A welcome mat in a parking garage. Lights that aren’t working. Pipes hanging exposed from a ceiling.
At first glance, the University’s building renovations appear incomplete. But a welcome mat reduces the number of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a building, and by revealing pipes, builders save money on ceiling materials while sending less waste to the landfill.
In a rainy city like Seattle, water conservation is arguably not the most important environmental issue. As the UW begins to focus on having sustainable, or “green,” operations, the issue of water conservation comes into question. However, at a university that uses 30 million gallons of water annually for irrigation, the issue isn’t a small one.
Despite having no grade for water usage, the UW Facilities Services Web site states that the University is committed to operating its “water systems using the most efficient and environmentally friendly practices possible.”
Both the University of Washington and the University of Oregon receive top marks in the Princeton Review's new "Green Rating" system.
The ranking system measures how environmentally friendly schools are. Institutions receive a score on a scale from 60 to 99 based on their policies and practices.
The UW group Students Expressing Environmental Dedication (SEED) has transformed an unused overgrowth between Hall Health and Fluke Hall into a blossoming garden.
The garden, known as the P-Patch, is a project that includes a diversity of plants, said Ariana Taylor-Stanley, a junior at the UW who spearheaded the project.
Flowers, cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, strawberries, melons, peas and lettuces are already growing in the gardens.
The University of Washington Board of Regents on Thursday voted unanimously to create a new College of the Environment. The regents showed strong support for the idea, in the face of opposition from some state legislators and faculty over recent weeks.
But the vote creates little more than an empty shell at this point. It will be up to President Mark Emmert and Provost Phyllis Wise to persuade faculty from various schools and departments to join the new college. Wise has pledged that no departments will be forced to join against their will.
In facilities across campus, students can turn a knob and out comes ready-to-drink water.
However, organizers and participants of the Carry 5 Walk for Water fundraiser want people to think twice about the value of water while raising money to provide underserved communities with access to clean water.
This weekend, participants will walk five kilometers carrying a five-gallon container of water weighing about 40 pounds around Seward Park.
A bus running on vegetable oil was parked near By George Café last week as part of the national BioTour, and a bluegrass band performed on top of the bus by plugging their amps into its solar panels.
The UW chapter of the Washington Student Public Interest Research Group (WashPIRG) booked the bus for a tour stop and invited the student band Old Technology to play a concert on top of it. Though WashPIRG members were a majority of the audience, the curiosity turned more than a few heads and attracted Tukwila School District students who were touring the campus.
Wolves, cloud forests and biofuels will be featured in this year’s Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival.
The festival, which is in its 10th year, will be on-campus from May 1-4, and will feature more than 50 films, speakers and workshops.
“The goal for the festival is to make available opportunities for people to see films they may never get a chance to see anywhere else about our environment,” said Dave Atcheson, festival co-chair.
Atcheson highlighted the beginning and end of the festival.
The opening night film is award-winning Oil + Water.
In the rush for energy independence, U.S. policy isn’t helping. Don’t get me wrong: I strongly believe that we need to stop using Arab oil for diplomatic reasons as well as environmental ones. But government policies put in place to combat the use of oil are hurting the United States and rest of the world more than they help.
Led by Your Revolution, WashPIRG, Washington Student Lobby and ASUW, Earth Day 2008 aimed to unite various activists and introduce new developments in voter registration.
“Our vision was to link Earth Day with civic engagement,” said sophomore Chris Jordan, a member of Your Revolution.
Organizers brought in multiple musical acts and speakers, including UW President Mark Emmert and musical group The Senate.
“I really liked the music,” senior Jessica Caple said. “The booths were informative and there was a lot of variety.”