Local Lowdown - 11/19/09

Energy Solutions Co-op coffee hour Nov. 20, 9 –11 a.m. Join Middlebury town Energy Coordinator Laura Asermily and drop by Carol’s Hungry Mind on Friday to ask about the Middlebury Co-op’s renewable energy efforts and offers. Feel free to share your ideas for the Co-op and any feedback on our ...

Just how green is Middlebury?

Putting together the second green issue of The Campus raised the question, “Just how green is the town of Middlebury?” The College is touted for its environmental awareness and Vermont is nationally known as one of the greenest states, but how does Middlebury fit into the picture? We sought experts ...

one in 8,700

Brighter Planet, Middlebury’s only environmental awareness company, had its beginnings right here at the College on the Hill. Associate Professor of Economics Jon Isham created the company with two of his students who, for a class project, had proposed an idea for an environmental firm. While most ...

Town/gown - 11/19/09

I spent three hours in lab last Thursday removing nodules from the roots of bean plants. I loved it. At one point, I turned to the people in my lab group and exclaimed, “This reminds me of digging for potatoes! Have you ever done that? It’s so fun. Like digging for buried treasure.” Sometimes ...

The making of the "Green" Mountain State

Cartoons - 11/19/09

Campus Poll - 11/18/09

Letter to the Editor

Dear Middlebury Campus, As a member of the community of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., the idea that the seas could rise with global warming is very distressing.  After seeing the recent photograph of the government of the Maldives signing a petition underwater to promote climate change in Copenhagen, ...

Naming the animals

Let’s name the animals no longer with us, except in language: start with the dodo, the Haitian long-tongued bat, the dwarf emu, the laughing owl, the eastern buffalo. And then animals like the nukupuu, the lorikeet, the broad-faced potoroo, whose absences don’t sadden me as much as I can’t put ...

A deeply embarrasing public apology

It is a risky business to apologize to your daughter via a newspaper column. First, of all, she is likely to find it embarrassing. To be honest, since she was about 11, my daughter has found any public acknowledgement of the fact that I was her father to be more or less unbearable. I was even required ...

The global, the local and the college garden

I’m packing for the trip to Copenhagen, site next month of arguably the most important international negotiations in the planet’s history. There will be big rallies, speeches to give, delegates from every corner of the world, grand conference halls, lots of press. But I’ll be thinking, often, ...

Editorial: Green Issue 2.0

If last year’s Green Issue was meant to be a groundbreaking endeavor, we at The Campus are even more excited about this year’s incarnation. While last year’s issue appeared as a novelty, albeit an important and resourceful one, this second-annual issue represents someting more. In some ways, it ...

Waters to Wine: Drinking local

The dismal state of the environment these days has me down in the dumps. In fact, it has depressed me so that I’ve been forced to drink (I imagine no one saw that coming). With climate change (and governments’ inability to do anything about it — world leaders agreed this week to not decide on ...

Political Hazards of a green agenda

Whose parents do not remember the quadrupling of the price of gas, the stock market crash, the government’s request to ban Christmas lights and the mandated national maximum speed limit of 55 mph during the 1973 oil crisis? The OPEC countries’ oil embargo countered the prevailing perception of the ...

A FUNny feeling about the climate movement

2009 was supposed to be the year of climate action. Last February, after the inspiring election of Barack Obama and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, I could taste success. I knew in my heart of hearts that this would be the year that we’d get lasting climate and clean energy legislation. This ...

College Briefs

Maryland College cuts carbon by 80 percent St. Mary’s College cut its carbon dioxide outputs by 80 percent last year thanks to a series of student initiatives.  Students purchased Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to offset 100 percent of their carbon footprint due to electricity use. Several new ...

Murdoch uses words to fight coal

“We would often just sit on their porches, they would offer me cornbread and Coke, and we’d just talk for hours on end.” For Sierra Murdoch ’09.5, this year’s undergraduate Environmental Journalism Fellow, this routine was the key to excellent reporting during her time in southwest Virginia ...