Events at the WestCo Cafe

Looks like there's a lot going on down there this Tuesday. Check it out:

1. Connecting the Dots of Climate Justice: Workshop / Strategy Session with Evan Greer of the Riot-Folk! Collective & Rising Tide

This popular-education workshop weaves together music, stories, guided discussion, images, and games to help groups to identify and understand the root causes of climate change and the related systems attacking our planet and our communities. With this knowledge, we will brainstorm creative responses that everyone can take part in.

Climate Change is too often framed as simply an issue of too much carbon in the atmosphere. Climate Justice is about seeing climate change as the product of hundreds of years of colonialism and other forms of injustice, and recognizing that the communities who will be most affected by climate change are the same communities who are already oppressed by this society.

Everyone has something to bring to the discussion, and we will cover topics and ideas ranging from gender liberation to community gardening. The focus will be on identifying ways to strengthen local organizing and connect with other social movements in our area.

Facilitator Evan Greer is a twenty-three year old activist, educator, and musician from Massachusetts. He tours internationally as a political songwriter and is a founding member of the Riot-Folk! Collective, a group of 9 musicians who work together to use their music to support grassroots justice organizing. Evan has spent time as a relief worker in New Orleans, a street medic at the G8 Protests in Scotland, and a youth and community organizer in Boston, where he currently lives. His deep involvement in movements for social and ecological justice gives him a unique perspective on the many ways that we can address the problems facing our planet and our communities.

Evan's music is available for free download here.

Event: Climate Justice Workshop
Date: 10/21
Time: 4:30 pm
Location: WestCo Cafe

2. Free concert at the WestCo Cafe

(Broadcast Live)

Performing will be:

• Broadcast Live, a live hip-hop group from Albany, NY.
• Evan Greer, a radical folk singer from Boston, MA (who also happens to be facilitating a workshop at 4:30pm at the Cafe)
• Crocodiles, a cool new band with members from The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, from San Diego CA
• Fundamentally Sound, a awesome new campus band from 200 Church!

The show should go till around midnight! It's free, but bring money for CDs!

Event: Free concert
Date: 10/21
Time: 9 pm
Location: WestCo Cafe

From your powers combined...

Are you interested in ensuring the issue of global climate change remains prominent during election season? Eli Allen '09 writes:

Would you like to help elevate the the issue of climate change with just a few seconds? Pledge your vote for clean and just energy and help Power Vote reach one million young "climate voters" to keep our leaders accountable to these important issues.

The full pledge can be found here.

Chalking Memo to BoA: Divest from Coal

As it turns out, the ubiquitous anti-Bank-of-America chalking all over campus today is taking its cue from a larger movement by activist groups like the Rainforest Action Network and Students for a Democratic Society to get major corporations like Citigroup and Bank of America to stop investing in coal.

I'm not sure how active SDS actually is at Wesleyan, but groups around the country have been trying to raise awareness of Bank of America's stake in coal since last year, with rallies, cough/die-ins, and info tables having been organized (and blogged about) in at least San Francisco and Philadelphia.

It seems unclear how much attention the company is paying to these (so far) relatively minor protests, but what with the ridiculous debate going on about "clean coal" in this year's election, here's hoping that major investors like Bank of America follow the lead of other banks and develop better energy policies in the near future than the relatively uncompelling carbon principles they have at the moment.

In the meantime, if the SDS members who I assume are behind the BoA chalking are serious at all, they should probably invest in coal-rock costumes and top hats for some entertaining Usdan public theater.

Climate Change Threatens Beer Production

As if enough of you didn't already consider global warming to be a serious threat, it turns out climate change will probably have a negative effect on the production of malting barley, a key ingredient of beer providing the tasty hops that make it drinkable, in regions where it's primarily grown like Australia and New Zealand.

Which means if you want booze in the future you will have to shell out more than you do for this:

Cry about it!






ABC News: Global Warming = Expensive Beer

[EDIT] Comments drop some agrarian knowledge: production of hops used to flavor beer is also threatened by climate change, possibly meaning more money for crappier beer. How's that for bittering hops? Harrrr.

In the Middle: MHS gets 200-kW fuel cell

While Wes students were pushing for President Roth to sign the Presidents Climate Commitment, Middletown was one-upping us by pushing for a radical solution to rising energy consumption: the installation of a 200-kilowatt fuel cell at Middletown High School. The Hartford Courant reports:

By next fall, Middletown High School will be powered by fuel cell technology thanks to an $800,000 state grant to cover the costs of installation.

The fuel cell will generate electricity, heat the swimming pool and ultimately save taxpayers money, according to school and state officials. Gov. M. Jodi Rell said about $800,000 in state funds will go toward the project.

"Middletown, in 2005, was one of the first municipalities in Connecticut to commit to a clean energy campaign," Gov. M. Jodi Rell said. "We are pleased to help Middletown move forward with this installation project.

The Middletown Press reports that the town is getting the electricity savings on the cheap, as well:

The project will cost a total of $1.6 million. The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund contributed $940,000. Additional grants of $1.7 million bring the city’s cost for the project to about $14,096, Jackson said.

The 20% of MHS's energy that will be provided by the fuel cell will save the city money and reduce its dependence on the pollution-generating power grid at the same time.

Clearly, saving money and saving the environment can go hand in hand. And with concern over carbon emissions and global climate change mounting at the same time as Wesleyan's efforts to reduce the financial burden for students, might not it make sense to look at implementing infrastructural changes at Wesleyan, to both save money and save the environment?

So what can Wesleyan do to achieve those ends? What are your ideas?