Coming Soon to NC – Zero Emissions Campuses

by Eva Ersbskorn

Last weekend, many of North Carolina’s Universities gathered in Chapel Hill for the NC Campus Climate Challenge Summit organized by Logan Yonavjak and Jesse Prentice-Dunn. Even though it was cold and wet, there was a great turnout of over 75 dedicated students wanting to reduce their campus emissions. We had wonderful opportunities for training, networking, and for brainstorming statewide goals. There were some wonderful workshops to choose from in the areas of campus projects, financing strategies, organizing and running groups, and community organizing. We were incredibly well fed and even had some fun! My campus group (UNC Greensboro’s UNCGreen) was able to decide that our main goal was to get a renewable energy fee on campus, and we are already well on the way to planning how to make that happen. Not only did all campuses leave with an idea of what they were going to do, but also we were able to buddy up, make connections, and come up with state goals to work towards zero emissions from North Carolina campuses.

Haven’t been to a summit yet? That’s OK – You can still register for the SSC’s Connecticut Climate Challenge Summit, Environmental Consortium of Hudson Valley’s Greening the Campus Conference, Southern Energy Network’s Florida Student Sustainable Energy Summit or Chesapeake Climate Action Network’s Virginia Student Climate Conference.

About

As a sophomore at Walter Johnson High School in Maryland, Yochi was recruited to join the SSC's Montgomery County Student Environmental Activists. After a couple of weeks of hanging out with the SSC'ers, he started organizing what turned into a county-wide campaign that gained media attention and attracted the support of the county council. While an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment, Yochi founded a business partnership called Brewing Hope with farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. Working with students, faculty and businesses interested in promoting the fair trade system, Yochi set up a program that not only sold coffee, but also created a relationships between coffee growers and latte drinkers. Brewing Hope's student delegations visit Mexico to learn about coffee production and meet with indigenous communities while farmers from Chiapas travel to speak at educational events in the Midwest. He turned over the management reins of Brewing Hope to study the connection between biodiversity, economic sustainability and coffee certifications in Central America. Yochi now works at Co-op America, the national green business network, expanding the market for fair trade products and pressuring businesses to adopting forward thinking policies on climate change. Yochi's first blog was titled "The Neoliberal Chopping Block"

It’s Getting Hot In Here