I moved out of my parents’ house the day before my eighteenth birthday. Until that time, I was living the typical wasteful lifestyle of a suburban teen.
I made the 3.7 mile drive to school every day. In the cold Wisconsin winters, my bedroom stayed at a comfortable 70 degrees. I got a new pair of blue jeans every time one of mine wore a hole and leftovers just didn’t taste that great so saving my food scrapings seemed pointless.
Now, I wasn’t deliberately and maliciously wasteful. I recycled when it was convenient. One time, I actually rode my bike to high school (but I got honked and yelled at by kids that passed me in their cars so I never did it again). And after all, my dad was the one that controlled the thermostat, not me.
Since I have come to college in Madison and gotten my own apartment, I have decided to make much “greener” lifestyle choices. I bought a sewing kit and some iron-on patches and have figured out how to make my clothes last years instead of months. I wear a sweatshirt and slippers around my much cooler 63 degree home in the winter. I walk or bike anywhere I need to go on campus and by God, a Chipotle burrito can last me three meals.
In proper scientific method, I should clarify which shade of green I am talking about. Honestly, my first $300 heating bill my sophomore year still haunts my dreams. Keeping a car in Madison can cost up to $100 a month and there are zero free parking spots (that are legal) around campus. Eating out costs at least six dollars and that is just way too much to spend on one meal.
Most college students like myself spend a lot of time consciously planning their daily actions in order to conserve green—the kind with the old man’s portrait on it. But college students are also in a unique position in that they are being trained every day to minimize resources on the professional level as well.
Every academic discipline stresses conservation. Engineers are constantly working to conserve cost without reducing safety, business professionals allocate resources according to minimalistic calculations and journalists write concisely to get to the point in a two-inch-wide column.
And what is most wonderful about a bachelor’s degree is its breadth. Science majors take art classes and liberal arts majors take technical classes. Undergraduates are constantly and actively learning about relationships between elements in this world that are so much broader than their field of interest. These groomed conservationists need to be able to understand that they are conserving a certain resource because of reasons much bigger than just the company they work for or the city they live in.
Environmental consciousness is about this wider vision. Responsible citizens of the world need to have the ability to see what’s in their peripherals and design for it when completing the task in front of them. The problem is that the motivation for these actions is a different shade of green that many of us seem to be colorblind to.
In this issue, we explore the people on campus who are taking an active role in the environmental movement. Individuals and groups here at UW-Madison are the some of the top leaders and researchers in the world of environmental issues. They are and have been working to spread awareness of the movement and to teach members of our society to conserve with more than one green in mind.
I have matured a lot since my eighteenth birthday. I can see past the immediate consequences of my actions and analyze the effects that smaller things have on society and the world as a whole. The conservation that I personally benefit from saves much more than I originally thought.
To me, the environmental shade of green represents the responsibility to conserve resources with compassion. Not because we have to, but because we genuinely care about the environment we live in and the environment we want for our children.