Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Students from KU Hillel’s Everett Tzedek Social Action Project wanted to know how concerned other students and Lawrence residents were with the environment, so they made a documentary film.
Screened Monday night at the Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union during the “An Evening of Green” event, the 15-minute movie started out by asking random pedestrians on Massachusetts Street how they would define global warming and sustainability.
“No idea,” said one college-aged male. “I got nothing.”
Other responses to the question weren’t much more detailed.
“When stuff hurts the ozone layer,” another person said.
The movie was the culmination of the group’s social action lecture series that began in the fall semester and featured a number of local experts on topics like homelessness and health care.
Hillel members Jonathan Eisen, St. Louis freshman, Dena Hart, Buffalo Grove, Ill., sophomore, and Alex Backus, Lawrence freshman, helped with the movie.
Group members said they chose to feature the topic of environmental issues for their final project because there was an obvious need for it.
“It’s the most important for people on the KU campus to know about,” said Jessica Levy, Dallas junior and Hillel member. “We know we can do something about it.”
Justin Leverett, Carbondale, Ill., freshman, said he hasn’t had to change many of his habits to help cut down on waste.
“My life is just naturally green right now,” he said.
Leverett, also a Hillel member, said shutting off lights and computers when not in use are some of the most direct ways people can help, and he said riding his bike whenever possible doesn’t hurt.
“You get to know the city a lot better,” he said. “It’s great to breathe the fresh air.”
The guest lecturer after the movie, Simran Sethi, who works for the environmentally oriented Web site treehugger.com, said she failed her first environmental class in college, so there is still hope.
“We’re all just trying to figure it out,” she said.
Sethi presented a Power Point lecture called “Relationships and Choices: Personalizing Sustainability,” which dealt with waste and ways of preventing it. Some of the biggest contributors to waste are coal burning, water waste and those little plastic bottles full of water, soda and juice.
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Group members said they chose to feature the topic of environmental issues for their final project because there was an obvious need for it.
“Plastic is basically here forever,” Sethi said. “It doesn’t go away.”
She also discussed a number of startling statistics, such as how a standard T-shirt is made with a third of a pound of a variety of chemicals and consumption of office paper has risen 43 percent since 1999 during the digital age.
She stressed that it’s the little things students can do like driving less and using energy efficient light bulbs that can decrease waste.
Kansan staff writer Tyler Harbert can be contacted at tharbert@kansan.com.
— Edited by Joe Caponio
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