volume 10 - issue 3 - tuesday, september 20, 2011 - uvm, burlington, vt uvm.edu/~watertwr - thewatertower.tumblr.com by drewdiemar I’m looking at photos of a buddy of mine when a certain comment I read appeals to my sense of wit and irony. I follow the link to the commenter who happens to have gone to my high school, a girl two years younger than myself who was a friend of several friends, a girl with whom I can’t by phoebefooks and calebdemers quite remember ever having had a conver- sation. Her page tells me that she likes my least- he Sustainable Forest Initiative, ab- Science majors like the way Nicholas Cage ed, “Pff ft , just to honk, guaranteed.” favorite basketball team, along with what I breviated as SFI, otherwise known as picks up lead roles in PG-13 action-adven- Th is did not stop Gaya from scream- would call ‘shit’ music, but she’s very pretty, “Sellers of False Information”, “corpo- ture fi lms. Sorry kids, the brown napkins in ing “Hey frat bros, wanna join our rally?” I have 110 friends who are her friend as rate con-artists”, “nefarious criminals”, or the dining halls and non-fl ush urinals won’t As it turned out, they had greater envi- well, and hell, why don’t I become friends “money-grubbin’ fools” is a board that sells stop SFI from “certifying” the demolition ronmental concerns: gettin’ green certi- with her? “But wait a second,” I say, as a its eco-label to companies that destroy for- of 120-acre forests. “Good for you, good fi ed for the Phish show that evening. It tear wells up in my eye, “didn’t I also used ests. Th is unethical scheme is called “green- for trees,” is the SFI slogan. But where are read the rest on page 3... to be her… friend?” washing” and it is about as 21st century as all the trees, SFI? If only the rally had gath- I can’t get it off my mind; I specifi cally crocs with socks. ered as many petitioners as the number of remember looking at her photos of a play I “Th e green movement has been com- certifi cations SFI has granted, considering was in. She used to be…friends with me, mercialized,” explained Kerry Martin, a they’ve hardly ever rejected a company. but she had decided I wasn’t worthy. Per- freshman at a rally in Burlington protest- Nonetheless, our humble yet vivacious Good ... you did. But that’s ok because the haps she had done one of those ‘spring- ing SFI. He’s right; the green movement has group left campus and made the walk down- annual 350 event is coming up! cleaning’ jobs, gotten rid of the useless become more than an eff ort to clean the town, the crowd growing slightly larger as friends that cluttered her news feed. Why, earth and preserve natural resources. It has we descended Main Street. Wandering stu- What is it? then, did she still have, like 700 friends? become a culture, taken advantage of by dents and Burlington natives alike joined According to their website, 350’s Moving Could she really give much more of shit profi t-seeking corporations. Brian Tokar, our line. SFI slander was quickly spreading Planet is a worldwide climate rally calling about every single one of those people than lecturer of Environmental Studies at UVM from the ForestEthics megaphones, to us for the world to go beyond fossil fuels. she did about me, a pretty cool guy who and director of the Institute for Social Ecol- shepherded petitioners, to bearded inhab- had attended her very same high school ogy, put it this way: Corporations are not itants of the streets. Some laughed, many Where is it? and seen her, quite frequently, in the hall- who we should look to for a greener future. responded with support, as one clearly put Statehouse Lawn in Montpelier, VT ways? Th e rally met, very appropriately, at the it, “How are we gonna breathe if we don’t Scrolling through my own list of friends, Rally Cat statue on Wednesday aft ernoon. have fuckin’ trees?” Everyone seemed to When is it? I come across many whom I’ve never talk- Of the 1,000 signatures collected by For- agree “It Sucks to Suck, SFI.” Saturday Sept. 24th, 2pm-6pm ed to, or seen at parties, whose existence is estEthics on a petition against SFI, about Adam Gaya, ForestEthics organizer, was unknown to me aside from their annoying 40 students showed up to march, some of climaxing a higher level of enthusiasm with Don’t have a car? Th at’s okay because we’re statuses about how lame homework is and which were skipping their classes to be in each car honk and each passerby he invit- riding our bikes there! At 10 am, meet at reminders of what holiday it is. But I’d nev- attendance. Th e other 960 petition-sign- ed to march. However, during a lull in the the Noreaster Festival by the waterfront. To er defriend them, not knowing how much ers… had class. One would think a rally chanting a cynical journalist was overheard register visit localmotion.org. Don’t have a trauma it can cause to somebody who sud- like this would attract a larger amount of saying: “I wonder how many cars are honk- bike or a car? Th at sucks ... but there will denly realizes they’ve been axed (I’m pretty students at a school that sells sporks on the ing in support and how many are honking be carpooling! Visit moving-planet.org for reg, composts and spawns Environmental to honk?” To which their cohort respond- info on rides and stuff . Don’t miss it. read the rest on page 3... mel gibson’s maccabee redwall, eulalia! reviews reviewed sarah by juliendarmoni by jamesaglio by jennymudari by dylanmccarthy SFI -continued from page 1 is ironic that SFI held their conference in oh-so environ- mentally-conscious Burlington on the eve of Phish. How- ever, holding their conference in our town was actually all part of the scheme to increase their green-cred. We made it to the hotel and, as eager as I was to scream, “SFI, you’re false, you’re fake! We don’t want you in our state!” into the faces of those bastard CEOs, they were in- side conferencing and conspiring away. They surely knew we were there, due to the very unofficial looking hotel secu- rity standing under the Hilton’s carport, but whether or not they heard us yell “saving trees is just a tease” is a mystery. Our audience consisted mostly of hotel guests who one-by- one popped out from behind their curtains and onto their balconies, photographing us crazy petitioners with their cell phone cameras. The show really got started when a couple UVM alumni clad in nothing but green towels held up buckets of green paint and asked which greedy CEOs Dear students, wanted to be greenwashed. I want to extend a warm welcome to the Class of 2015 and to all returning stu- valued student input and wanted to see UVM graduates achieve great things. They “Students go to other schools to learn lessons, but stu- dents. For those of you who don’t know me, I encourage you to be in touch so we diligently followed what was happening on campus, and took the time to look dents come to UVM to teach lessons,” said UVM student can remedy that! By way of introduction, I graduated from UVM in 2008 and am beyond budget numbers and broad statistics to listen to stories and details and and environmental activist, Katherine Kroll. Whether or now the State Representative for the Burlington district that includes most of the personal experiences. not the ForestEthics petition or our rowdy chants and slan- campus and surrounding neighborhoods. Currently, I serve as Vermont’s youngest I cannot imagine ever reaching their caliber, but I am honored to now serve derous slurs like “SFI don’t sell me paper, because in real- legislator. among them. Some come from the legislature, as I do; some are Self-Perpetuating, ity you’re a forest raper” got the point across to SFI, the leene This March, I was also elected by my colleagues in the legislature to UVM’s holding the power to make appointments among themselves; some are chosen by success of the rally was in spreading information across Board of Trustees for a six year term, and want to encourage all of you to be in the Governor; and then you have a unique privilege to promote two students as Burlington about the fraud that is happening right here in our town. As Geode Sibbick pointed out, greenwashing is touch with your thoughts, ideas, and questions about the University. The reason I full voting members of the Board. All accounted for, it is a diverse and thoughtful , noun. sought to serve as a trustee was because I deeply believe I would not be who I am group. like that movie Easy A. I have never seen it but it’s about a girlington high school girl who lets boys pay her to tell everyone she patrick with today if not for my formative time at UVM, and I wanted to give back in whatever So please take advantage of every opportunity you have during your time here. Another name for Burlington during the months of September and April. way I could.