By switching to a biodegradable laundry detergent, like Planet or Seventh Generation, you can help reduce a major source of local pollutants like chlorine and phosphates (which, in part, cause that green stuff to grow on Occom Pond). Both brands are available from the Hanover Food Co-op, and both work just as well as any of the larger brands like Tide.

Imagine New Year’s Day inHanover, year 2100. Bundled up, you trek to the snow sculpture on the green. The warning of “The Lorax” was heeded – people like you began caring an awful lot – and humanity’s grandest finest achievement was got – planetary sustainability. Not only had Dartmouth College and the town of Hanover brought their consumption levels within the means of nature but so had the entire planet. Truffula trees abundantly swayed while ecological systems recovered and species extinction rates approached pre-industrial revolution levels. To experience war or poverty, you have to visit the historical society.

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The Land of Fire and Ice has a national joke: “What should you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest?” And if you’ve ever been to Iceland, you’ll know the answer: “Stand up.”

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There has been a lot of talk lately about making changes in our energy systems. Fossil fuels are facing a number of challenges including rising costs and their inevitable release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Current climatic studies reflect a mounting destabilization of our weather patterns and a general rise in average global temperatures. The rising costs of fossil fuels and concerns about global climate change are powerful motivators for a search for alternatives.

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Staring behind the glass of an Odwalla cooler, I am making an agonizing decision: Strawberry C Monster, or a Mango Tango smoothie? After a few minutes of taste-bud indecision, the orange allure of the Mango Tango wins out, and I reach in and grab a bottle and head to the checkout line. I offer the cashier my dollar bills for this healthy treat from what I think is a small scale California operation. As I’m twisting off the cap, a friend casually asks if I know that Odwalla has been bought by Coke.

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As we sat chatting in the beautifully appointed dining room, a fresh gust of wind shook the trees outside. We all cast a half-questioning, half-anxious look at the clouds tempting rain outside. Although we had heard reports of heavy rain the night before elsewhere in Iowa, the half inch already received here was perfect for the growing corn and soybeans. Would it rain more? How much more? Without a thought to the unspoken interruption, we turned back to our conversation. I was explaining the concept of community supported agriculture (CSA) and how it works in the Upper Valley to a farming couple. I was surprised to find myself introducing the idea of a CSA—a business model in which a family or individual purchases a share in a vegetable farm for a season and in turn receives a fraction of the harvest taken each week—to lifetime professional farmers living on some of the most fertile farm ground in America.

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What is Geothermal Energy?
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It has always been a belief of mine that sometime within my lifetime, ecologically sustainable business will experience an economic boom. I maintain that as the myriad effects of fossil fuel (ab)use, land degradation, and pollution become increasingly apparent, public demand for “green practices” will eventually force a significant government and market response. If you don’t believe me, wait about 70 years until melting artic ice drives the polar bear to extinction. Scientists can talk all they want about thermohaline currents and the Keeling curve, but wait until Coca Cola’s mascot goes the way of the dodo and see what kind of hell breaks loose.

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In the TGM’s first editorial, Jeffrey Kemnitz ’03 wrote that he wanted the publication to evolve as “the face of environmentalism at Dartmouth.” Well, welcome to evolution.

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Erin Rowland ‘93 is the Public Relations spokesperson for Planned Parenthood’s New England chapter. After graduating from Dartmouth, she worked for ten years at the Public Land Trust Nature Conservancy creating a public affairs program. Rowland’s interest in this field was inspired while learning about women’s health issues and reproductive rights in Kenya on the Dartmouth Environmental Studies FSP. She is currently the Public Relations spokesperson for Planned Parenthood’s New England chapter; Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization working in the United States to address the global environmental issue of women’s reproductive rights. Rowland encourages students to pursue interest in the non-profit sector; jobs are available and world travel is not necessary to work on an issue of global environmental concern.
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Sustainable Dartmouth comes as the newest and potentially strongest environmental coalition on campus since the 1960s, when student and alumni activists organized the Environmental Studies Division of the DOC. With the recent hiring of Dartmouth’s first sustainability coordinator as a starting point, Sustainable Dartmouth is uniting the resources of any and all campus groups with an interest in sustainability.

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