The Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) held their annual Earth Week programming from Monday, April 18 to Friday, April 22. This year’s theme was “Wildflowers: Resilience, Resistance, and Growth”. The week was advertised via social media, an email sent by Chancellor Carol Christ, word-of-mouth, and the Environmental Community slack space. Flyers for individual events, such as the Green New Deal Rally, were posted around campus.

On Monday, the week kicked off with an “An Introduction to Forestry” presented by Simone Stevens, Aiden Sullivan, and Louis Cimmino that covered an explanation of forestry, California forestry history, conifer anatomy, general forest structure, forest disturbance, forest management, and the intersection of climate change and forestry.

Later in the day, the Herbicide-Free Movement at Berkeley held their event from 2pm-4pm, which began with an introduction of the organization. Herbicide Free Berkely began in 2017 when two volleyball players, Mackenzie Feldman and Bridget Gustafson, were warned by their coach not to chase the ball when it went off-court because the groundskeepers had sprayed herbicides on the area. Concerned by the public and environmental health risks of glyphosate-based products, they began a movement that aims to make UC Berkeley and all other UC campuses herbicide-free. Glyphosate is harmful because it is linked to liver disease, microbiome disruption, endocrine disruption, fertility and reproductive concerns, and is possibly carcinogenic. To end the use of glyphosate-based products, much more labor is needed to replace herbicide use and attendees to this event spent time weeding the area between Durant and Wheeler Hall.

Herbicide Free Berkeley community teach-in and weeding event

Prior to weeding, participants spent time listening to guest speaker, Lydia, UC Berkeley’s Landscape Supervisor with a background in invasive plant management and habitat restoration and Carlos Coronado, the lead of the union zone of campus, who has worked at Cal for 10 years. Carlos called the gathering of volunteers the “biggest help in four years” for weeding, while Kavina Peters, a member of Herbicide Free Berkeley said that helping weed was “the least we can do.” The close connection between Herbicide Free Berkeley and groundsworkers has been forged through many meetings. Some participants were from course ESPM 155AC: Sociology And Political Ecology Of Agro-Food Systems. For those interested in getting involved in more weeding events, feel free to follow the club on instagram.

From 4pm-5pm, Jeff Novem of the Berkeley Student Food Collective gave a presentation and demo on how organizers can use Airtable, and guided attendees on how to use the platform themselves with example situations.

The day ended with an ASUC Eco Office and SERC Environmental Justice Training. The training focused on intersectionality and the role it plays in climate movements.

On Tuesday, the Housing & Dining Sustainability Advocates (HADSA) offered plant-based foods at the Clark Kerr Campus and Foothill dining commons. The first event of the day was the 18th annual CACS Annual Sustainability Summit and Awards at Chou Hall from 2:30 - 4:30pm. The session began with an interactive poster session of projects and organizations funded by the The Green Initiative Fund ranging from stipends for Eco Office Senior Staff to supporting the Global Environmental Theme House (GETH) for milkweed plantings to a Zero Waste lab. The MC of the event was Kira Stoll, who is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Cal. The keynote speaker was Assistant Professor Sarah Vaughn, who recently published her book, Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation which was available as a prize for students who participated in the raffle. Vaugh addressed anthropency and discussed her research of watermarks, heritage and flooding in Guyana.

Pour Out Pepsi campaigners at the CACS Summit

After the keynote speaker, chants erupted from the back of the room, “hey ho, hey ho, PepsiCo has got to go!” Protesters from the Pour Out Pepsi campaign came on stage and asked two UC Berkeley administrators of the University Partnership Program (UPP) Advisory Committee, Vice Chancellor of Administration Marc Fisher and Chief Financial Officer Rosemarie Rae, to commit to not renewing the school’s contract with Pepsi due to environmental and social justice concerns. Ironically, the next speaker was Marc Fisher. Fisher did not commit to voting “no” for Pour Out Pepsi, and instead talked about how complex such a decision was and the consideration to “change the industry” working alongside it. He also asked students to ask lawmakers in Sacramento to secure funding for UC Berkeley to transition from its on-campus natural gas plant to majority renewable electricity. Following his remarks, sustainability awards were presented to students and staff. The event concluded with a climate justice tour along Strawberry Creek.

Following the summit, there was a AC Transit Class Pass Forum held via Zoom. The interactive session covered safety protocols for transit operations, impacts to transit service with the recent recovery stimulus package, and service changes and improvements planned for the future. The night closed out with “Environmental Justice and Indigenous Lands across Generations”, a presentation by indigenous groups in the Bay Area for attendees to learn about environmental justice with a Q&A portion at the end.

Wednesday:

The vermicomposting team held a workshop via Zoom at 3pm on Wednesday where they educated participants via a Kahoot and presentation on how they can compost. The event was led by Anya Singh and concluded with questions from the audience.

Later during the day, an Environmentalists of Color Networking Event was held from 5:30pm-7pm. The event was put on by the Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC), the Students of Color Environmental Collective (SCEC), Rausser College of Natural Resources, and the Career Center.

Thursday:

Due to a threat on campus identified by the UCPD, all events for Thursday were canceled or postponed. Feel free to participate in the SERC Decolonizing Wellness event, to engage in mind and body mindfulness techniques, and the Climate Fresk Event (now Wednesday, April 27 6-8:30pm), to learn about the IPCC reports.

Friday:

On Friday was the much anticipated UC Berkeley Green New Deal Climate Strike which ran from 11am-1pm (an hour earlier than originally planned due to the previous day’s threat). Protestors made signs and chanted. The day featured a mediation exercise, a guest speaker from People’s Park, organizers of the event who are a part of the GND Coalition, and tabling from numerous campus organizations including the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative, Sustainable Housing at California, Herbicide Free Berkeley, Berkeley Food Collective, Pour Out Pepsi, and a project promoting sustainable household and personal care products.

Participants of the week were encouraged to fill out an evaluation form that also entered them into a raffle.