Environmental summit promotes forest protection, organic foods

Members of the Princeton Environmental Network joined about 60 students from 12 other northeast colleges and universities for the Northeast Environmental Conference at Brown University during Fall Break.

The goal of the annual conference is to provide students the opportunity to meet, share ideas and create common goals, said PEN co-chair Catherine Malina '05.

This year, the conference, previously called Greening the Ivies, included non-Ivy league schools.

Conference workshop topics included wind energy, national parks, forest protection, food distribution, hemp uses, the World Bank and campus organizing.

"I went to a workshop on integrating organic and local produce into dining halls," Ann Preis '07 said. "I feel that it is very important to not completely ruin the land as we produce food."

One workshop on forest protection was conducted by a woman who has worked for the past six years to protect forests from the timber industry and to educate the industry on forest conservation in Oregon.

"It was interesting to see how national campaigns are run compared to those run by student groups," Malina said.

Ross Gelbspan — a reporter for The Boston Globe and author of "The Heat is On: The High Stakes Battle Over Earth's Threatened Climate" — spoke on global climate change.

Support nonprofit student journalism. Donate to the ‘Prince’. Donate now »

"He was really amazing," Cathy Kunkel '06 said. "He brought home how urgent the global warming issue is, and he really inspired us all to take action on our campuses.

"The U.S. is so behind the rest of the world in even acknowledging that this is an issue, let alone acting on it," she said.

Currently, the Ivy League Environmental Coalition — formed at the Greening the Ivies conference held last year and composed of two student representatives from each university — is working in conjunction with the Ivy Council to draft a resolution that would encourage universities to become more energy efficient and purchase renewable energy.

Malina and Kunkel represent the University.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Kunkel said the council is expected to finish the draft by next week.

"We are definitely going to apply the ideas of the conference to the Princeton campus," she said. "We learned a ton of great ideas that all of us would love to apply to PEN campaigns as we seek to expand our student base and environmental awareness in general on campus."