Council Talks Sustainability in Final Meeting Before Elections

     

    Public input opened with Divestment 2: The Resolution That Just Won’t Die. Jumanah Albahri of SJP spoke on behalf of the organization to commend council but also to express hurt that the resolution’s language had been changed.

    Sarah Tehrani, speaking out against the resolution and criticizing council for the outcome, brought up an idea that hadn’t at all occurred to me.

    “To spend $5,000 in student fees to talk about how other people spend their money is ridiculous,” she said. “You failed this entire campus with your decision.”

    The incredulity of that statement is made even more apparent when considering Chancellor Khosla’s near-immediate rebuttal to the divestment resolution. Khosla penned a response reaffirming the UC Board of Regents’ policy of investment for the UC system, thereby shutting down any hope SJP had of furthering the goals of divestment this year, and rendering nearly three weeks of heated debate as little more than talk.

    And it’s not quite a free exchange of ideas if we’re paying a few thousand dollars for the privilege. On a campus facing budget deficits up the wazoo, I understand why some students see it as irresponsible to devote those kinds of resources to any single issue.

    (I’m not sure what a wazoo is, but we certainly have money problems all up in it.)

    Representatives from the Student Sustainability Collective gave a special presentation regarding their activities over the year.

    SSC accomplished some admirable goals, including UCSD’s anti-bottled water initiative that will affect campus markets by 2014 — bad news for anyone looking to pocket extra coinage by recycling water bottles.

    SSC is also sponsoring sustainable eating education programs to teach participants that each meal does not have to end in a mass extinction. Personally, I hope that these initiatives will end the turducken nightmare once and for all.

    All through this meeting, I felt that we were lacking a certain zing and pep — and then I realized why. AVP College Affairs Leonard Bobbitt was sadly absent. Come back soon, Leonard.

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