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Campus Projects Highlight Native American Presence at CSUN and in the Community
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Photo by Lee Choo
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The CSUN community has been making strides to understand its relationship with the land by which the university is built on by working with the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, the historic tribe of northern Los Angeles County.
With the continuous awareness and education of Fernandeño Tataviam traditions, CSUN’s Chicana/o, American Indian Studies and Central American Studies departments are working on developing a garden that will encompass the three programs. This garden will incorporate native plants and will allow students to use it as a resource to obtain vegetables, fruits, herbs, and to interact with the native plants like those used by Southern California’s tribes for centuries. Educational workshops and activities will also be held at the garden to keep students engaged.
The Institute for Sustainability is also taking the initiative on the expansion of growing native plants at the Food Garden. Director, Nat Zappia integrated the space into his Environmental History 496 course, which introduces students to different methods of food production - Indigenous, agrarian, and industrial. The students planted kohlrabi, kale, broccoli, and mixed greens. This course will be offered Spring 2022 as well.
To read more, visit the CSUN Today article here.
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CARB Passes Smog Check Regulation for Trucks, Buses
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Photo by CARB.
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On December 8, 2021, The California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed a program to implement the regulation of smog checks for heavy duty, and some medium- trucks and buses where owners must inspect their vehicles’ emissions control systems twice a year. Inspections and the delivery of information will be done remotely as most heavy-duty vehicles have been required to have on-board diagnostics (OBD) systems since 2013 by CARB.
Heavy duty trucks comprise 3% of vehicles on the road, yet they emit 50% of nitrous oxides (NOx) and particle diesel pollution from all mobile sources.
By 2037, the program is estimated to deliver reductions of 82 tons /day of NOx and fine particle diesel pollution. Between 2023 to 2050, this program is expected to yield $74 billion in health benefits, prevent 7,500 air-quality related deaths and 6,000 hospitalizations and emergency room visits.
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Going Green this Holiday Season!
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year! With a little creativity and mindfulness, we can all have a green and festive holiday season. Here are five tips to give the Earth the greatest gift of all by pledging to go green this holiday season.
1. Reconsider your gifts: Give a gift that will help a child be curious about the natural world such as a zoo membership or socially conscious gifts you make yourself like: ready-to-make mason jar recipes, clothing items, fun accessories, baked goods or even a White Elephant re-gift exchange! If you decide to gift wrap, consider wrapping them in recyclable or reused paper, decorate them with compostable items such as fruit and herbs, and give consumable or non-physical gifts to reduce waste. Examples include sweet treats, experiences, or e-gift cards.
2. Reuse your tree: The greenest real tree is the one that’s bought locally and recycled or even kept in a pot and replanted. You can also decorate a potted plant you already have! Be sure to compost real trees at the end of the season. If you purchase an artificial tree, it will take at least five years of reusing it for the carbon footprint to beat a real tree.
3. Make your holiday dinner a zero-waste party: Challenge everyone to cook their meals as zero-waste as possible, plan ahead with an accurate guest count, include some vegan options, and be sure to use reusable cutlery and dinnerware to green your meals. Donate all extra food to your guests or local shelters and compost the leftovers rather than throwing them away.
4. Use holiday lights in moderation: Switch to LED decorative lights to save 95% on energy costs over the holiday season. Using a timer that automatically shuts off at bedtime saves energy instead of them being on all night.
5. Send e-greetings: You can find great e-greetings online. If you must mail cards, try to keep your list to a minimum. Send postcards instead of envelopes to save paper or buy holiday cards that are made from recycled paper. Recycle the holiday cards you receive or make gift tags out of them for next year. The 2.65 billion Christmas cards sold each year in the U.S. could fill in a football field 10 feet high.
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Reptiles Are Readily Adapting to Climate Change, CSUN Prof Says
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Photo courtesy of Robert Espinoza
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Robert Espinoza, a biology professor at CSUN, has extensively studied the thermal biology of reptiles and how temperature affects them. He explains that these animals show a lot of thermal plasticity, adaptability, and flexibility – meaning they will eventually be affected by climate change but not right away. He found that different species of lizards may be able to survive and adapt to the rise in temperatures from climate change, whereas other lizards may not.
To learn more, read the full CSUN Today article here.
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Sustainability 401 Students Take Action for Cleaner Air
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Look to the Sky! It's a bird, a stork; it is…Air pollution.. or particulate matter, a mixture of tiny particles and liquid droplets that stay in the air year-round. This is what causes the brownish haze to appear over Cities. Toxic air is both harmful to the environment and public health. There are some great organizations out there fighting for cleaner air but there is little awareness of the issues at hand and solutions to these problems.
This is where a group of Cal State Northridge students has come together to help raise awareness and inspire change in our everyday habits to create safer air quality.
Sustainability 401 is a class that brings together all the information the students have learned and implements it in a capstone project. Our group consists of 6 students who have partnered with the Institute for Sustainability at CSUN to collect 783 clean air pledges on October 6th. CSUN ranked number 5 out of 650 organizations that took the pledge. On October 27th, Sustainability Day, we partnered with the Institute for Sustainability at CSUN once more to bring the campus and other community members a Sustainability and Air Pollution Webinar. The panelists included Uyen Uyen Vo from South Coast Air Quality Management District, Christopher Chavez from Coalition for Clean Air, Rogelio Pardo from Urban Movement, and David Diaz from Pacoima Beautiful. The webinar lasted for an hour and brought some fantastic insight into air quality and how individuals can help make a difference in air pollution.
Group members Nathan Stabe, Dion Magpantay, Ines Benmokhtar, Wei Liu, Christian Pepin and Amanda Perez have been working to help spread awareness of the air situation and have been making great strides in helping others understand. You can follow the group on Instagram at Students.4.Clean.Air and view the webinar on Youtube by searching "Sustainability and Air Pollution Webinar 2021" posted by the CSUN Institute for Sustainability.
Written by: Students 4 Clean AIr
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Sustainable Fashion Panel Recap
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This semester, the Institute for Sustainability has partnered with the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) and the CSUN Campus Quality Fee to introduce CSUN's first sustainable fashion ambassador program! As part of the program, we hosted our second open-to-public panel session with three industry experts from various backgrounds.
The theme for this panel was "Starting a Business in Sustainable Fashion." The panelists spoke on their journey to how they go to where they are now, what to expect, and tips and tricks to get started in the industry.
To watch the panel discussion recording, visit our YouTube channel.
Here are a few facts about the impact of fast fashion on the environment:
- Nearly 43,000 tons of clothing is estimated to end up in Chile's Atacama Desert each year. - Al Jazeera
- Americans generate 16 million tons of textile waste each year. Where does it all go? - Green America
- LANDFILL: 10 million tons
- INCINERATOR: 3 milion tons
- RECYCLING: 2.5 million tons
- OCERSEAS: 700,000 tons
- Clothes shed hundreds of thousands of tiny plastic fiber particles every time they are washed, polluting water systems. - Vox
- Garment workers are usually paid well below a living wage -- as low as $54 a month. - The Garment Worker
- Fast fashion brands keep us buying. By crewing micro-seasons, the fashion industry constantly turns over new trends and pumps out 100 billion garments every year. - Clean Clothes Campaign.
How can you help to make a difference? - Wall Street Journal
- Buy less! The average American purchases 68 items of clothing a year.
- Repair and recycle clothes.
- Buy and gift secondhand.
- Shop small, local, and BIPOC-owned business to keep money in more equitable economies.
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The Food Garden is Open for Volunteers!
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The CSUN Food Garden has been open the Fall semester for volunteers! By volunteering in the garden, folks will help plant crops, grow seedlings, weed and mulch, as well as water plants and harvest produce for the Food Pantry.
Currently, time slots are available on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and certain Saturdays. To sign up for a volunteer slot, visit bit.ly/sustgarden21.
To learn about the required documents to volunteer, please visit our website.
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Green Corps
Environmental Organizer
Click here to learn more
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Global Green Environment
Internship
Click here to learn more
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With a liberatory spirit, the San Fernando Valley’s HERE Center works with communities by nurturing collaborative research to improve health equity!
For members of the CSUN community seeking a progressive environment for researching health equity, the HERE Center provides resources and opportunities that promote scholarly collaboration to empower communities toward reducing health disparities.
For more information, visit https://www.csun.edu/here-center
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Consider Donating to the Institute!
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Sustainability is a key priority at California State University, Northridge, integrated into all aspects of the university from operations and infrastructure to outreach, education and research. We’ve taught thousands of students how to grow their own food, to rethink “waste,” to conserve energy and water, and to take what they learn at CSUN back to their communities.
We rely on the generosity of donors to expand CSUN's sustainability leadership - from academic learning opportunities for students to cutting-edge research and engagement that benefit our campus, state and planet. Please consider giving to the Institute for Sustainability. Your tax-deductible contributions help support our mission and invest in our students, faculty and staff who make a difference both on campus and in the community.
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Click on the button above to send us any sustainability-related news, events, resources, or career/volunteer opportunities that you would like to be included in The Footprint!
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