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.

The first meeting of the year assembled leaders and representatives from the Progressives, Field and Farm, the Big Green Bus, an embryonic bike recycling program, ECO, the Dartmouth Local Food Project, and the Green Magazine. To this congregation of DOC regulars and DFP junkies, sustainability coordinator Jim Merkel discussed his progress so far and what remains on his agenda. Merkel provided a window into the administrative discussions involving campus energy use, which he says have gained a sense of urgency given the recent spike in fuel costs.

For their part, the students shared the aims and projects of their specific groups and gave Merkel a sense of the current state of awareness among the student body.

Meetings have continued on a weekly basis throughout fall term, giving the groups a continued opportunity to consult with Merkel and with each other. Project proposals are being formulated for waste-free dining facilities, educating the student body about the Dartmouth Power Plant, and reducing the disposal of unnecessary waste when students move out of their dorm rooms.

In a culture where “environmentalism” has become a loaded yet vague term, sustainability seems to be on the cutting edge of social policy. Although none of Sustainable Dartmouth’s current membership would shy away from the term, the group’s identity is undeniably wider than traditional environmentalism . Sustainable Dartmouth, like the sustainability movement at large, is fundamentally humanistic in its focus. Keeping greenhouse gas emissions to a minimum, for example, has very little to do with saving the whales and far more to do with saving ourselves.