Welcome Back!

Today marks the first day of classes and the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year. We are all excited to have our first meeting of the year next Tuesday, September 3 in Boggs 104 at 7:30 PM. Make sure to mark your calendars and also tell your friends to join us, as we will be discussing tons of pretty cool information as well as some ideas for the new year.

Don't worry if you can't wait until next week, as we will have some events this week as well. We will have a stand at the activities expo this Thursday on the quad, so make sure to stop by, as we will be handing out candy and have some sign up sheets for both new members and members from past years. On Saturday, we will have an informal Fly day after Outreach Tulane. It will be at 3 PM, so try to stop by there as well!


Remember to follow us on Twitter and check out our Facebook page for more information. Thanks for reading!

Bringing in the new (school) year 2013-2014

By Anne Bevis

Hello All!

This will be my first post of the year as Green Club president. I want to lay out some of my goals for the year as well as my hopes/ dreams/ sensual green club fantasies. We have some absolutely AWSOME stuff going on this year starting with our second line for sustainability (date to be announced), the Powershift conference in October, several bayou marsh grass plantings (Clare, Alex and I just did one, it was a lot of sweaty fun), our fabulous bi-weekly meetings and much more!

This year we plan to work with a wide range or organizations: Bike Easy, Gulf resoration Network, the Juggling club, the Green Project, YLC, Unity, Verdigras, Sierra Club, Green Light New Orleans and many others.

Some on campus goals that I have:

• Get Bruff-to-go to start a pilot re-usable container program. Watching all that plastic get thrown away makes me cringe.
• Get Green Club involved with YLC wednesdays where we would serve as walking recycling cans while listening to great music and hanging with some awesome people!
• Host another debate with the poly-sci department. Last year we hosted a nuclear power debate which was a huge success. This year we're thinking fracking as the topic of choice.
• Go on more outdoors adventures/ camping trips!
• Canvass for music festivals AKA spread environmental awareness and get into concerts for free
• Screen some award-winning environmental documentaries in partnership with TUCP 

I'm excited to inherit some great Green Club traditions such as the Semesterly clothing swap which has saved literally hundreds of tons of water by avoiding new purchases (as well as keeping all our wallets much fatter!)  as well as the Crawfest vegetarian boil and delicious corn bread where we are the only vegetarian option present. I'm also excited for our members- new and returning-that make green club so great! We have a passionate, quirky, awesome group that has caused some real change on campus as well as in this great city!

What  I really want to know is what do YOU want to see this year?!

54 Arrested Protesting KXL's Study's Conflict of Interest

State Department hired a firm that lied on its conflict of interests form

 

by Nick "Taco" Stracco

 

The State Department is in its final steps of assessing the environmental impact of the proposed 36-inch wide, 1,179-mile long Keystone XL pipeline. The project would bring tar sands oil from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico for sale abroad. The pipeline has been wrought with controversy from the start, but new developments have turned up the heated debate. Amid criticism from the EPA, claims of merely 35 permanent jobs, a likely increase in energy prices in America, TransCanada's history of tar sand spills, and anomalies in the existing southern section of the pipeline, opponents of Keystone XL can now add conflict of interests to the  growing  list of reasons to reject the proposed project.

CONSULTING FIRM HID BUSINESS TIES TO TAR SANDS COMPANIES

Friends of the Earth along with The Checks & Balances Project recently discovered that Environmental Resources Management (ERM), the company that wrote the bulk of the State Department's environmental review of the project, lied on their conflict of interest form filed with the State Department. FOE and the CBP compiled a dossier of publicly available documents showing the very clear conflict of interest and deliberate lack of disclosure by ERM.

In their papers to the federal agency, ERM assured the State Department that “ERM has no business relationship with TransCanada or its affiliates”, when in fact the two have been working together since at least 2011 on a pipeline in Alaska. In addition ERM claimed to have no relationship with businesses that would be affected by the pipeline. FOD and the CBP's report discovered that ERM has done business with over a dozen companies with stakes in Alberta's tar sands that are fit to benefit if the pipeline is built.

54 ARRESTED AT ERM'S OFFICE

Last Friday a coalition of environmental groups, including 350.org and Walk for Our Grandchildren to orchestrate a day of civil disobedience to protest this corruption of transparent environmental review. Over 100 people gathered at the office building that houses ERM. 54 people entered the lobby and refused to leave when the police asked them to do so. Six of them chained themselves to one another with a black tube connecting their arms that read “NO KXL.”

I personally partook in this day of action but was not one of the 54 who got received court dates. With our friends in the lobby waiting for the next of six police wagons to pull up, about 70 more of us were outside showing our support for them and denouncing the lies of ERM. Many people who were intrigued by the commotion stopped to listen to what we were upset about. Every person that gave me the chance to fully describe the bias of ERM agreed that it is inappropriate for the State Department to accept their report on the pipeline.

CALLING ON THE STATE DEPARTMENT TO SCRAP THE REPORT

It does not take extensive knowledge on the subject to understand that ERM is not the proper firm to assess the environmental impact of the Keystone XL project. Because of this clear breach of trust to conduct an objective study, a group of 30 organizations wrote an open letter to Secretary John Kerry asking him to restart the environmental review of the project, to punish ERM for lying on federal forms, and to initiate an investigation into why the department failed to notice these clear conflicts of interest.

It seems possible that if FOE and the CBP did not catch this conflict of interest, it would have gone unnoticed. It is troubling to consider that this is likely just one of the many instances where the fossil fuel industry is secretly gaming the system to their advantage to the detriment of the climate.
 

OBAMA’S CHANGING TONE ON KXL

Last month President Obama unfurled his long-awaited climate change plan. In it he stated that he would only approve the Keystone XL pipeline “only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Bringing the decision down to greenhouse gases was a big step.

In a shift in tone Obama told the New York Times last week that the number of jobs from the pipeline would be just “a blip relative to the need,” invalidating claims from Republicans that the project would bring thousands of jobs He cited estimates from the State Department that the tar sands project would only create 50 to 100 permanent jobs once the project is completed.

 

And then in a speech in Chattanooga, TN, Obama mocked the claims again. “They keep on talking about this oil pipeline coming down from Canada that’s estimated to create about 50 permanent jobs. That’s not a jobs plan,” he said with a smirk, seeming to stifle a chuckle.

 

One year ago even the most optimistic environmental activists had to admit that the future looked bleak on the Keystone XL issue. To hear the president speak in this new way about the project is leaps and bounds ahead from where we were. Much of this progress should be accredited to the activists out in the streets, organizing rallies, writing letters, and spreading the word about this corrupt process. The public debate on the pipeline for the past few years has reeked of oil money. But that is changing thanks to the people who know that democracy is for them, not the corporations.

Video courtesy of Chesapeake Climate Action Network
(That's me leading the chant at 1:08)

Conflict of Interest in KeystoneXL Environmental Impact Statement

State Dept Contractor ERM Lied About TransCanada Ties, Another Fatal Flaw of Environmental Review (via Desmogblog)

The contractor the Obama U.S. State Department hired for the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) of the northern half of TransCanada's Keystone XL (KXL) tar sands export pipeline overtly lied on its conflict-of-interest disclosure form…

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Year End Progress Report

This may be my last blog post as Tulane Green Club president. It has been an incredible year. Thank you so much to everyone who came to our meetings, events, rallies, and social events. You all are what made this year such a success. You inspired us to keep fighting the good fight. Thank you.

 I'll do my best to list all the accomplishment's we've made this year:

Events
I am extremely pleased to say that we hosted five events this year that garnered over 100 attendees! These are the first five listed.

• Our very first meeting (about 115 people showed up)
• Nuclear Power Debate, featuring expert speakers from Public Citizen (where I am interning now!), The Alliance for Affordable Energy, Entergy, and Clean Energy America (over 140 people came!)
• Both semesters' clothing swaps (well over 100 people came out!)
• New Atlantis? Climate Disruption and New Orleans (About 130 people came and we sent 87 hand-written letters to Obama)
• Teamed up with TU Health and Veggie Club to give out free crawboiled vegetarian food at Crawfest since they don't cater to our needs. We also got a couple hundred signatures for Bike Easy and the Sierra Club
• 20 of us trekked all the way to DC for Forward On Climate, the largest climate rally in American history. The protest was organized by 350.org and the Sierra Club. Here's a photo album from the weekend
• Carried out a little guerilla environmentalism and placed little slips of paper with green tips all over campus (don't worry, the paper and the stickers were diverted from landfills)
• We were featured on a french documentary!
• Unofficially hosted 2 zero waste parties and a few potlucks
• Hosted our 2nd Annual Second Line for Sustainability. Here's some more photos
• Continued the Green Club Lecture Series by bringing in a bunch of profs. local businesspeople, and advocates to speak at our bi-weekly meetings
• Hosted our 2nd annual No Impact Week, asking people to make sacrifices for one week 
• Sent 5 Green Clubbers to Bard College's C2C Fellows conference for young enviro leaders
• Made a bunch of upcycled stuff with our subcommittee BOSS (Back to Old School Sustainability) 
• Went to a rally organized by Restore The Mississippi River Delta for the opening of BP's trial in New Orleans. Photos of us were syndicated around the world!

Greening The Green Wave

How we've made Tulane's campus a little bit greener (that includes students!)

• We finally received official approval for Tulane's first Residential Composting System and started collecting compost in the dorms with help from our lovely Compost Captains
• Tulane Technology Services, who mantains the printers at the library, Boggs and Willow's labs, has officially switched to 100% post-consumer waste recycled printer paper
• A few of us helped launch Divest Tulane, one of the campaigns at over 300 schools across the nation seeking to stop their schools from investing their endowments in fossil fuel companies
• We picked a Green Theme every 2 weeks at each new Green Club meeting, a small earth-friendly habit to try out for 2 weeks and then talk about it and (hopefully) adopt it thereafter 
• Continued to make progress on working with Sodexo to switch BruffToGo to reusable to-go containers. We hope we can facilitate the switch sometime next year

Local Organizations We Volunteered With

Overall we contributed well over 300 hours of time to these awesome groups

• Bike Easy
• Sierra Club
• Verdi Gras
• NOLA Wise
• Gulf Restoration Network
• LA Bucket Brigade
• ARC of Greater New Orleans
• Green Light New Orleans
• Our School at Blair Grocery

Again, thank you so much to everyone for all your support. It has been great leading Tulane Green Club for two years. I have learned a lot from everyone and been inspired by you all. Stay tuned for next year. I have faith that next year's Exec Board is going to have some great things in store. 

It has been truly meaningful to me to work with you all. I felt like being Green Club president was my calling. Thank you. 

Yours in the struggle,

Nick Stracco

Outgoing Tulane Green Club president 

New Tulane Green Club Executive Board

Well my friends the time has come to pass the proverbial torch to the new leaders of this 25-year old organization. It has been a wonderful year indeed. We organized four events that garnered over 100 attendees, we made the trek to DC for the largest climate rally in the history of the US, we made Tulane a little bit greener, and we helped out with the local New Orleans environmental community, among tons of other stuff.

We are proud to present the new Executive Board of Tulane Green Club (rockin' the brand new Tulane Green Club zip-ups we got that are 100% recycled materials!)

From left: Kate Sheehan, Anne Bevis, Natalie Lirette, Aubrey Suber, Becca Greaney, Michael Hammer, Claire Beauchamp and Ellen Bartow-Gillies (not pictured)

Here are the positions:

President - Anne
Exec VP - Natalie and Kate
Event Coordinator - Aubrey
Outings and Outreach Coordinator - Claire
Communications Director - Michael
Treasurer - Ellen
VP of Lagniappe - Becca

We have very high hopes for this new crew. They have a contagious fun energy about them that is sure to provide a great vibe for Green Club next year. We're sure they are going to make Green Club even better than it was this year ( which lets be honest, was pretty great).


Good luck to you all!

Nick  Stracco
Former Green Club president

New Atlantis? Climate Disruption and New Orleans

On April 18th Tulane Green Club teamed up with the Sierra Club to host a night of informative talks and discussions about the fate of New Orleans as a result of sea level rise. NOLA specifically has a grave future in store. Not only is global sea level rise increasing at an alarming rate, but Louisiana has well-documented high rates of land subsidence which is soil compacting and sinking. 

Over 120 people attended!

The high rates of subsidence we're seeing is a result of our management of the Mississippi River. It used to flood its banks and deposit sediment all over the delta, adding land to the area. Now with the levees we've built to protect people from flooding, the delta is starved of that sediment so the subsidence that has always occurred now outpaces the rate of sediment deposition. 

We invited in Tim Osborn, pictured above and below, to speak about the rates of local sea level rise. Tim is a scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Louisiana is projected to see between 4.3 - 8 ft of local sea level rise, the worst projections in the entire world.  This is a result global sea level rise being exacerbated by local land subsidence. 

We also invited in ecologist Bruce Fleury, one of Tulane's most beloved professors, who a little more broadly about climate change in general. 

 Dr. Fleury and outgoing Green Club president Nick Stracco

Lastly Sierra Club organizers Jordan Macha and Devin Martin closed out the evening talking about what we can do as citizens to protect New Orleans from becoming the New Atlantis. We passed out paper to hand-write letters to Obama. We will be sending the President 87 letters from this night asking him to take measures to curb climate change. 

Thank you to everyone who attended! 

Get a bike!

-Nick Stracco, Outgoing Green Club President