Emily Meinhardt CMC '10 and her self-described "Environmental Crusaders" received $670 dollars to take a pilgrimage ... err... trip to Washington D.C, according to reports from the A.S.C.M.C. For those keeping score, that's well over three entire student fees! (I covered the increase from $210 to $235 last semester.)
The Environmental Crusaders'll be flying, of course, so you can probably expect them to come back and ask for some money to purchase their carbon credits. (That's the environmental equivalent of paid indulgences in their religion.)
Dan and I've written about the Environmental Crusaders in the past. Here's the part where they misrepresented the waste due to food (in order to ban trays) and here's the part where they made the Collins staff clean up their mess after taking a celebratory photo. (How progressive!) I criticized her for trying to ban trays and for some of her other more busybody activities here.
I've also fact-checked its conspiracy theory prone leader, Emily Meinhardt, in the past.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Environmental Crusaders Take School-Sponsored Trip to D.C.
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5 comments:
Charles, let's set the record straight. We're taking 6 students, which comes to $111 per student from ASCMC. We haven't decided about carbon credits yet, but you'll be the first to know when we do. Misrepresenting the waste was human error-- we will own that mistake. And we didn't make Collins staff clean up. They knew full well that we had clean up crew organized to come in after the event and started cleaning up anyway. You may have criticized the tray ban, but TIME magazine thought it was worthy of praise (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1834403,00.html). Thanks for the publicity-- keep up the good work!
Thanks for finally admitting to that error, Emily. It took you almost an entire year. Maybe now you'll have a full poster size advertisement saying that you were wrong?
But Emily, surely the $111 per student doesn't include what you would see as the very real cost of putting all that awful CO^2 into the air?! Tsk. Tsk.
It's funny that you mention that about the Collins staff, because the manager, who was pictured taking it down, told us otherwise. But hey, we're sure your intentions were good, even if the consequences weren't.
I caught the Time Magazine mention, as you know and blogged about it at the time. As for keeping up the good work, I thank you for the compliment and I only wish I could say the same about the Environmental Crusaders.
Hi Charles. I have two things related to this article that I want to comment on.
1. The cost of the trip
2. Your response to Emily
1. Much of the cost of this trip is coming out of ASCMC's student trip fund. This fund is meant to supplement student trips which either enrich CMC students or which enrich our school's reputation. As much as I personally disagree with the Environmental Crusaders and their views, I recognize that sending a conference of students from this relatively conservative college enriches both the students that attend the trip as well as the perception of our school. Furthermore, the student senate money came out of a fund which had to be spent and which had extra cash to give out. I only wish Emily had requested more money as out of the senate requests we get which get voted up (renting a drunk bus so seniors can go get drunk, giving funds to host a charitable event that costs more to host than it raises, etc.), this trip at least has some direct good for CMC or for CMC students.
2. Charles, I often see and hear friends and acquaintances "bullying" you or talking badly behind your back. Someone with your views and constitution will naturally stir up some controversy, but I've noticed a fair amount of your comments since discovering your blog (thanks to the Forum) are unfounded personal attacks. Case in point, Emily apologizes for a mistake she made, and you go on and make some pithy comeback how it's taken her a year to apologize and then you make a sarcastic suggestion of getting a life sized poster. You were just rubbing this mistake in Emily's face. If someone apologizes to you, you should say "apology accepted" or something similar otherwise there is no incentive for anyone to apologize to you in the future and rational discourse just turns into name calling. I think this explains why so many people take issue with you. You only stirred up bad blood with that comment. I respect the hell out of you for putting up with all of the bullying that occurs to you at CMC and I think that email incident last semester was inexcusable, but please man, stop with the unfounded personal attacks. Learn some humility and I think the discourse of this blog will go up and the bullying will go down.
Charles, I am probably the farthest right member of the Environmental Crusaders. I am for genetically modified food, nuclear power, and I believe clean coal is a possibility when used in conjunction with biofuels. (http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9973649-54.html)
I also believe there are steps that can be taken to more sustainable living that grow our economy and save people money. I'd encourage you to come to an ECC meeting and talk to the Director of Facilities, Brian Worley, about the amount of money being saved by "green" proposals. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised how economically efficient being an environmental crusader can be.
As a sidenote, Emily is not the president of the Environmental Crusaders currently (not to bring wrath on her successor just thought you should know). I'm going to D.C. for the first time on this trip and could not be more pleased to represent CMC at any student conference. The career fair, networking, and the money/energy saving lessons we can learn there hopefully will make the price worthwhile. Pomona spent 20,000 dollars and sent 35 people last year. I feel having 6 CMCers there isn't an excessive use of student fees (see Kevin Baker's first point). We waste tons of money on worse causes than sending students to D.C. I'm sure we agree on that much.
I've just spent 2 hours catching up on your Blog, and just finished the huge comments section on the gay marriage article on the forum (great discussion by both sides). I remain a big fan of your writing and the Claremont Independent. Keep up the good work. I appreciate the intelligent discussion you generate even if I do not always agree with your views. I do wish everyone would refrain from personally attacking one another as I have great respect for both you and Emily Meinhardt but since that won't happen, as Andy Warhol once said "Don't read the content of what they write about you, just measure it in inches."
I meant to publish my name to the above content.
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