The Office of Sustainability asked Princeton University students, staff and faculty to answer the questions: “Why do you vote? What sustainable policies do you want to see implemented? Which environmental issues do you care the most about?”
Check out a selection of submissions below!
This initiative is in support of Princeton Vote100. Tell us why YOU vote in the comments!
Marissa Mejia ’23
Jessica Scott ’24
“I vote to fight environmental racism. To raise my voice when those most impacted by climate change can’t.”
Bumper DeJesus
Visual Communication Specialist Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment
Maddy Chong ’23
“I vote to make my voice heard. While voting isn’t the only way to make civic contributions, it is quick, easy, and can have a big impact. I vote to protect people, including the generations that come after us. I vote to support environmental protections and sustainable regulations so that our country has access to clean resources for decades to come.”
Lisa Nicolaison
Communications and Engagement Coordinator Office of Sustainability
“I vote because the future of our planet is at stake and climate change is happening NOW. Everything is connected to the only home we have. If we don’t fight for renewable energy policies, clean water and air, and environmental justice for the communities hit hardest by rising sea levels and pollution – then how can we say we are ‘In Service of Humanity’.”
Claire Wayner ’22
“Climate anxiety is real, and voting is a way of coping with it… But I’m also phonebanking… [We] can’t just stop with voting. We need to ensure that everyone has equal access to voting. What is happening now with intentional delays in USPS and prevention of certain people from voting, particularly people of color, is heartbreaking and frustrating. It is up to us to do things like work at the polls as election workers or fight against gerrymandering to ensure that everyone has a say.”
Gloria Lu
Category Manager, Procurement Services Office of the VP for Finance and Treasurer
I vote because I want leaders to implement policies and programs to hold ALL OF US (consumers, manufacturers, policy makers, educators, etc.) accountable to practice sustainability in our daily life and long term planning.
Wesley Wiggins ’21
“I vote so that we can take action on climate change as soon as possible. I vote for the people who have already been affected by climate disasters. I vote for the right to a clean and healthy environment. I vote so that my children and my grandchildren are able to live a long, happy, and peaceful life. I vote for an equitable and sustainable future.”
Camellia Moors ’22
“I vote so that fewer violations of environmental justice can occur and so that current and future generations can have access to a world that has not been ruined by past environmental decisions.”
Naomi Frim-Abrams ’23
“I vote to ensure that communities around the US have equitable access to clean air, water, and spaces in nature. I vote so that we do not have to forever deal with the consequences and negative externalities created by polluting companies poisoning our communities.”
Julia Harisay ’21
“I vote because in order to reach our 2050 goals of carbon mitigation we have to start acting now.”
B. Rose Huber
Communications Manager & Senior Writer Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
“I vote because I was able to grow up on 100 beautiful acres of land. In these fields, I not only learned the value of hard work but also letting the imagination run free… in nature. Today I vote to protect land from being overly developed, especially in New Jersey, where green space is limited.”
Luisa Chantler Edmond ’22
“I see lots of inequity in the policies that are being enacted specifically referring to sustainability, to biodiversity within my country, and those are things that I want to change. Those are things I actively think are wrong and need to be different. So if I don’t vote, then I’m not allowing myself to have that statement out there I’m not giving myself the platform to perform my civic duty. So it’s very important that you vote because that’s the power we have.”
Lieve Monnens
Administrative Assistant Office of the Dean for Research
“Everyone is responsible for their own future. Voting is one way to do that. We can see how the climate is changing and how people all over the planet are already suffering because of it. Make a difference for yourself, for the world. Vote.”
Eve Cooke ’22
“I vote because EVERYONE should have access to nourishing food, clean air, unpolluted water, and natural spaces.”
Hannah Reynolds ’22
“I vote because climate change, like the coronavirus pandemic, poses an incredibly large existential threat to humanity. The difference is, we’ve seen climate change coming for decades. We need elected officials who prioritize the well-being of all of mankind over short-term economic incentives. I vote for a sustainable future for us all.”
It is admittedly easy to get caught up in the seemingly endless torrent of negative environmental news from around the globe, which can make positive actions feel pointless. In doing this, we can lose track of positive developments and, even worse, lose hope for our planet’s future. If you are in this position, welcome to our new “Good News Friday” series, which hopes to provide a breath of fresh air with some recent positive environmental news from around the world.
Here’s a list of just some of the things that have been happening recently:
Planetary Emergency: The United State’s announcement of its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in 2017 sent shockwaves around the world, threatening future progress towards obtaining emissions goals. While that withdrawal cannot officially go into effect until November 4th of this year (one day after the election), one reason for hope for the future of global cooperation is that the leaders of 64 countries plus the European Union have acknowledged the “planetary emergency” and have pledged to undertake a variety of actions to counteract environmental degradation.
Climate Cases: Litigation seems to have become a common way of targeting polluters and encouraging environmental justice in recent years. One example is an ongoing suit filed by state and local governments against the American Petroleum Institute (API) which charges that API misled consumers about the climate impacts of fossil fuels. Regardless of the case’s outcome, advocates see the act of litigation alone as providing serious leverage against big oil.
It might not seem like it, but progress, even if slow, is progress nonetheless. Here’s to hoping it gets even better!
If you’d like to share some Good News with us, submit an article by contacting one of the Blog Editors.
While browsing social media, it may seem like you need to buy a lot of new, sustainable gadgets and gizmos in order to be environmentally friendly. However, you don’t need to go into debt in order to be sustainable! In fact, you can actually save money through some straight-forward changes in shopping, eating, cleaning, and organizational habits. As the motto goes: reduce, reuse, recycle! While we EcoReps often stress recycling, it is even better to reduce your consumption and reuse things that you’ve already consumed! Below are some tips on how you can be more sustainable on a budget:
Buy seasonally (and locally)!
Eating locally doesn’t mean you have to break the bank at an upscale supermarket like Whole Foods; it just means that you are conscious of what you eat and when it’s in season. Fortunately, when something is in season, it’s generally cheaper! While farmers’ markets offer the greatest variety, local produce carts and supermarkets of immigrant communities offer good options too if they’re available in your area.
Here are some examples from the USDA. Price and availability vary by your region.
Clean with reusable rags and easy DIY cleaning solutions
When your clothes rip or wear out, don’t throw them away! First, try fixing them (such as with Mend), but if that’s not an option consider turning them into rags. Old t-shirts work great for dusting and cleaning (and they can even be adapted as Swiffer attachments), while old socks are great for dusting smaller areas and erasing dry erase boards. You can even make a water and vinegar cleaning solution, which is cheaper than traditional cleaning products and non-toxic!
Use what you’ve already got!
In an ideal world, you wouldn’t have any single-use plastics, but you probably do. So, I’d recommend finding ways to reuse plastic bottles, glass bottles, and other containers that you already have. For example, takeout containers can be used for school supplies and other small objects. Yogurt containers can make good pencil holders, while a cut-up carton could be used for potting plants or for storage. As you may realize, I enjoy storage containers.
I hope these tips aren’t too intimidating! For those of you who may not feel that you’re making much of a difference on a macro scale, remember that you can save money and still make a sustainable dent in your own home and community.
Zoom fatigue is real, and us staying locked in quarantine doesn’t help the case. These days, it is more important than ever to prioritize mental health and stress management. It can, however, be hard to find any breathing room amidst our steadily compiling assignments and deadlines. But self-care doesn’t require fancy equipment or programs. In fact, lifting your mood and lowering anxiety can simply be done by spending time outdoors.
According to registered psychologist Dr. Lynne M. Kostiuk, “Nature…slows us down, lets us pay attention to different things, and let go of others. It gives us a chance to just enjoy ‘being’.”
Research has shown that as little as 20-30 minutes of exposure to nature a day can significantly reduce your cortisol levels, leading to a less tense and more positive mindset. Your memory and ability to focus improve, and your future self and grades will thank you. Exposure to natural light and fresh air revitalize your body, and it helps give your mind the break it needs. It doesn’t have to be a long, grand hike either – just a walk around the neighborhood will do the trick.
This year has been collectively deemed the worst by most people around the world. With the coronavirus limiting our mobility, racial justice at the front of our minds, a foreboding presidential election around the corner, and the effects of climate change ramping up it is hard to not feel like there is too much to deal with this year. For me, this has manifested itself as a severe lack of motivation in my daily life and has crippled many habits that I have tried to form this year. This lack of motivation has also come with the feeling that I have to do more than ever because it looks like I have more free time than ever. This has caused increased feelings of disappointment in myself because I always think I can and should be doing more while ignoring the fact that I’m dealing with a tremendous amount of loss. This all results in a feedback loop that makes trying new things really difficult and at points demoralizing.
Example of my vegetarian lunches. This one is roasted vegetables mixed with scrambled eggs. Photo Credit: Wesley Wiggins
Earlier this year, I attempted to reduce my meat consumption for both ethical and sustainability reasons, and for the first few weeks, it was going well. I started limiting my meat consumption to once a week for a month in May and continued through the month of June. But at some point, I slipped up and started having meat multiple times a week. By the end of August, it was as if I had never tried to change my diet at all which led to the unforgiving cycle of beating myself up about it. But the truth is while we all have a personal responsibility to take care of the Earth that does not mean it is going to be easy or that you will get it right on the first try.
Recently, I’ve tried to take things slower by sticking to non-meat lunches and breakfast while being more conscious about what I eat for dinner. The biggest change I’ve made is not setting myself an all-or-nothing rule about what to eat and starting to look at sustainability less as a lifestyle and more as a series of choices that I can make to heal the Earth and ensure a better life for future generations.
There are a lot of systems set in place in our society that make it hard to be sustainable. Pandemic or not, we can’t beat ourselves up for slipping up. Being sustainable in our daily lives is a choice we have to make every day. Even though we slip up and make mistakes we can still look at our lives today and make a new choice to be more sustainable.
In the Fall 2019 semester, I worked on a project which incorporated the S.C.R.A.P. Lab (our campus composter, fondly known as Scrappy) for my class ENE321: Resource Recovery for a Circular Economy taught by Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Z. Jason Ren. This class discussed the topic of a circular economy which is the idea that resources should be reused and repurposed instead of how our linear economy simply puts items into waste. Our final project for this course was to create a business idea and pitch for a company that incorporates elements of the circular economy, and when I first heard of this idea my mind immediately turned to compost.
Composting takes food scraps and uses it to create a soil additive that enriches the earth which can assist in growing new food and/or keeping the environment healthy. My team also wanted to incorporate a new element and produce something from compost. Through our research, we learned that the process of composting emits biogenic CO2 and we wanted to repurpose that gas and produce something new. Our minds turned to the process of photosynthesis in which water and carbon dioxide contribute to building organic matter so we wanted to find a product that we could grow easily and then sell to consumers. This is when we came across the algae species, Arthrospira maxima and Arthrospira platensis more commonly known as Spirulina.
Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis and Arthrospira maxima) contains 55-70% protein by dry weight, as well as high amino acid content and nutrients. It grows best in environments with high CO2 concentrations, a high pH, and high temperatures.
Spirulina are a globally cultivated algae species for food production because of their high protein content and nutritional value. We decided that the nutritious algae would be an excellent food product to sell as our business product and the only thing left to decide was how to grow the spirulina. We decided that the best way to grow them and incorporate the compost would be to use a photobioreactor which is a closed system that would allow us to control the inputs and outputs of the spirulina growth mixture. We could also take the CO2 from an industrial composter like Scrappy and feed it into our photobioreactor to cultivate the spirulina.
After settling on an idea, my team had to settle on a company name and company roles. The members of my team were myself as the Chief Technological Officer, Jivahn Moradian ‘20 as the Chief Financial Officer, and Gabby D’Arcangelo ‘21 as the Chief Executive Officer. When deciding on a name we wanted something that represented both the algae and the use of carbon dioxide from the composter. So the name we settled on was AlgaeHG or AlGHG. The GHG in the title is short for Greenhouse gases which we are using to create our product in the form of CO2.
Gabby D’Arcangelo ‘21, Wesley Wiggins ’21, and Jivahn Moradian ‘20 (from left to right) presenting the AlgaeHG business pitch and presentation in ENE321: Resource Recovery for a Circular Economy. Photo Credits: Professor Z. Jason Ren
Though the company was created for a class project, the three of us had quite a fun time brainstorming the science, engineering, finances, and algae puns for our little class project. And we were thankful to Gina Talt and the S.C.R.A.P. Lab for letting Gabby and Jivahn visit the Lab during my shift, and for all of the other assistance, we were able to receive.
Are you cooking for yourself this semester? Are you trying to figure out how to balance all your school work and find time to cook healthy and delicious meals? Are you interested in how to do this while reducing your carbon footprint and doing something good for the planet? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, then you’ve come to the right place.
Try out this quick Southwest BBQ Portobello Burger recipe!
Why in the world should you ditch your juicy, delicious beef burger for a mushroom you might ask? Producing meat, especially beef, has a huge impact on the planet. From the feedstock grown to feed livestock to the methane emissions from cow farts and burps (yup, that’s the proper terminology), livestock production produces far more greenhouse gas emissions than does plant and crop production. Producing a pound of beef can produce an equivalent of 14.8 pounds of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that when in excess contributes to global warming. Mushrooms? Producing a pound of mushrooms only produces an equivalent of .7 pounds of carbon dioxide. Not only are mushrooms better for the planet, they are also really good for you! Mushrooms contain a high daily percentage of key vitamins and minerals.
Still hesitant? Wondering how a mushroom can come anywhere near rivaling a burger? I promise you, you will be surprised. Follow this recipe to cook your mushrooms in a delicious barbecue marinade that is going to pack your mushroom with flavor. Not into barbecue? Swamp it out for a flavor of your choice! This recipe is easy and quick–exactly what a busy college student like you needs to satisfy your taste buds and do good for the planet and yourself.
Step 1: Preheat your oven to 475 °F. Wipe the portobello mushrooms with a damp cloth and remove the stems.
Step 2: Combine and mix the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl: ¼ cup of BBQ sauce, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 2 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar, 1 tbsp of liquid smoke
Step 3: Dip and submerge each mushroom in the marinade and then place them gill side up on a glass baking pan. Pour the remainder of the marinade over the mushrooms and then put them in the oven to cook for 22-25 minutes.
Step 4: Prepare any other toppings you normally like on a burger: pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, etc.
Step 5: Toast your buns, assemble your burger, and pair with your side of choice, such as fries. Enjoy!
Brought to you by Princeton EcoReps and the Office of Sustainability, this blog discusses all things at the intersection of sustainability and campus life. Even though we are scattered throughout the world, we hope that this blog will foster a sense of community amongst Princeton students, furthering an ethos of sustainability. The remote semester certainly poses challenges with regard to outreach, activism, and conscious decision-making, but we all have the chance to make the most out of our situation.
Expect to see blog posts about sustainable living, environmental research, EcoReps activities, current events, ways to get involved, and more! While the creation of this blog was definitely brought on in part due to going remote, we also plan to continue blogging even after we return to campus. We hope that this platform will bring a sense of unity to individuals and sustainability groups on campus, provide opportunities for reflection and assessment, and leave a legacy of environmental stewardship beyond quarantine. We would love to hear your thoughts! If you have questions, concerns, or something to contribute to the blog, please get in touch with us! We will be accepting contributions for blog posts from the wider Princeton community.
If you are not eligible to vote in the United States or in your home country, feel free to share reasons for why others should vote!
The Office of Sustainability will select responses to share on Instagram, Facebook and the new Tigers Go Green Blog (launching on October 1)! If you choose to submit a written response (as opposed to a video), you will be asked to submit a picture of yourself.
I enjoy making plant-based recipes, thrifting clothes, and finding ways to reduce waste.
What do you study and why?
I’m studying Computer Science because I hope to eventually use it as a tool for environmental research. The emerging field of computational sustainability fascinates me and gives me hope for the future.
What other campus groups are you involved with?
ACM, Princeton Presbyterians
What do you like to do in your free time?
I like visiting the geese on Lake Carnegie or playing anime covers on the piano.
Share a fun fact about yourself!
I have watched all 9 seasons of How I Met Your Mother 6 times.
