it onto campus in a new and refreshing way.”

Brafman and her friend Eliav Bitan, CC ’09, became cochairs of the project and began approaching campus groups about the possibility of joining forces in September.

“We want to rethink the way we think about the environment and make it about infusing your [students’] interests. This is not about shoving environmentalism down people’s throats. We did not just want to involve environmental groups, but also political groups, religious groups, the student government, the administration, everyone we could think of,” Brafman said.
“We wanted to see environmentalism on campus be more relevant to different kinds of groups,” Bitan agreed.

After developing a core group of organizers from across campus, the group went to the Student Governing Board and received coalition status in November. The events will coincide with Earth Week, and Brafman said that members made a conscious effort to get the word out without paper fliers by developing a comprehensive Web site and painting signs on recycled cardboard.

Greenspiration will include folk festivals and a garden workday with the larger Harlem community among other activities. There will also be Indian and Shabbat dinners as well as dinners in John Jay, all cooked with naturally grown food from local farms.

Avi Edelman, CC ’11, Vice President of Columbia University College Democrats, which is co-sponsoring an event as part of the initiative, said, “The environment is not only a political issue but it’s an issue that all groups should be concerned about because it affects all of us. I really think that everyone should be talking about it.”

“The event caters to things that are right up our ally,” Edelman said. “How do we push for environmental change politically and how do we use politics as a means for fighting environmental justice?”

“We’re talking to people we’ve never talked to before, cosponsoring things we’ve never cosponsored before,” said Hannah Perls, CC ’11 and a leader of Columbia’s environmental advocacy group, Green Umbrella. “I think everyone on all sides is learning so much about how things can be put together.”

Greenspiration’s first event, a forum on effective environmental activism, will be held this afternoon in Pupin.

Brafman said that she envisions Greenspiration continuing in coming years and looks forward to developing new angles for the initiative to take.

“I would love to see it continue, and the beauty of it is that it really can take on different forms every year. It’s so student-driven and so interest-driven that it can never get stale,” she said.

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