Serving as the campus nerve-center for environmental action and advocacy, the University Survival Center offered a wide variety of activities for this year’s Earth Week celebration.
Randy Newnham, Brenda Tincher and Lesley Marcus, co-coordinators of the Survival Center, have been spreading the word about Earth Week. The week was jam-packed with speakers, music, food and information about how everyone can take part in helping the Earth.
“Solutions,” the theme of Earth Week, is designed to educate people about how they can take part in preserving their planet. “We really want people to increase their awareness of the earth and the problems that face it,” Marcus said. “We want them to understand that there is a direct correlation between their consumption and the earth’s problems.”
The Survival Center is “an umbrella organization that is to be used as a resource and a tool for students to work on issues they are interested in. Human rights and environmental issues are what we focus on,” said Tincher.
Started up in the early 1970s, the Survival Center was created to give students an opportunity to make their voices heard.
The Human Rights Alliance and OSPIRG make their home in the Survival Center. The HRA, is an organization that works on educating students on human rights issues and getting worker rights both recognized and fulfilled. The Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group is a student organization that fights for environmental action and consumer protection.
“This is the 30th anniversary of Earth Week, and coming into a new millennium, we need to live in more of a balance ecologically,” Tincher said. On Earth Day, Saturday, the Survival Center will hold an informational seminar to educate participants about environmental action.
“This is to show people how they can become more aware,” Tincher said. “Every single thing that people decide to change will help the Earth.”
Solutions that people can do are as easy as carrying a reusable cup, car pooling or using public transportation, according to the group’s Earth Week brochure. The Survival Center is trying to do its part by printing its brochures to publicize Earth Week on hemp paper.
Newnham encourages activists, students and citizens to education themselves about the environment and take action.
“There are no easy answers, but you really have to ask the questions first,” he said.