When you think of mindfulness, what do you picture? Maybe someone meditating and practicing deep breathing, or someone journaling by candlelight before bed. Or, maybe someone in glittering platform heels pole dancing with a hypnotic flow to Hiatus Kaiyote…
It’s a brisk, overcast Autumn morning -- stiff legs peel reluctantly out of their beds, buses lurch to their stops, and Berkeley begins to bustle. Through the cold and cloudy hues, warmth pours out of the Berkeley Organic Market. Smells of baking pita bread and sounds of Yemeni dance music beckon passersby in…
In March 2020, amid campus cries for a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for graduate students and the emergence of COVID-19, UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources (CNR) flaunted a 50 million dollar donation from former Dean Gordan Rausser that they would be accepting in exchange for the addition of his name to the College.
The COVID19 pandemic has created a renewed interest in getting outdoors for many people, especially in the East Bay Regional Park District, which maintains park and trails stretching across the Alameda and Contra Costa counties. I was fortunate to talk to Joseph Mouzon, who is the COO of Outdoor Afro, a nationally recognized non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire and reconnect black people with nature, and Brian Holt, the Chief of the Planning, Trails and GIS Department at the East Bay Regional Park District.
Professor Rosemary Gillespie is a world-renowned evolutionary biologist, and her work focuses largely on island ecology and the evolution of island biodiversity. Professor Gillespie has done extensive research on the Hawaiian Islands focusing on the adaptive radiation and diversification of Hawaiian spiders
As we continue to deplete our resources—and pollute our air and water in the process—the challenge to satisfy our energy needs continues to mount. How will our generation respond? The Energy and Sustainability Decal (ENERES 98), which will be offered in Spring 2021, aims to provide students with the tools to analyze alternative paths to a sustainable future as well as introduce a broad range of perspectives in the energy field.
If you’re active in the world of social media environmentalism, chances are you’ve come across Kristy Drutman. She’s a Jewish and Filipina American climate activist, and she runs the popular Instagram account “@browngirl_green,” where she posts about sustainable living and environmental awareness. Over the past three years, she’s amassed over 50,000 followers and has been a powerful voice for environmental justice and activism, speaking at conferences and universities across the country and hosting her own workshops. I spoke with her over the phone about how she got started, the lifestyle changes she’s made, and the power of social media as an educational tool.
Doing environmental work can be exhausting — our values are often at odds with societal norms, and it feels like a constant uphill battle to get to where we want. In a world where convenience and profit are put above all else, how can we remember to be kind to the environment, but also to each other?
When Anthony Ottati set out in the summer of 2018 to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail - a three-month-long trek from the border to Mexico to the border of Canada - he had never backpacked for longer than two weeks. He brought his love for the outdoors into the classroom during the Fall 2019 semester with his DeCal, “Intro to Backpacking,” catering to students with no backpacking experience at all.
I cannot stress the importance of recognizing your positionality when advocating for change. In our experience, this looked like recognizing the privilege of our position as students, the gift of our able bodies, and the education that allowed us to learn about the dangers of herbicides.
