The Coming of the GreenMobile; 350 rides into an eco-friendly future

The good news is, Bard's share of the loot from Obama's Recovery Act, is half an eco-friendly diesel-hybrid Magnificently Green Shuttle Bus. Half a shuttle you say? HALF??? The front half or the back half? How will it move on only two wheels? Won't that let in the cold air?

Ah-ha-ha. In fact, Bard has been planning on purchasing a new shuttle bus for a long time. The problem is, the eco-friendly version costs slightly more than twice as much as the regular version. So the Head of the Environmental Resources Department hit up the federal government for some cash (by which I mean she wrote a successful grant) and they offered to pay half. So we can afford it! Yay! GreenMobile-- coming soon (whenever we wander out of our labryinthe of paperwork.)

The bad news is, nobody agrees on how to use the Greenmobile. Transportation issues have been controversial lately on campus. Its a battle of opinion between the on-campus and the off-campus students. On-campus students want to get from North to South Campus. But if the shuttle is loaded up with them, will there be room for people trying to make it to their apartments in neighboring towns?

We had problems last year with students not fitting onto packed buses and being left forlornly in the rain "We have to recognize the fact that we have limited resources," said Erin Canaan. So it was decided that the shuttle bus would be used exclusively for taking students to neighboring burgs Tivoli and Red Hook. The walk between North and South Campus, is after all, less than a mile.

But LO-- the plot thickens. I'm sure you've seen tiny conservatory students bent under the weight of their enormous musical instruments. (Okay, a violin isn't too bad, but a chello? A tuba?) They look like those ants who can lift ten times their own weight. And it's possible that such a student might have a class in the Fisher Perfoming Arts Center AND in Blum Music Hall. Walk a mile in five minutes? No way.

That's why Laurie Husted is looking into matching shuttle schedules with class schedules. But will this be enough to satisfy the enraged on-campus students? I was coming back from Red Hook with heavy bags of groceries for a party I was throwing for my friends. It was quite a shock to be booted off the bus at Kline. I hadn't been expecting to carry those groceries all the way home to North Campus, handles cutting into my hands. Although under ordinary circumstances I quite like walking and never take that shuttle trip.

Enough people have been irked by the elimination of the North Campus stop that a petition (about 80 signatures by now, says student secretary Chris Given) is circulating around asking to get the stop back. On the other hand, students who live off-campus are thrilled. Not only is the bus less crowded, fewer stops make it run more efficiently. An anonymous Tivoli-dwelling student said she was delighted with the change. Then she told me "not to use her name," because "she didn't want to get involved with this."

"It's difficult for us," said Ed Schmidt, head of the transportation department. "We get some emails from students saying they love the new shuttle schedule and thank you so much. Whereas we get emails from other students saying they hate the new schedule, and threatening to drive." I find this somewhat amusing. ("Arrange the schedule so it is exactly to my convenience! Otherwise, its global warming for you!") Its like holding the knife made of carbon dioxide fumes over our collective throats.

"We hear that more people are using cars," said Chris Given. Dean of Students Erin Canaan disagrees. "If the shuttle is running more often, and more efficiently," she says, "That means fewer Tivoli and Red Hook students are driving. We have to prioritize here. What's more important-- to prevent drives across campus, or to prevent drives between towns? 533 students live off-campus, 200 students live on North Campus." She continues, "If a student is walking from North to South Campus, that's safe-- even healthy. But if a student is walking three miles along the edge of the highway, it's not safe at all."

She also has this concept of "academic" and "non-academic" uses for the shuttle. The monday morning shuttle is "academic" because it is taking you from your house to your class. The friday night schedule is "non-academic" because it's taking you home from a party. But although Erin Canaan might prefer to maximize "academic uses" of the shuttle, she recognizes safety issues are also involved. One of the shuttle's key uses is to prevent drunk driving. In that way, the friday night run might be the most important of all.

"Sometimes they have really big parties in Tivoli," says Ed Schmidt. "The driver goes to Tivoli at 1AM Friday and finds a hundred people who just left a party to get on the bus. What's the solution?" With a little creative thinking, Ed Schmidt hit upon the idea of a "stealth shuttle." This sneaky little shuttle would make unscheduled stops to pick up extra people during peak times. Although its Batmanesque name is appealing, the logistics of this proposal might be a little tricky. Once the GreenMobile arrives, we'll have a second vehicle available, but the transportation department is chronically underfunded. How do we pay for the gas and driver? Erin Canaan points out, "We have to raise 20-30 million dollars a year just to keep the lights on in this place. Adding to the transportation budget means additional money, and where is that coming from?"

People are tossing around the idea of using a student driver. But Ed Schmidt is not happy with the idea. Students are not trained in crowd control, he says, and "should not be responsible for handling drunks. And also......" He pauses. He leans over the table, looks surreptiously from side to side, and practically whispers, "Please don't take offense at this. But I'm afraid students are not the most reliable people in the world." I laugh because it's true. Who shows up for work when they've got a final paper due?

Ed Schmidt the transportation director is quite a character. His enormous and colorful bulletin board features a sign which says, "I am here to serve. Not to observe," and another which says, "Lack of planning on YOUR part does not constitute an emergency on MY part." Which captures quite nicely the dual personality of transportation services here on campus. On the one hand, they are warm caring folks who want to help students and will make extra trips to prevent people from being stranded. On the other hand, they get impatient with students who are self-absorbed or whiny. "I think what students need most of all is a little patience," said Mr. Schmidt. "People say, I don't want to take the shuttle because it gets me there half an hour early. So what? Go to the library or something!"

"What people want from their shuttles is instant gratification," he continues glumly. "We can't please everybody all the time-- but we try. In the past, I've given the shuttle schedule to student government and said-- 'CHANGE IT! I'll do anything you want.' And they haven't changed it, aside from making the format easier to read."

On first hearing of the canceled shuttle stop, I wondered if my blog would be about Poor Stranded Students vs. Big Bad Administration. But the story just won't slant that way. I asked both Chris Given and Ben DiFabbio (Student Senate representative on the transportation committee) if the administration was sensitive to student needs. Both men instantly replied with the same word, "Definitely." I want to take a moment to whine about how HARD it is to be a muckraking journalist on Bard Campus. You go out looking for blood, and instead you find this big conversation where everyone is considering everyone else's needs. I wanted to write a sensational story of conflict and controversy, but the campus is too darn full of peace and love.

Even Ed Schmidt! I was getting up to leave when he said, "Before you go, let me show you something. In my wild hippie days I was on an album cover!" And he takes the album from its treasured spot, points out a wild bearded figure holding a "Peace on Earth" sign, and says, "That's me."

What it boils down to is, everyone's voice will be heard when we decide how to use the GreenMobile. Ben DiFabbio of Student Senate strongly urges you to watch out for the survey his committee will be sending out. The info about student's transportation needs will be presented to Erin Canaan in the October dialogue she is hosting. "Our main muscle is the surveys," Ben says. "That way we can really tell the administration what we want."

And by the way? Erin's meeting? Everyone is welcome. Really, if you are paying attention there is no way you will be left out. An Environmental and Urban Studies class recently went on a field trip to Kingston. They saw many beautiful locations including a beach with sailboats and a plentiful farmer's market. On returning, we heard them say, "Why does the shuttle go to the strip mall and not the farmer's market? For years I thought Kingston was a terrible place, just because the only place the shuttle ever took me was Target." Students who want different stops just need to get involved.

And who knows, you might win a prize! A 350 initiative by the Environmental Resources Department is giving out RAFFLE TICKETS to win 25 DOLLARS at our delicious local cafe. The lucky winners will be the passengers on the 350th shuttle ride. And who knows what shuttle ride that will be? Get involved in public transportation and reduce carbon emissions in our atmosphere. Then instead of a cup of noxious fumes, you'll be sipping a cup of delicious hot chocolate at the Taste Budds Cafe.

Challenge: Take 350 bus rides by next September.

350 Milkshakes from Happy Cows; Increasing Food Sustainability Awareness

I was supposed to be meeting a girl who looked like a horse. I scanned the crowds of eating and laughing students, but all of them looked more or less human. This was so confusing.

Kira Gilman, the sustainability intern for Bard's food service company, Chartwells, and I had arranged to meet for a pleasant chat. Since I had never met her, I had checked out her Facebook picture to recognize her in the crowd. Problem: Kira Gilman's Facebook profile picture was a horse.

“Charlotte! Charlotte!” called a lovely girl with a shy sweet smile and a glittering nose ring. Ah-ha! That must be her. I did the little, “Don't wham into people and drop your plate of food,” dance and made my way to her table.

“There's actually a human on that horse if you look closely,” she clarified, as we dug into our delicious plates of local food.

“All's well that ends well,” I said, and began the barrage of questions. What does her sustainability intern job entail?

“Well, Locavore Week has been great, and I made the signs for that. But mostly I work with Waste Stream Management,” she said. “Look at how much is thrown away at Bard each week. Try to improve composting practices. Things like that.”

“Chartwells composts all its food wastes, right?” I said.

“Well, it composts everything that gets left on the plates,” she explained. “They can't really sort through what goes into the trashcans.”

I was startled. I always feel a little guilty shoving my filthy plates at those hard-working dishwashers, so I had taken to scraping my plate off into the trash before I put it on the dirty dish ledge. I wasn't sure why, it seemed more polite. But apparently I had been taking my food scraps

out of the glorious land of compost and into the ignominious land of landfill.

“People should know this!” I cried.

“Yes, well, maybe we should have better signage, just so people are aware....” Kira agreed.

“What is the biggest source of waste from the cafeteria?” I asked curiously.

Kira echoed what Chas Cerulli, Chartwells director, had said early that week. “Paper cups and dishes. We throw out more of them than we can possibly compost.”

My boyfriend Abhi prefers paper plates, because he finds it disgusting to imagine how many hundreds of previous user's saliva and food leavings have touched his china plate. Every time we go to the cafeteria, I take china and he takes paper. By now I was sick of the Raging Paper Plate Debate. So when he cut into my conversation with Kira, I drooped my head into my hands. Not again......

“Paper plates are better for the environment,” he cried. “Think of the poisonous detergents polluting the waters. Think of all the water wasted washing the plate.”

“But paper plates you have to keep reusing,” Kira argued. “It takes so much more energy to manufacture 365 paper plates. You use much less energy when you use one china plate for a year.”

“That's not true,” said my boyfriend, who is always ready for a good argument. “I have visited a paper plate factory. You use recycled paper pulp and a thin piece of cloth, and wham them into shape with a giant weight. It looks totally sustainable to me.”

“Harvard did a study on china vs. paper,” said Kira, blinking at him. “I forget the exact numbers, but it was something like the energy to make fifty paper plates equals the energy to make one china plate.”

I thought about that for a moment. “So basically, if you were a really clumsy person who was always breaking dishes, it would make sense to get paper plates. But if the china plate can stay intact for more than fifty days, it's the more sustainable option.”

“Exactly,” said Kira. Then she told a story about Manor Cafe, the hot dining spot for North Campus. Chartwells had decided they would rather use paper and plastic dishes for Manor. Some environmentally-minded students had been distressed by this, and volunteered to wash dishes— FOR FREE— so that Manor could afford to go on using china.

The problem was, people were taking dishes home with them and never bringing them back. So Chartwells just had to keep buying and buying new dishes. In the end, they were replacing dishes so often the practice no longer made sense. They were buying new china plates less than fifty days apart (or whatever the Harvard benchmark was.) So the environmentally-minded students gave up in disgust, and now Manor uses paper.

I think what we need is a dish-thief-punishing ninja. You go to Manor, purchase a delicious turkey burger and whoops— there's your ex-girlfriend in the dining room! Carrying your plate of steaming food, you dash for the door, hoping to eat in the ex-girlfriendless comfort of your dorm room. But no sooner have you set foot outside the door than BAM!!! the black-clad dish ninja drops from a tree, and cuts off the Thieving Hand that holds the Stolen Plate. Dripping with blood and clad in glory, the ninja will dart into the cafe to restore the ceramic treasure to its rightful guardians.

Never mind. I think this policy might infringe on the restrictions of the Health Code.

“In India, we use banana leaves for plates,” my boyfriend piped up, breaking me out of my ninja reverie.

“Really?”

“On festivals and special occasions, especially,” he said, looking cheerful. “Its the ultimate in sustainability!”

“Too bad we can't do that over here,” said Kira. I imagined a giant banana tree growing in the center of Kline for people to pluck plates from, and smiled.

“To be frank with you, I was expecting something a little more drastic for Locavore Week,” I told Kira. “We still have bananas, for instance. And coffee.”

“Yes, well they're putting in local products wherever they can, but I guess they're not allowed to stop having certain things.”

“Just out of curiosity, how do you think people would react if we..... TOOK AWAY THEIR COFFEE?” I said. Maybe I have a sadistic streak in my sense of humor, but the idea of people going up to the coffee dispenser only to find it empty, was funny to me.

“Well....” Kira asked. “I think there would probably be a backlash. Like the time we had ONE MEATLESS LUNCH, there was a huge backlash. The comment board of Kline was covered with index cards written by angry angry people.”

“This was just for one meatless meal?” I said.

“Yes, I know!” said Kira, waving her hands. “We weren't even asking them to go without meat for a whole day!!!”

“I talked with the director of Chartwells the other day,” I told Kira. “I asked him whether he would be saving or losing money with Locavore week. He'll be losing money, and its mainly due to the cost of getting the free-range local meat.”

Now I have to stop typing, take a few deep breaths, and get a grip on myself. Or this blog will degenerate into a long rant on the evils of factory farming.

“That's a lovely mug you have there,” I told Kira. A tall blue thermos flask emblazoned with the 350 logo was proudly positioned on the table before her.

“We're planning to give them away to people who pledge never to use paper cups again,” Kira beamed. Keep an eye out for these attractive 350 flasks, people. No more burning your hands because the coffee is too hot and the paper cup is too thin.

“Where are you ambitious to take the sustainability initiative in the future?” I asked Kira.

“I'd love to see Bard be an example for other schools,” Kira said.

Chas Cerulli, the Chartwells manager I interviewed for this blog, thinks the same thing. When I dropped by his office, I found an energetic young executive who moved from swivel chair to swivel chair fighting with computers who hated him. Once the computers had been properly vanquished he came over to talk to me.

I found out that Locavore week is a company-wide initiative taking place in all the many campuses and locations where Chartwells caters. Bard, however is taking it a bit further than the other campuses. Local foods and sustainability has always been a personal interest of Mr. Cerulli. It was he who decided to use the Hudson Valley Fresh milk, whose wondrous qualities have been catalogued in a previous blog entry. He's also started cage-free egg initiatives and tries to buy local foods whenever he can, Locavore week or no. It all began with purchases of local apples from the lovely orchards around here, then snowballed from there.

He mainly purchases from the Hudson Valley Food Co-op, which buys food from an association of diverse small farmers, and sells it in quantities large enough to interest the major buyers. Ordinarily, food purchased from Hudson Valley Co-Op would travel into Manhattan to undergo quality inspection, before returning to Bard (not far from where it started.) Mr. Cerulli arranged to have the food inspected internally in Chartwells and save our lettuce and carrots the 200-mile round trip. “It just makes so much more sense this way,” Mr. Cerulli said. If only more managers would follow Mr. Cerulli's example and look for ways to combine efficiency with sustainability.

“What was the most challenging thing about arranging locavore week?” I asked Mr. Cerulli.

“Creating menus and figuring out recipes based on what we could get locally,” Mr. Cerulli replied. A certain investment of creativity was required. “Its easier for those bigger schools, which have farms that grow exclusively for them,” Mr. Cerulli explained. But small school or not, Bard's performance has been impressive. The menus during Locavore week have been varied and rich.

In the future, Mr. Cerulli hopes to see Bard embrace even better composting practices, cut down on paper waste, and explore sustainable meat and fish. Even though the free-range local meat is more expensive, Mr. Cerulli would, “love to do more with meat,” and he is intrigued with the possibilities presented by the Monteray Bay Aquarium, a sustainable fish-farming operation.

Lately all of us have been seing tiny plaques next to our foods mentioning the number of miles the food has traveled. As people eat their meals, they are forced to think about where the food came from. Signs all over the cafeteria describe various local farms which sourced the foods.

So far the crowning success of Locavore week has been the local cheeses. Long lines of people formed before the cheese counter, where they waited to receive little slices of gourmet cheese on crunchy crackers. The cheese was created only sixty miles away.

My personal favorite, however, has been the little milkshakes made with Hudson Valley Fresh milk. A dairy farmer in a blue uniform stood by the counter and proudly informed students that, "The milkshakes taste so good because they come from my cows.”

You'd love to see Bard be an example for other schools, Kira? Well, I think we already are. I mean we still have a long way to go (getting funding for an environmentally-friendly-behavior- enforcing ninja would be nice for instance.) But what other schools get dairy farmers telling kids in the cafeteria, “Those milkshakes come from my cows?”

Hooray for Bard!

Challenge: find a beautiful thermos and avoid using 350 paper cups before Christmas.

350 mile radius of deliciousness; Eating Local

Did you know that your average bite of food travels 1500 miles to reach your mouth? Eeeeewww!!!! Talk about fresh, right? We'll munch and crunch into better things when Chartwells Catering Company begins Locavore Week. For the first time in Bard College history, we’ll be eating things that come from 350 miles away or less. That is, if Chartwells succeeds in meeting its challenge. Eating local food in our cafeteria, (even if only for a week) will be a massive adjustment. But you know what they say, right? Foods which are fresh, seasonal, and grown close to home are not only better for the environment-- they TASTE better as well.

Still. What about the bananas? "I MISS MY BANANA!!!"-- I can hear the screams already. If only the bio students could figure out how to build a banana-bearing greenhouse in the RKC. As fossil fuels grow more and more expensive, we can expect to see this type of agritech solution to support Americans in the variety to which they've grown accustomed. Unless the American Empire falls, in which case its back to the land for us!

Ho ho. Instead of discussing Socrates in comfortable armchairs, we'll be hewing potatoes out of the raw earth and begging Bill Maple (the natural history prof) for tips on how to find food in the woods behind Cruger. He will lead expeditions of intrepid students to harvest the distinctive fungi known as Chicken of the Woods, bright orange mushrooms the size of elephant's ears that grow on the sides of rotting stumps. Do you think I'm making this up? I took his class; I kid you not. Talk about local eats.

Clearly I'm just pulling your leg when I talk about the fall of the American Empire. OR AM I?!?!?! Ba-da-da-DUM! Its not just the whackos who say things like that nowadays. Award-winning professor Richard Heinberg writes books about Peak Oil telling us we need "lifeboat communities" (i.e. self-sustaining communities with local agriculture) who can survive when Titanic-- THE UNSINKABLE-- has sunk. And by the Titanic, yes I do mean civilization AS WE KNOW IT (complete with bells, whistles and military-industrial complexes.)

For those of you who love reading (and if you don't, why are you going to Bard?) you might try Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It is a humorous account of her family's struggle to eat local for the space of one year. Because guess what-- eating local is hard in a world where farmers have been forced to bow to the god of mass production. Still, Duchess County is not the middle of the Sahara. We are living in the heart of plenty here.

According to Duchess County Bounty website, we have 650 farms which produce dairy, fruits, vegetables, flowers, hay, sheep, goats, horses and more. About 25 of those farms grow fruit including apples, pears, peaches, blueberries and strawberries. Our vegetable farms offer potatoes, tomatoes, sweet corn, pumpkins, lettuce, and assorted greens.... mouth watering yet? And I haven't even mentioned the five Duchess County wineries. Not that Kline serves wine or anything. (Small side-track: wouldn't it be awesome if Kline served wine? Awesome and......... ILLEGAL! Oh well, so much for that train of thought.)

Ahem. Back on topic. Nine farmer's markets and innumerable highway produce stands offer up their wares to Duchess-county dwellers. I've bought peaches and green beans many a time from the stand conveniently located within biking distance from Bard along the 9G highway. Maybe Bard should organize an Ecological Awareness shuttle trip to a local orchard so Bard students can pick their own apples. The apples are cheap, and the wildflowers which grow between the rows are absolutely free. Pick them. Put them in your hair. Put them in your boyfriend's hair and see how long before he notices he is the victim of girlish adornment.

And while we're singing the praises of Locavore Week, let's not forget to give Chartwells credit for what they do already. I don't know if any of you have noticed the Hudson Valley Fresh labels on our milk bottles. I looked at their website today, and that milk is delivered straight from heaven, poured from golden chalices wielded by angels....... no, not really. Actually, the milk comes from local happy cows who get to eat their favorite foods and lie down to sleep on rubber mats instead of the hard concrete floors which are standard practice in dairy farming.

Actually, the first time I bought a bottle of this Hudson Valley Fresh from Manor, I took it back to the cashier thinking there was something wrong with it. "Excuse me, but this gooey crust has formed over the top of my milk..... that can't be good...." In fact, the suspiciously"gooey crust" was CREAM, which had risen to the top of the milk, just like you read about in Laura Ingalls Wilder and Heavens to Betsy and Ann of Green Gables and all those wholesome books about old-fashioned girls skimming milk on the prairie. Factory-processed milk is homogenized so the cream doesn't separate. Many people worry about the health risks of this including increased cholesterol. What is wrong with our world? Milk starts behaving naturally and I freak out because I've never seen it before.

More about Hudson Valley Fresh. This not-for-profit dairy cooperative allows its cows to live for seven to eight years instead of pumping them full of hormones, overmilking them and slaughtering them at age four as many others do. And why is their milk so foamy? The secret ingredient is hay! Apparently, most farmers are too cheap to buy hay for their cows. But hay makes the milk foamy and delicious. And best of all, the cows live within twenty miles of the dairy-processing plant-- talk about local.

Their website says, "Hudson Valley Fresh milk proudly powers the bodies and brains of New York’s students," and then goes on to brag about how the milk is served at Bard. Are they trying to imply their milk makes people smarter? That might not be true, but their milk is probably healthier. No bovine growth hormone, no recombinant somatotropin.

So Chartwells is pioneering socially responsible catering, but what about the baking we do in Bard kitchens for our friends and fundraisers? Www.eatlocalfood.org provides a range of recipes made from all or mostly local ingredients. Or you can adjust your own favorite recipes to have a more local flavor, simply by looking at their list of substitutions. Need to bake a birthday cake? Consider using maple syrup or honey instead of sugar. Not only do the bee juice and the tree juice have more flavor, but you don't have to worry that the sugar in your cookie is supporting child labor in El Salvador. Bard students love throwing bake sales to support social causes-- wouldn't it be ironic if the savory sweetness in those brownies is actually the flavor of ecoystem destruction in Brazil?

If only the supermarket would label those canisters with a little sticker saying "good" or "evil," our lives would be so much simpler. But if we buy Andrew's Honey (harvested from hives in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens) we don't have to worry about it. According to a NY Times article, it is "a deep, smooth wildflower honey with distinctive caramel and fruit flavors. The rich amber color radiates from the jar." Email Andrew at beekeeper71@gmail.com, and he will satisfy all your honey needs. Although according to the article the poor dude is so busy trying to keep his business going, he only sleeps between midnight and four.

I know what you're thinking, and it's "I bet that honey costs a fortune." How can the third-generation overworked beekeeper who puts Winnie-the-Pooh quotes on his website compete with the big guys? I don't know his prices, but I do know one thing. When I bake cookies, I do it to make my friends happy. And I have the kind of friends whose day would be inexplicably brightened by eating honey with a hand-drawn cartoon of a crazed local beekeeper parting his teeth in a manic grin on the label. In other words, "There is less waste because there is more appreciation." And who knows? It might not cost more after all. I'm sure the excess packaging and transportation costs of the non-local food get passed on to the consumer.

As locavore week unfolds, the concept of local food will truly be put to the test. Will Bard students bite into their sandwiches with dreamy looks of ecstasy, exclaiming "How strangely healthy and delicious!" Or will the raftered roof of Kline Cafteria ring with the wails of those who mourn the loss of their favorite exotic items? Which will triumph, our sense of social responsibility or our inherent whininess? Cue dramatic music. O the suspense.

For those of you predisposed to be more on the whiny side, think about this. Pioneer child Laura Ingalls Wilder once lived for an entire winter on nothing but bread made from wheat she ground herself in her family's coffee mill. Trains delivering supplies were blocked by record snowfall, so they lived on their seed wheat. If you think you can't live without x-- y-- z-- item, look for the Laura Ingalls Wilder within. Rediscover the intrepid pioneer heritage which is the true meaning of America. (Cue national anthem. Waving stars and stripes. Grimaces of blog readers wondering why blog author is trying to pull this patriotic bullshit.)

Challenge: see if you can eat 350 local foods by the end of this year.