BY TODD MARTIN With only a few weeks left of the Spring 2010 semester here at Green Mountain College, I bet you’re wondering what the status is of Student Campus Greening Fund (SCGF) projects. Where are your tuition dollars being spent this year? Each semester, you as a student are charged $15 on your student [...]
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Students travel to Montpelier for vote on Vermont Yankee
By Todd Martin. On Wednesday, February 24th, fourteen Green Mountain students, including myself, travelled through a massive blizzard to be present for a vote in the Vermont State Senate on the Vermont Yankee relicenscing issue. The nuclear power plant hopes to operate for another twenty years, however the Senate voted 26-4 against relicencing the plant [...]
A whale’s tale of woe
Growing up as a kid, I always thought of environmentalists as a bunch of hippies trying to save some whales from extinction and habitat fragmentation. The age old rally cry, “Save the Whales” rings clear in my mind as one of the first slogans I associated with the environmental movement. As a symbol of endangered [...]
Vermont Yankee: a day of lobbying in Montpelier
By Todd Martin. I awoke at 6:30 a.m. on a couch I had never slept on. I showered in an unfamiliar bathroom and ate breakfast in a strange kitchen. Ripping the tags off of my new pinstripe suit and pulling the pins out of my bleach white dress shirt, I put the finishing touches on [...]
Student Greening Fund goes big
by Todd Martin During the fall 2009 semester, Green Mountain College students voted and approved to fund all fifteen proposed Student Campus Greening Fund projects, the first time in SCGF history. In addition, students Steve Carpenter ’11 and Cody Currier ’11 became the new co-presidents of the fund. SCGF is a student-run and funded program designed [...]
Unlimited corporate $$$ on U.S. Elections: Supreme Court gives corporations First Amendment rights
On Thursday January 21st, 2010, the United States Supreme Court voted 5-4 in favor of overturning two, sixty-year old restrictions on corporations, unions and other interest groups that restricted them from spending their treasuries on United States public elections. In other words, corporations now have First Amendment rights just like you and are now allowed [...]
UN climate change conference at a glance
As you read this article, world leaders from 192 countries are shaking hands in Copenhagen, Denmark at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The conference will last until December 18th. The goal of the conference is to establish a global, legally binding climate treaty, much like the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in order to reduce greenhouse [...]
Diversifications of energy sources: A 2008 investor’s perspective: today
I had the pleasure of attending “The Future of Vermont’s Energy” forum at Green Mountain College on Tuesday Nov. 17th. The panelists represented different segments of the energy chain (i.e. renewable sales, nuclear production and utility power services) and energy resources. Two audience members posed questions to the panelists regarding the evident size discrepancies in [...]
Notes from the Community Conversation: Striving for Sustainability
BY TODD MARTIN On Wednesday, November 4, 2009, Green Mountain College students, faculty and staff gathered in the Gorge for the Community Conversation. The focus of the conversation was campus sustainability, more specifically, initiatives that Green Mountain College can take in the near future to improve the sustainability of the institution. Atop the handout distributed [...]
Green Mountain College Biomass Facility Update
BY TODD MARTIN The new biomass plant currently being constructed on the Green Mountain College Poultney campus will reduce the institutions dependence on oil as a fuel source and help the institution move towards climate neutrality. According to the College’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory conducted between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009, 71% of [...]
