The 5th annual Campus Sustainability Day encouraged students to participate in sustaining a healthy environment by not compromising future generations ability to meet their needs.
The Institute of Sustainability prepared four sessions Tuesday that took place in the Northridge Center throughout the course of the day. A showing of the “Bag It” documentary took place at 11 a.m. The film documented the build up of trash and waste and exposed the effects that plastic bags and other plastic merchandise have on the land ecosystems, marine life and human body.
Each of the four sessions encouraged students to do their part to eliminate waste and to be conscious about the environment.
“I find it very important even if it’s not your minor, all students need to learn because sustainability is the future,” Mireya Arizmendi de Haddad, 39, public health major said. “It goes with every major and who doesn’t need the environment? Everything applies to it.”
The Campus Sustainability Day is an event that is held on college campuses throughout the country. It is a day used to educate individuals on the topic of sustainability by discussing various issues within our environment as well as possible solutions that students can help with.
“I think it creates a platform. You have this day where you can choose a topic…and then you just get people engaged and educate them,” Sarah Johnson, coordinator at the Institute for Sustainability at CSUN, said. “We’re just trying to find different ways to reach out to students to educate and engage them in sustainability issues.”
The final session featured Stephanie McMillan, award-winning political artist and writer.
McMillan spoke on her views of capitalism in her lecture “Capitalism Must Die! Our Planet is not Expendable.” McMillan presented her cartoons through a slideshow and she read them out loud before explaining their intended meaning.
“Nothing we’re doing is more important than (stopping) capitalism. We can’t extract from an economy that dominates the country around us,” McMillan said during her presentation.
During the lecture McMillan also stressed how the production methods of capitalism must be destroyed. Some students who attended the lecture weren’t clear how effective a change in the government structure would help sustain the planet.
“I agree with what she says about capitalism, but I kind of see it as a distraction from global warming or what I see as the problem with the climate. I think to overthrow the government or to propose to overthrow the government is not going to be a solution to helping climate change ” said 28-year-old math major Cord Perillo.
McMillan’s political cartoons will be displayed in the West Gallery for the remainder of the week until Thursday.
