Monday, February 11, 2013

Dear Centre County Voices!


by Nikki Cheshire and Nia Sherony

Let’s talk about seeing the future.  A fortune teller in a tent somewhere reads your palm and tells you about your future spouse, how many children you will have and that good fortune will follow you.  But what about the bigger picture?  The future of every one of you, Voices? What is your fate and that of the world around you?

The answer is that we have the ability to enact whatever change we choose.  Though we are individual voices, together we can have a positive impact on our community, and -- on a larger scale -- our country and our world.

As moderators of the upcoming forum, we would like to invite you to our Sustainability Discussion at Webster’s Bookstore on February 27 & February 28 starting at 6pm.

One of the main issues the world faces is environmental sustainability.  This means preserving the wonderful place where we live for ourselves, our children and future generations.  Working with the environment instead of against it.  After all, the state of the environment affects everyone, and therefore protecting it is everyone’s responsibility. But the conflict is this: How do we continue to grow, balancing our progress and the state of the environment at the same time?

Here at Penn State, many undergraduate students are required to complete nine credits of Natural Sciences, regardless of their major. Several organizations and groups organize recycling events, and composting bins are cropping up in dining halls campuswide.  Though we may not be experts on the subject, so many of us Voices already have our own ideas and insights into sustainability, even just in the State College area. And that allows us to discuss possible methods and solutions.

But despite everything our community does in order to attain sustainability, there’s still so much more to be accomplished and to be learned: What are simple ways we can cut down on our waste?  What is Penn State already doing?  What can the Centre County community do in the future?  We have the knowledge and technology to live sustainably, but involving the community and asking for its dedication to the project is another question entirely.

This is why we need to come together and discuss our future: Education about sustainability is the first step to building a network that cares and works together to achieve this goal.  This is an opportunity to recognize that sustainability is not about “them, later.”  It’s about “us, now”; our friends, our community, today in the cafeteria, tomorrow in the arboretum and the next day back at home.

Centre County Voices, we want to know what you think. Come to our open forum.  You can share your knowledge, whether you’ve taken classes on conservation, are a member of an environmentally-conscious organization, or you just like learning about the environment.  Even if you’re a listener, come on out and learn something new.

The environment in which we live affects everyone, and every one of your Voices should have a say in its future.

Sincerely,
Nikki Cheshire and Nia M. Sherony
Discussion Moderators

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Welcome to our new blog about Sustainability and our discussion of how best to meet the needs of today's and tomorrow's generations.

We will be hosting a public issues forum on Sustainability at the end of February 2013 at Webster's Bookstore & Cafe and hope to begin and continue an online discussion surrounding the many issues that are a part of Sustainability.

We hope that you will join us in this discussion.