Contacts: Alex Moore and David Reese

Listhost: eco@listhost.uchicago.edu

Website: environment.uchicago.edu

Meetings: Wednesdays, 6 pm, Reynolds Club 002A (Environmental Center)

Purpose: To advocate locally, regional, nationally, and internationally for environmental protection, to increase campus and community awareness of environmental issues, and to cultivate ecological consciousness.

Current Projects: Working on campaigns around climate change legislation and getting Kleenex to stop clearcutting forests.

Past Projects:

Earth Week Activities: Every year for Earth Week we coordinate activities including symposia, movie showings, speakers, planting activities and study breaks.

Adopt-A-Park Chicago: We have adopted a park along with the other enviornmental organizations on campus in Chicago.

Mountain Top Removal: Every year we try to raise awareness about coal mining in the cental and eastern United States that permits mining companies to literaly chop the top of mountains off. Dave Cooper, an activist from Louisville, comes to give us an update and educate.

Bhopal Chemical Disaster: For the last two years we have been working with Students for Bhopal to correct the injustice that the citizens of Bhopal, India have been living with since they were awakened by choking on a cloud of methylisocyanide on December 3, 1984 released by a nearby fertilizer plant owned by Union Carbide, now a part of DOW Chemical. The people are still suffering the health consequences and the plant has never been cleaned up.

Trustee Information: We are putting together a database for all social justice organizations to use in their campagins relevant to those companies that our own trustees are associated with.

JP Morgan/Chase environmental push: This winter and spring we worked with the Rainforest Action Network to pressure JPMorgan/Chase to adopt and environmental policy and stop funding environmentally destructive projects around the world. And it worked!!

Global Climate Change Awareness: This year we held Climate Change week in January where we had an event for every day of the week including: viewing "The End of Suburbia", brining in a speaker from The Chicago Climate Exchange to discuss market mechanisms for controlling carbon dioxide emissions, a conservation speaker to teach students how to conserve energy and scaled Mt. Kilamanjaro's melting glacier through time on the quads.  During Earth Week we held a symposia entitled "Beyond Kyoto: Exploring the Economics, Ethics and Politics of Climate Change" moderated by our own Dr. Ted Steck from the Environmental Studies Program as well as Dr. Daniel Bromley, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. William Schweiker, U of C Divinity School and David Doniger from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Resources: University of Chicago Environmental Center