[187] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
A SAVE member's response to Sourav
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Zhelinrentice L Scott)
Mon Apr 23 00:47:24 2001
Message-Id: <200104230446.AAA14609@biohazard-cafe.mit.edu>
To: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 00:46:48 -0400
From: Zhelinrentice L Scott <zlscott@MIT.EDU>
Dear All,
I took the person's contact info off b/c I didn't think it would
be appropriate for us to flame them.
Zhe
Mr. Mandal seems to just be trying to make trouble for us
with absolutely no reason. Yes, two of our members went
to the FTAA protests, because we do feel that presenting an
alternate view from what all of the Western hemisphere seems
to be approving without sufficient democratic process is
important. However, it's also important to note that all of
us believe in peace just as much as we believe in helping
the environment. I know that even Jean Cretien, the PM of
Canada, admitted that most protesters there were excercising
their legitimate right to speak out in a peaceful manner.
I guess I wanted to mention the above point because he called
us "radical leftists". I really don't see where this comes
from. Perhaps in the American context, being in favor of
less environmental impact and kindess to less privileged people
is considered leftist or radical, but in most of the world,
especially in Europe, we'd be considered rather...normal.
I get annoyed with everything political in the US being forced
into taking the label "liberal" or "conservative". Life is more
complex than these people make it out to be.
The FTAA protests are a small part of what we do. Had Mr. Mandal
done more research on our activities, he would have learned about
some of our more recent (and not so recent) events:
For the last week, we handed out plants to students - about
200 of them in seed and cutting form, in order to educate students
and improve quality of life in dorm rooms.
This Saturday, some of us helped in the Charles River Cleanup.
We will be taking a trip to the Bottanical gardens in Boston next
Saturday, and any member of the MIT community is invited to join
us at noon in front of Stratton if he/she wants to come along.
We make notebooks out of unused computer paper to save trees.
We sold mugs so students don't have to use disposable cups at
Campus Dining.
And of course, we advocate for MIT as an institution to reduce
its environmental impact. We don't do it by protesting or
harassing members of the administration, because we don't need
to. Administrators, professors and researchers at MIT tell us
how we (or anyone else) can become involved in environmental
issues and we do what we can. When we were concerned about green
procurement at MIT two years ago, we wrote a letter to President
Vest and had a meeting with MIT's Executive VP. Since the Envi-
ronmental Programs Task Force was formed about 1.5 years ago,
we've been trying to send members to attend meetings to keep us
informed and to help them out in any way we can. Meeting with
administrators and sitting on committees - I don't see how any-
one can label that "radical".
In fact, protest or large public displays of chaos will only go so
far - environmentalism is a long term effort that requires people to
commit to it. It's not this summer's fad, and it's not even a five
year program. And in the long run, environmentalism needs the infra-
structure our civilization has set up in terms of governments
and institutions - they are the most efficient at dealing with
global issues, and we want them on our side. Picket signs will not
close the ozone hole - only boring things like politicians,
regulations and public education will.
Let me conclude by mentioning one last point: SAVE is not a
large, underground organization bent on disrupting life as we
know it by smashing windows and blocking international summits.
Most of us are hosed MIT students who believe in environmentalism
and try to dedicate our free time to the cause. Our meetings are
open to anyone interested in helping out to his or her ability,
and we fully support any other group, no matter its political
alignment or administrative association, that shares our beliefs.
