Category: "Climate"
Remember the Cold Winters?
July 23, 2019
By: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Hixon Center Director I sometimes think back to the winters of my childhood, when, almost every year, the local lake would freeze over enough to skate on it. We also had snow on multiple occasions. It did not always last for long, but my hometown’s residents speculated mostly whether we would have […]
What Apollo 11 and the Climate Crisis have in Common — and What They Don’t
July 23, 2019
By: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Hixon Center Director Fifty years ago this month American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to set foot on the moon—the magnificent and beautiful culmination of years of work by countless men and women, who made groundbreaking advances in science and engineering and, through their dedication and willpower, […]
Sustainability Focus Groups
June 16, 2019

By: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Hixon Center Director During the spring the Hixon Center, with the help of CGU doctoral student Sara Hollar, conducted a series of focus groups on sustainability at Harvey Mudd College. The goal for the undertaking was to evaluate the work of the Hixon Center over the past 4+ years against people’s perceptions […]
Why Sustainability Ratings are Useful
May 3, 2019

By: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Hixon Center Director Good news: Harvey Mudd College has just received a STARS Silver rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). This follows last year’s first-ever Bronze rating and reflects continued efforts to embed sustainability across all organizational units and processes and was bolstered by the […]
Biomass-To-Energy Study
April 23, 2019
BY: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Hixon Center Director Claremont McKenna College graduate, Lauren d’Souza (’18), was deeply interested in understanding the obstacles and opportunities faced by Native Americans when it comes to tribal economic development, sovereignty, and sustainable energy generation. Under the guidance of Prof. William Ascher (CMC) and Prof. Tanja Srebotnjak she studied the feasibility of […]
The “Green New Deal” – Part 3: Will It Pass?
April 17, 2019

By: LOUIS SPANIAS, Sustainability Program Manager The past two segments of this blog series have covered a lot of ground on the “Green New Deal” Resolution. In the first segment, I explained what exactly the “Green New Deal” was: a blueprint by which Congress could legislate on the issues of climate change and economic injustice. […]
The “Green New Deal” – Part 2: Can Its Goals Be Achieved?
April 9, 2019

By: LOUIS SPANIAS, Sustainability Program Manager In the previous segment of the “Green New Deal” series, I provided an explanation of the Resolution co-introduced by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA). As I outlined in Part 1, the “Green New Deal” offers a strategic blueprint for Congress to act on the issues […]
There’s a New Electron in Town
February 25, 2019

By: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Hixon Center director Have you heard of the Clean Power Alliance? You might have heard about it or received notifications in the mail: starting this month, approximately 3 million customers in 31 cities and communities in southern California are receiving electricity from the Clean Power Alliance (CPA), a new government entity founded […]
Why Does Food Ever Become Waste?
February 12, 2019

By: LOUIS SPANIAS, Sustainability Program Manager Amidst the busyness of everyday life, we often overlook the moments when we throw things away. The decision to dispose is a seemingly trivial moment, but at the same time it is a universal experience: we all use things, and at some point, those things become trash. Even food […]
Campus Sustainability: An International Perspective
January 28, 2019

By: LOUIS SPANIAS, Sustainability Program Manager Last month, I attended the 2nd Symposium on Sustainability in University Campuses (SSUC) conference in Florence, Italy. With 60 attendees from academic institutions around the world (largely from Europe), the conference offered an opportunity to hear from our international counterparts about how they have managed to advance environmental sustainability […]