YSEC Conference

Goddess and Guru are both members of the nascent Hopkins Sustainability Board. Today, I made my first journey into the world of university green activism when I attended a conference hosted by YSEC and NextGen at Yale.

Jesus.
Except for the incredibly kind and poised Maya Potter, I was the only high school student there, which was cute and fun for about five seconds. Honestly, I am not mature enough for this kind of thing. We were supposed to be networking and building support, and my social skills basically end at hiding in a corner pretending to text my imaginary friends. Still, it was totally useful and inspiring to get out of my comfort zone and see what's out there. Here's a quick rundown of the day.

8:30-9:00
Arrived. Tried to look hipster and fair-trade-ish. Failed. Desperately looked around for Maya, who wasn't there yet. Got a free tote bag and granola.

9:00-10:00
My. Worst. Nightmare. BONDING ACTIVITIES. Aaaagh I did NOT bargain for this!! Where the heck was Maya?! The woman running the show, a petite hippie type, had us do highly uncomfortable icebreaking "games" for an hour. We had to square dance, tell our secrets, and look deeply into each others' eyes.
Interestingly, I'd ever actually had to look a person in the eye for a full 2 minutes before. It was so hard. She was just a nice girl from New Haven University, but I could not for the life of me maintain eye contact. It was really bizarre. So I did get something out of the hour.
Then, every group wrote ideas for going green on slips of paper and tacked them on the walls. Cool.
10:00-10:30
Maya came. Thank god. We listened to two speakers in Dwight Chapel. The first talked "preaching what you practice" -- basically, updating education to match what students are already doing. The second guy invented the College Sustainability Report Card and got us thinking about green ways to use our school endowments. Seriously, if 1% of our endowment was invested in on-campus green iniatives...
10:30-11:15
Panels. The one I attended used the No Coal project as a model for creating a dramatic and effective campaign. For your info, No Coal is fighting the construction and use of coal plants all across America. They recommended using stalking, threats, and blackmail to target powerful people. It was legal, brilliant, and totally eye-opening. I took notes.

1120-12:20
Workshop #1. I met a Greenpeace field organizer who had just been in jail for hanging a protest banner off a bridge in Pittsburgh. He taught us how to get attention from the media and talk to Republicans. This guy was so cool. He was like, "Yeah, I'm from Greenpeace, that group of rabid, communist, eco-terrorist whatever-they-ares, and I can help you win any campaign through the media." More on this in a later post.

12:30 - 1:30
Lunch and Free Stuff. The food was vegan, but amazing. I was shocked. Seriously, this tofu/potato/mystical vegetable product was just like steak, except more tender. Wow.
After I hid in a corner and ate my eco-friendly food, I wandered around collecting informational pamphlets (I'll scan some later). I signed a bunch of petitions and freaked out about eco issues I hadn't even known existed. There was so much cool stuff going on...one group was doing a photo petition (taking pictures of people who held up green slogans on a dry-erase board to send to Congressmen) while another recruited organic farmers. 1:45 - 2:45
Workshop #2: A senior from Brown talked about his project, the Real Food Challenge. It was really, really useful for those of us looking to support "sustainability and justice in our food system" on our own campuses. The workshop was really interactive, and the speaker used awesome visuals. He drew a concept map showing us how to unite people with seemingly unrelated concerns into a single, powerful group. Again, more on this later.
2:45-3:45
Workshop #3: PVC, the Poison Plastic. A super well-dressed and passionate guy delivered this dynamic workshop on the dangers of a household material: vinyl. He showed us this funny cartoon, and then explained why PVC must be globally phased out of production. WAY more on this later.
4:00-4:30
A stellar folksong performance, followed by a rousing lecture from -- oh god -- a Harvard law student I had to "bond" with in the morning. More time was set aside for networking (I'm apparently on some kind of Connecticut alliance green team now...oops), during which I slithered off to Starbucks and went home.

Sweet.