Wednesday evening, Free the Planet (FTP) hosted a dinner and write-in to promote environmental justice. Participants ate local foods, including Iowa honey, while writing letters to political leaders as part of FTP environmental justice symposium.
The week-long symposium highlighted the economic and social issues in environmentalism on the local, national, and international levels. The organizers of the event, Heather Parker '08 and Clara Thelen '08, in association with FTP, aimed to raise awareness of global and local environmental justice issues through the symposium. "While studying abroad in Ecuador, I saw cases of environmental injustice and even racism that I had never known about," said Parker.
The symposium brought together professors and students as speakers, with J. Montgomery Roper, Anthropology, and David Campbell, Biology, presenting on their research as did Parker and Amy Rothbaum '08. There was an international student panel discussing environmental issues from their respective home countries.
Such issues are relevant locally as well. Josh Jones of the Iowa Sierra Club spoke on the proposed construction of a new coal plant in Marshalltown. The issues of global warming, health and equal voice--or lack of it--all play into the politics of coal.
While the truth about environmental justice may sometimes be bitter at least the honey was sweet.
