Beth Weiner
Contributing Writer
Have you ever wondered what “sustainability” is? You’ve probably heard it around campus plenty of times – it seems to be quite the buzzword around North Central College. Sustainable this, sustainable that, but what exactly are we sustaining? Certainly not our sleep patterns. I know that I personally do not sleep more than six hours a night during the school year! Over the 2014-2015 academic year, this column will seek to answer all of your questions on what sustainability is, why you should even care and what you can do to live a sustainable life.
The Internet (good ol’ Wikipedia) defines sustainability as “the endurance of systems and processes.” It also says that “the organizing principle for sustainability is sustainable development, which includes the four interconnected domains: ecology, economics, politics and culture”.
I’ll just say it plainly. Sustainability is living in a way in which things are going to survive for a while. Yes, I said survive. Because whether you believe in climate change or not, the human race is using up resources at a ridiculous rate. Don’t believe it? Let’s take a look at some numbers:
According to an article published by Friends of the Earth Europe in 2010, humans use and extract 50% more natural resources than they did 30 years ago and around 60 billion tons of raw materials a year. This was four years ago. Imagine how that number has probably grown!
The U.S Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that in 2012, only 9.3% of the U.S energy supplies came from renewable resources such as hydropower, biomass wood, biomass waste, wind, geothermal and solar energy. That’s nowhere near enough. If only 9.3% of our energy comes from renewable sources, that means that unless we up the amount of renewable energy we use, we will run out of nonrenewable energy and have a serious energy shortage.
The good news is that North Central is incredibly concerned and you might want to be too.
North Central is home to a host of sustainable initiatives. Here are a few examples that you might see around campus: composting in Kaufman Dining Hall and The Cage, electronics and battery recycling bins in the residence halls. (Ask your RA where yours is.) Cardinal Red Bikes you can use to get around campus.A campus garden where NCC’s dining service grows their own veggies to use in Kaufman. This saves on gas and oil used to ship our food and also ensures that you’re not getting food doused in chemicals and pesticides.
These are just a few of the great sustainable things already going on around campus. You’re going to learn more about this and I’ll talk about many other ways you as a student can be more sustainable in your daily life while also making you aware of goings on in the sustainability movement globally.
For more information contact Beth Weiner at esweiner@noctrl.edu
