LETTER: USU Sustainability just doesn’t cut it

To the editor:

    It’s Earth Week, but before you start thinking about recycling this newspaper or planting trees, let’s talk about sustainability and student fees. Most of you may not know what sustainability is really about. Basically, it’s meeting our generation’s needs – not wants – while providing opportunities for future generations to still meet theirs. This is achieved by balancing three branches – that’s right, three not one – in environment, economy and social equity.

    Environmental initiatives that stand alone aren’t sustainable. Our efforts to preserve the environment must also coexist with the condition of our economy and equality within our societal groups in order to have a lasting impact. Students are one of those groups facing equity challenges right now. And a challenge you face, although you might not like to admit it, is that most students currently live below the poverty line. True sustainability emphasizes eliminating poverty, which is why USU works towards becoming sustainable. What is being done to eliminate poverty amongst us? Are tuition and student fees being driven down? Not the last time I checked my bank account. Rather, current practices involve spending more money to create a falsely-visioned “sustainable” campus.

    Take the Blue Goes Green fee for instance. The last round of projects approved by the Sustainability Council are hardly leading us forward. I mean, really people, a solar heater on a building? An algal harvester? These are not moving us toward real, balanced sustainability.  So why are we spending the precious money of impoverished students on such projects? I’m not trying to discredit these innovative ideas, but we’re working backwards by forgetting the part of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle that will bring environmental balance the most – reducing. 

    Reducing consumption is more effective than any initiative we’ll ever take to harvest obscure energy sources or even recycle. So much waste occurs on this campus. Look at every indoor light left on overnight, every hour of over-watering the lawns and every wasteful big screen monitor installed for 24/7 advertising, just to name a few. So I ask of USU Administration, department heads, ASUSU and the Sustainability Council if you really want to achieve sustainability, why aren’t we cutting costs? Why aren’t we trying to scale back student fees? I believe we don’t need to spend more to achieve sustainability on our campus, we need to spend less. Let’s all move toward real sustainability, shall we? Achieve balance. Stop the waste.

Sam Taylor