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A rock concert powered by solar energy, a barbecue, an emissions comparison, talks, and other activities will be part of a full schedule of events during Lafayette’s annual celebration of Earth Week April 19-24.
Presented by Lafayette Environmental Awareness and Protection, the free events are open to the campus community.
Loring Harkness, College Action Campaign coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, will address issues of animal rights theory and the application of animal rights ethics noon Monday in Gagnon Lecture Hall, Hugel Science Center room 100. Free pizza will be provided.
The talk will include demonstrations and audience participation. Topics will include “speciesism,” due consideration of interests, historical perspectives on oppression, factory farming conditions, vegan diets, and environmental impacts of animal agriculture and nutrition.
Andy Stepanian, an extreme activist for animal rights in the United States, will talk about the basics of the Earth Liberation movement noon Tuesday in the Farinon Center’s Limburg Theater. Free pizza will be provided.
According to one animal rights web site, Stepanian has been arrested 15 times. He served a six-month sentence in 2002 for a December 2000 incident in which he was charged with resisting arrest and obstruction of justice. He also served several months in jail after being caught smashing windows at a Long Island fur store in 2000.
“The earth liberation movement, which aims to align the destinies of humans, animals, and the natural world as a whole, has been taken up by extremists and radicals, who are striving to move the issue into mainstream attention,” states LEAP. “With his left-wing activism actions often billed as anarchistic, Andy will justify his own doings and the demands of the earth liberation movement at large.”
Mike Ewall, a full-time grassroots activist from Philadelphia, will introduce the topic of environmental justice/racism noon Wednesday in Gagnon Lecture Hall. Free pizza will be provided.
“Environmental hazards unfairly burn low-income communities and communities of color,” states LEAP. “Learn about the principles of environmental justice and what is means to be a involved in the environmental justice movement. Environmental justice involves recognizing and rejecting all sorts of oppression while struggling for democracy. Learn how students can join with community EJ struggles.”
Ewall has been actively involved for over 10 years in student and community environmental justice and anti-corporate organizing. Since 1995, he has presented more than 150 workshops at over 70 schools and at least 30 activist conferences. He has a strong background in addressing waste, toxics, energy, and nuclear issues. He helped defeat two local incinerator projects in his home county and assisted in halting a nuclear waste dump project in Pennsylvania.
According to LEAP, Ewall also has fought for environmental justice in rural and suburban communities in Pennsylvania and protested environmental racism in the state’s urban centers — primarily Chester, Harrisburg and Philadelphia, where large waste projects exist and more have been proposed. He also has protested corporate investments in the military regime of Burma.
He is working on building a new national organization, Energy Justice Network, to advance clean energy policies while aiding grassroots fights against biomass incinerators, new fossil fuel power plants, and other proposed “dirty energy” technologies.
An Earth Day 2004 barbecue will be held 6:30 p.m. Thursday at McKelvy House, located three blocks past WaWa on High Street. Vegetarian and vegan food will be provided as discussion focuses on the environmental movement in the United States.
Three bands will highlight EarthFest 2004, the Earth Week finale, which will start 3 p.m. Saturday at the Farinon Center Snackbar. Greenpeace’s Rolling Sunlight truck will use its large solar array to power the bands Swagger, Captain Zig, and Collection of 3 with clean solar energy. The truck is driven by members of the Student Climate Campaign.
Informational tables and activities will be stationed outside the Snackbar up to the Quad. There will be bulb planting, recycled-notebook making, and an emissions comparison of an SUV, passenger vehicle, and Toyota Prius Hybrid, all of which will be parked on the Quad.
A moon bounce and other activities will take place on the Quad as the annual Delta Upsilon Carnival to benefit the Boys and Girls Club of Easton takes place in conjunction with EarthFest 2004. A hot air balloon will lift off at 5:30 p.m.