{"id":851,"date":"2011-10-19T11:16:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T18:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=851"},"modified":"2011-10-19T11:16:21","modified_gmt":"2011-10-19T18:16:21","slug":"camosun-realizes-it-can-be-hard-to-be-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2011\/10\/19\/camosun-realizes-it-can-be-hard-to-be-green\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun realizes it can be hard to be green"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today\u2019s eco-conscious world, with a recycling bin in every driveway and a compact fluorescent light bulb in every socket, it\u2019s easy to make environmentally friendly choices, even for an institution like Camosun College.<\/p>\n

But, despite school-wide initiatives like composting and a five-year plan to reduce campus energy consumption, creating an eco-friendly campus isn\u2019t for the faint of heart.<\/p>\n

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Camosun's Peter Lockie says the school is working towards change (file photo\/Nexus).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEvery green initiative has been this long process,\u201d explains Richard Kao, sustainability director for the Camosun College Student Society. \u201cWhen we want to do something good it takes a long time, because Camosun just doesn\u2019t have the budget for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The college\u2019s bottom line, according to Kao, is the root of the eco-friendly issue. \u201cThe school, unfortunately, doesn\u2019t really care about anything other than the profit,\u201d says Kao.<\/p>\n

Peter Lockie, Camosun\u2019s vice-president administration and chief financial officer, says that despite budget issues the school is working to make change.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoney is always a problem, but I\u2019m an optimist at the moment on this subject,\u201d says Lockie, also head of Camosun\u2019s environmental sustainability council. \u201cThe reason is we are getting a structure together that wasn\u2019t there before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lockie adds that making change is dependent on student involvement. \u201cThe importance of students is huge,\u201d he says. \u201cI can\u2019t underestimate that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students also agree that the environmental fate of the campus is largely in the hands of the little guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it has to come from the student body, and a lot of initiatives and fundraising has to be done by students,\u201d says Jill Carruthers, a third-year environmental technology student, who adds that it\u2019s tough getting students to care about environmental issues on campus. \u201cWhen you throw your banana peel in the garbage, you don\u2019t see the end result. Getting the big picture in everyone\u2019s mind, I think that\u2019s where you\u2019re going to have a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nadia Lebel, also in third-year environmental technology, agrees it\u2019s hard to motivate students. \u201cPeople don\u2019t know the impacts of their actions,\u201d says Lebel.<\/p>\n

Lebel also points out that even once initiatives are started it can be difficult to keep them going, using the now-overgrown native plant garden at Camosun as an example.<\/p>\n

All hope is not lost, though. Student perseverance has made an impact on campus practices, like the compost program that was proposed, implemented, and funded by student initiatives.<\/p>\n

Kao is hopeful for the future of student projects and says that if students have ideas they can come to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next project,\u201d says Kao, \u201cwill be the community garden that one of the students had in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In today\u2019s eco-conscious world, with a recycling bin in every driveway and a compact fluorescent light bulb in every socket, it\u2019s easy to make environmentally friendly choices, even for an institution like Camosun College. But, despite school-wide initiatives like composting and a five-year plan to reduce campus energy consumption, creating an eco-friendly campus isn\u2019t for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-october192011"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1167,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions\/1167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}