Earth Week springs into action

CC students could be seen throwing pots, oiling bike chains, recycling paper into jewelry, patching clothes and fraternizing with gardeners and whale warriors last week, all as part of the schools annual recognition of Earth Week.

The events are set to culminate Friday, April 23 with a festival of live music including Sexy and the Functionals, the Bluegrass Ensemble, Ethan Varian and others. Other festival activities include a barbecue, tie-dye, lawn games and a free market- bring what you don’t want and take what you do- to promote recycling and reuse.

Other eco-friendly activities that were on the calendar consisted of pottery classes, trail maintenance, knitting and patching instruction, bicycle maintenance, urban gardening, documentaries and speeches, among others. Speakers included representatives from Bon Apetit, Colorado Division of Wildlife, Pikes Peak Urban Gardens and, most notably, famous marine activist Paul Watson.

“[Earth Week] is devoted to preserving our mama earth and bringing awareness to our impact on this planet,” said Annie Greater, who helped plan the activities.

Sustainability group EnAct sponsored the Earth Week activities as part of their program that, according to their website, seeks to “encourage people to take actions in their daily lives to reduce the environmental impact of their households [and] provide community resources that facilitate sustainable living and build community.” CC students passionate about the environment joined the cause in order to promote awareness. 

“I think many CC students view our campus as a pretty green and sustainable environment but we from EnAct realize that there are many things we can still be doing so we hope that some of the events this week will just raise students’ awareness to this and stimulate them to take an extra step in their sustainable habits” said Alex Tarika, who helped coordinate Earth Week and is helping lead a trail maintenance crew on Fountain Creek this Saturday.

EnAct planned Earth Week to kick off on Monday, April 19 with a lunch barbecue on the Worner quad. As students waited in line for Carnivore Club burgers, they were asked to pledge to go vegetarian for a week or, for the die-hard meat eaters, turn off more lights in exchange for an Earth Week sticker.

“I think this really got students to take a moment to consider what they can do to reduce their impact on the environment and I think overall this was a pretty successful little thing in just raising awareness,” Tarika said.

Graeter called turnout wonderful for the Monday film screening of “Life and Debt,” a documentary about Jamaican reliance on US tourism. 

Pikes Peak Earth Day is on Saturday, and while it was not organized by students on campus, Earth Week coordinators are encouraging members of the CC community to attend and support local efforts. It will be in Cornerstone beginning at 10 am with featured local businesses, children’s activities, food and art. Annie Evankow, who helped organize the event, called it a huge event with many green businesses.

Earth Day is officially April 22, a date Senator Gaylord Nelson chose in order to maximize participation by college students, avoid overlap with religious holidays, and take place in the spring before most academic finals. The day has become a worldwide effort to raise environmental awareness. A website for the day, earthday.org, claims that Earth Day is the largest secular holiday in the world, celebrated by more than one billion people.

CC Earth Week had higher turnout than last year, which pleased organizers. The goal for the week is to become bigger each year so that it is something students are excited for, Evankow said. 

Ultimately, she said the point of Earth Week is to get people to “think of the environment in everyday life and know that their actions have repercussions. Even if it’s just a speaker that reminds students that they have an impact, good or bad, hopefully that will help with the bigger picture.”