When I walked through the doors of Northrop Auditorium more than a month and a half ago, I suddenly realized I was going to have to find a job during the worst economic quagmire since the Great Depression. I was no longer a student and I was severely underemployed. This isn’t a good situation for anyone, even Carlson students, but its quite the mindfuck for a Journalism and Studies in Cinema double major.

If you have been paying any attention, you may have noticed Minnesota’s paper of record, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, recently filed for bankruptcy protection. In a similar move the Tribune Company, which runs 12 newspapers and 23 television stations, went to court in early December with the same symptoms. That’s the parent company of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the beloved Chicago Cubs, which may soon be for sale. Burdensome debt, massive labor costs and the printed page are slowly drowning the industry in a massive pool of red ink.

I don’t want to sound the alarms, but The New York Times just took $250 million from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu in response to the impending deadlines of more than $1.1 billion in debt. Mr. Slim, who runs a telecommunications empire in Mexico, now owns 17 percent of the most powerful newspaper on the planet. That is the same paper that insinuated that Mr. Slim was a telecommunications “robber- baron” within the past two years.

Any nitwit could figure out that it’s probably not the best time to graduate with a degree in journalism, but here I am in that very position applying to every possible internship that isn’t in Aimes, Iowa. Problem is, that’s where all the jobs are. Internship or International Falls? I’m going for the internship. Night after night I search Craigslist, Conde Nast, Media Bistro, Time Warner, Village Voice Media or journalismjobs.com looking for that one opening. That one job hasn’t appeared. Meanwhile nearly 16,000 journalists lost their jobs in 2008.

The Warning Signs

Over the two and half years that I studied journalism I had to gather small details on how to get jobs after I graduated, how to freelance, and a myriad array of other advice from professors. In other degree seeking programs, you get direction on how to make a good impression with your portfolio. A good chunk of majors even have classes for this very purpose. At the J-school you’re on your own in a landscape that is shifting at every moment.

Somewhere along the line I noticed that I was looking to websites run by The Journalism School at Columbia University and The University of Chicago for career advice. The School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the U is the most popular degree program in the College of Liberal Arts, yet it doesn’t have the same tools available at other prominent journalism schools. I can’t even access the universities job search utility, GoldPASS, because I’ve already graduated.

In yet another barrier to future professional journalists, the newspaper industry is undergoing a crisis of medium. The Internet is eating away at the old media’s advertising revenue. Today every major newspaper has a website and few college age students read the print version. Despite the fact that major newspapers are killing their actual newspaper we are, for the most part, still being taught as though nothing has changed.

What we often hear as journalism students is a barrage of negative statements. But journalism isn’t going anywhere and we need to be educated for that future. The problem is that we’re not sure what the future will look like.

“What worries people is that they have no idea what shape, or even what medium, will suit journalism in the immediate and long-term,” says G.R. Anderson, a contributor to MinnPost.com, radio personality and adjunct instructor at the U.

I took this view into consideration when I entered the Journalism School. Every journalism student is required to fill out a program plan outlining what courses you will take during your studies at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. I still remember the reaction I got when I handed it over to Linda Lindholm, the J-School’s student services coordinator.

“Interesting, very interesting,” Lindholm said.

What was so interesting about taking a few photography classes, some magazine production and writing courses and a bit of multimedia on the side? Wasn’t this the direction the school was and is moving towards?

As a whole, students at the Journalism School are not pushed to be multidisciplinary. This is not to say that the Journalism School doesn’t have the capabilities. Murphy Hall provides some of the best hardware to pursue a career in the multimedia driven future of journalism. High-definition camcorders, digital cameras and Mac Pro’s are available to anyone in the J-School. The problem is that much of this technology is seen through the old-school model of print and broadcast journalism.

“I think all academic journalism institutions have been lagging a bit on the new media,” Anderson says, “I mean, everyone’s been “teaching” “new media” for 10-plus years, but generally institutions weren’t really serious about it until the last two or three years, when it became clear that the sand was shifting, and that bloggers and YouTube sometimes had a much bigger influence than your average daily newspaper.”

The Rebirthing Process

With the future of journalism in doubt, the industry as a whole needs to reevaluate how it thinks of itself and how it will move towards a future dominated by virtual print, sound slides and short documentaries. Craigslist has replaced the classifieds and the Internet will continue to spread advertising revenue thinner and thinner. New business models will have to prevail if the industry wants to make money in the digital age.

Newspapers and magazines have always relied on a mix of ad revenue and circulation. In the past, this correlation has meant that the media elite were able to print money like they printed papers. Double-digit returns became a routine in the industry. Even while filing for bankruptcy, the Star Tribune made a $31 million operating profit in 2008. If it weren’t for $661.1 million in liabilities, the paper would have a strong model even in current dire times.

The death of the newspaper is likely overblown. Will there be papers in the future? Probably. Magazines? That’s a definite yes. So what is needed now is twofold: a decoupling of news making and profit along with a long term plan to keep the industry running strong.

I’m not alone in my struggles to find a job in the field I love more than anything other than my girlfriend and cat. Thousands of journalists young and old are trying to find out how they’re going to make a living doing what they do well. For all of these people the future is unsettled. Just ask a guy who once thought he was going to be a rock star and ended up in the next best field he could think of.

“Is the market flooded with good journalists with nowhere to turn?” Anderson says, “Yes, but I think there will be a cycle here where new jobs will crop up. Why? I have no idea, I’m just guessing.”

(Full Disclosure: G.R Anderson Jr. was my instructor for an internship with MinnPost.com)

I think it’s safe to say that everyone, or at least every Minnesotan has a memory from childhood that revolves around fishing. My memory is of the day my cousin caught about 25 sunfish and stacked them to the brim of a three-gallon bucket of lake water. She enlisted every member of our family for the mission until she had could no longer cram another fish in the bucket; there simply wasn’t any room! Then, in true borderline psychotic behavior that only small children get away with–one at a time she picked each fish out of the bucket–grasping them tightly in a fist. She then poised herself to meet the eyes of the fish and slowly wiggled her pinky finger into their mouth as she screeched loudly, “open sesame!” Most of the bucket fish died, and my cousin didn’t understand what that meant besides that the fish were more compliant with her game. She was naïve and innocent, she didn’t know any better.

The practice of over-fishing takes place all over the world and in fact, more than half of all fish stocks are overexploited. But unlike my cousin, this is not an innocent mistake.

Over-fishing has been happening across the ocean for decades and is predominantly unregulated. Over-fishing is caused when commercial fishing takes too many adult fish from an ecosystem. This damages the fishes’ chance at reproduction and survival. For years, scientists have urged the international fishing community that over-fishing is degrading the health of the ocean and is destroying fish that are a source of food and jobs.

Most fisheries are well aware of the devastating effects of over-fishing. Nevertheless, because of the economically minded commercial fishing fleets, they simply cannot afford to put the environment as a top priority.

Take Newfoundland in the early 1990s, for example. England’s fishing business was booming. The number employed by the fishing industry closed in around 110,000 people. The main sources of income—cod–were piling in limitlessly. Then, disaster struck. The cod fishery was deemed to collapse in 1992 and nearly 40,000 jobs were lost within the community. Even today the cod have not fully recovered. According to a recent reconnaissance of the area, the damaged ecosystem may never fully recuperate.

If you just change the town’s name, the type of fish, and this story, then you will have the same predicament ranging from South East Asia to England. The outcome in each instance, however, is just as unsettling.

An interview from the National Geographic Channel with Dr. Ussif Rasheed Sumalia (Director of Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of Columbia) gives an impassioned testimonial to the damage that over-fishing has had upon West Africa’s ecosystems and economy, not to mention its contribution to the perpetuation of poverty.
“This lack of fish leads into impact on the livelihoods of fishing families which leads to the lack of ability to pay for kids to go to school and therefore decreases their opportunities and abilities. It reinforces the vicious cycle.”

Although the repercussions from over fishing are most strongly felt in a local context, this is truly a global problem. In Europe, under the EU, the fishing sector is given subsidies by the government. The problem with these subsidies is that they are providing resources for wealthy European countries to go to developing countries and essentially out-fish the local fishermen. Most of these developing countries do not have the infrastructure or money to enforce laws at sea; and so much of this behavior goes unchecked. This allows exclusively European countries, according to Dr. Sumalia, to “make fishing more profitable than it would be without [subsidies].”

The kinds of fishing ships that are being used today are unlike anything the sea has handled before. Technological advances have made large-scale fishing easier–and consequently–more damaging to ecosystems. Essentially, we as human beings are using our military strength to fight sea animals. The large nets that are used to efficiently catch sea creatures sweep the bottom of the ocean floor and can wipeout 20 percent of area’s ecosystem in the process.

This is cause for concern because biologists estimate that somewhere between 500,000 and 5 million marine species have yet to be discovered. At this rate of marine depletion and careless fishing, in about 50 years the ocean will be virtually sucked dry, erasing many species we will never know.

According to Dr. Sumalia we all need to be worried about this problem. He reminds us that, “we have oceans that are interconnected so what happens in Ghana is not just going to effect Ghanaians, which means you might not get the food, the fish, that you are eating now on your table.”

There have been multiple attempts in high-risk oceanic zones to enforce laws outlawing abusive and harmful activities; but more often than not the laws are too difficult to enforce. Due to under-funding, mismanagement, and ambiguous parameters, these attempts to protect marine wildlife are often unsuccessful. In addition, many countries insist on attacking the problem from the armchair. Making a difference using this method is completely unfeasible.

Despite all of this, according to Dr. Sumalia, “this is not a hopeless situation. If we decide to take action now, the huge chance is that the fish will come back and we’ll get away from the current misery and move on to a more prosperous future.”

If we as a global community stop exploiting our natural marine resources right now we have the potential, in many areas, to completely reverse the damaging effects of over-fishing. Global communication and cooperation needs to be more open and productive, but it is achievable.
Under the Bush administration, a law was passed to guide fishery management in waters between three miles and 200 miles offshore. But again, this is a fragmented attempt at protecting a body of water that wraps around the world and touches every continent.

Fortunately, we all have the chance to take this into our own hands, and don’t worry; it’s simple and free. Just visit www.montereybayaquarium.org for a list of the sustainable fish choices in your region. Individual decisions make the cumulative difference in this fight.

Ah, the college years. The time in our lives where we’re encouraged to ask questions, be selfishly introspective and grasp at what we want to get out of life. Sounds pretty hackneyed, but query any liberal arts student as to the top five things they hope to get out of the college experience, and chances are something derivative of the phrase “finding out who I am” will make the cut. And, by golly, being memorable and quirky could very well help forge connections that could springboard you into the next stage in the game.

Now think back to when you were in high school. The vast majority of us were not so keen on bombastic public displays of self-discovery. Indeed, being singled out as an “individual” at certain points during the teenage years made a lot of folks, myself included, feel isolated and lost. To combat this, many of us chose to sink our time and effort into becoming just like our peers.

I used to have this high school friend with whom I would debate this topic. In particular, we’d go back and forth, poring over our shared high school experiences and analyzing the forces that were at work in making us the kind of adults we are now. Unlike my friend, I was raised largely without the myriad influences of pop culture; cable television, music, movies – if you can name it, then it wasn’t present in my home. As a result, I became a scholar of all things mass media during the hours I spent at my friends’ houses so that I wouldn’t feel so “out of it.” Really, the sun seemed to rise and set over every trivial happening within the walls of my high school and I wanted to be prepared. I just desperately wanted to fit in with the other kids, learn their collective “language,” and twiddle my metaphorical thumbs, waiting for the chance to tackle that tricky process of self-actualization during college. If you’re reading this, the chances are high that you’re identifying somewhat with what I’m saying.

Now, what if that fervent adolescent desire to conform wasn’t just for narcissistic comfort, but rather a form of self-preservation? Imagine for a moment that you are a high school student trapped in a life situation so unpredictable, so unexplainable, so out of your own control, that the only way to handle it is to go to school every day, if you can get there, and try your hardest to blend with your peers. Currently, the city of Minneapolis has approximately 5,500 public school students, kindergarten through grade 12, who are trapped in roles such as this. They are students identified as homeless and highly mobile and their numbers are increasing at an alarming rate every month.

Minneapolis is home to roughly 33,000 public school students. According to mid-2008 data collected by the Minneapolis Public Schools, 5,458 of these children and youth were identified last year as homeless or highly mobile. For those of you not in the mood to do the math, that’s damn near 20 percent of the total public school population. Even more disturbing, the number of homeless students is now 18.6 percent (or 1,000 students) higher than last year, shattering the average of 4,500 homeless students that had been in place during the previous five years.

Of course, when you take into account the transitory nature of these students’ lives, it follows that these numbers are, on some level, a bit unreliable. It certainly doesn’t help that, in addition to the massive amount of other stresses placed upon them, public schools are actually the only entities in the United States responsible for pinpointing homeless students. Under federal law, school districts are required to have homeless education liaisons to identify and assist homeless students. Suffice it to say, identifying homeless and highly mobile students is incredibly tricky. After reading the details of the McKinney-Vento Act, the homeless student equal-opportunity legislation, it isn’t hard to see why. According to this legislation, a student meets the criteria of homeless or highly mobile though living in any one of these conditions:

• In a shelter
• In a motel or some other form of weekly-rate housing
• Living temporarily with friends or family
• In a car or abandoned building
• In some form of temporary foster care
• Generally lacking a reliable place to sleep at night

Once a student is determined to be homeless, the school creates a confidential file containing their information, which is used to provide free meals and assorted supplies. To complicate the matter, this file is only kept on record for the duration of the school year and then deleted before the next can begin. Between this loose tracking and the paper-thin financial resources of the school, it’s a wonder that there’s even a bankable number at all.

Let’s shift gears and return to an earlier topic – high school culture. Most of us didn’t have to worry about things like where our next meal was coming from, or whether or not we’d get to sleep in the same bed the next night. Those things were a foregone conclusion. Most of us were fortunate to have all the time in the world to explore hobbies and bask in self-involvement. With an epidemic of mortgage foreclosures and job losses, many kids and their families are facing homelessness for the very first time. At a time in their lives when they should be focusing on their futures, these teens are relegated to the impossible position of living day-to-day with great uncertainty. At an age where you’re pushed hard to conform and consume, it’s not outrageous to conjecture that there are many homeless teens in our environment every day. We’re just not capable of identifying them.

I don’t think I need to remind anyone that we live in a very visual culture. We think in images and stereotypes. There’s not a whole lot we can do about it at this point. Could it be that, because we as a society do not have a collective image of what the homeless teen looks like, we’ve zeroed out the concept as a possibility? Even though the word ‘homelessness’ conjures different mental pictures for different people, most of us immediately think of adults. In my opinion, this is largely due to the mass media’s inadequate depiction of what homelessness is and who is affected. We may read or view the statistics and sigh but, ultimately, we’re placated because we thrive on ‘success stories.’ The odd warm fuzzy about the homeless high school senior who slept on a bus bench for a year and then got into Harvard is simply not going to cut it, because it hijacks our attention and obscures the larger issue. People are still homeless. Teen homelessness doesn’t usually have a face or end in a feel-good yarn. It wants to blend. It wants to fit in. And you would never recognize it if it sat next to you on the bus.

That being said, I’ve had the privilege of working in a large Minneapolis high school this year, and there are lots of ways to be a positive force in the lives of these students. Volunteering to provide basic services to these students can actually make a huge difference; go to Volunteer info: volunteermps@mpls.k12.mn.us to find more information. Most high schools are always on the lookout for new volunteers and, nine times out of ten, what you’ll be doing is simply getting to know really great kids who need you.

I am not generally a clumsy person. I may trip over my own feet from time to time and I may have even fallen over backwards on top of a friend’s bicycle, but generally these things don’t happen to me. This day, though, I was clumsy, all for the sake of math.

A math class titled “Rate your World: Quantifying Judgments of Human Behavior” in the speech language and hearing sciences department requires every student to complete a project in which they observe human behavior and quantify data.

Not every student in the class must embarrass themselves like I did. Students had the option of doing observation surveys. A fellow classmate, Melanie McNiff, and her partner did a survey titled “Favorite Scent and Word Connotation.” For their survey they put air fresheners in bags and had people smell them, rating their preference. They then added titles to the bags, such as sexy and fierce, seeing if title created a stronger preference. “I thought it would be interested to see what smells people prefer. Scent is everywhere,” McNiff said.

The experiment my partner and I decided to do is called “The Pregnancy Drop,” although it was not originally our plan. We had originally planned on walking around with our backpacks wide open to see who would tell us, but after running two half-hour trials only one older woman told me that my backpack was open. So, with heavy hearts and a disappointment with the student population, we needed to pick a new project.

After thinking long and hard, we came up with our current project: “The Pregnancy Drop.” The goal of our project was to find out whether college students were more likely to help a pregnant woman gather her fallen things than a non-pregnant woman.

So, with this in mind, I set out with my partner to drop things for three hours. We got lucky; the weather was nice enough so that the mall was filled with people.

Dropping my stuff the first time, I was embarrassed and swore, but I persevered.

Some people stopped to help; some walked past, averting their gaze. One drop sticks out in my mind as the most shocking. I had just dropped my things in front of a male student who was talking on his cell phone. Instead of stopping and helping me, or walking around my scattered books and crayons, he stepped over my book and kept on walking.

What does this say about students today? Are we so wrapped up in ourselves that we cannot help one another? In the two seconds it took him to step over my book, he could have just as easily helped me gather my things.

Not all students were as rude, although many students did choose to ignore me kneeling on the ground, with my stuff spread all over. There were students who stopped and helped. Some said nothing as I quickly thanked them about 15 times.

After I dropped my things in front of a group of Asian business professionals, all of them stopped and surrounded me. Five of the men, dressed in business suits, stopped and knelt down with me and helped gather my things. I even received words of sympathy: “It happens to me, too,” one of the businessmen said.

A female student had stopped to help and as she handed me my things, she asked me, “Is this some sort of psychology experiment?” I quickly responded, “No, I wish, I’m just really clumsy,” and walked away smiling to myself. Someone had caught on to what I was doing—almost.

Another student, this time male, helped me gather my things and while handing me my book, he looked down and said to me, “I read this book,” in an attempt to ease the awkwardness of the situation.

Part two of the experiment involved my partner, Amanda Schiltz, to tape a colander to her stomach and attempt to look pregnant. Once Amanda impregnated herself, she would wander around campus dropping things in hopes of answering our project’s main question: were people more likely to help a pregnant woman than a regular woman.

On one drop, a male student stopped to help pregnant Amanda pick up her things. As he was handing her things over, he noticed she was pregnant and quickly seemed nervous and at a loss of what to do.

From the few drops that were made that day, it seemed that people were not inclined to help a woman who appeared to pregnant.

Could this be because of the weather? Or maybe there is an underlying feeling of hatred towards pregnant women on college campuses? Probably not, but maybe. Amanda felt that as she walked through campus with her pregnant belly, girls would look at her out of the corner of their eyes while the boys would avoid eye contact all together. A boy from math noticed her as we walked across the bridge and did a double take, obviously confused that he had never noticed this before.

So what was learned from this day? Try not to drop your things, because while embarrassing, it is also really bad for your expensive books. Also, while I would like to think that everyone would be kind enough to help you gather your things from the ground, they are not. About half of the times I dropped my things I was helped in picking them up. The other half of the time I was left alone on the ground, embarrassed.

What brought us to the point where we don’t have the time or don’t care enough to help another student? Is it because we are too plugged-in to our IPods to notice what is going on around us?

It doesn’t take long to help someone pick up their stuff, and it will most likely make their day or in my case, their project. So, let us remember the golden rule, “treat others as you would like to be treated,” and help people pick up their fallen things.

Where 21st Avenue ends across from the Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery stands the Green Institute. This last stop destination conceals the center of environmental activism in Minnesota. The neighborhood surrounding the Institute is America: a hybrid of industrial, residential, and business life forming one community. Here reside the elements that compose human civilization and simultaneously endanger it. In the middle of this quintessential American landscape you’ll find explorer Will Steger, best known for evading it.

In the atrium of the Green Institute a group of teachers from Berlin, Germany were waiting expectantly for polar explorer and educator Will Steger. The teachers were participants in a teaching immersion program, and had been helping at various schools around Minnesota for
the past two weeks. During their time in Minnesota, the image of Americans as gas guzzling, urban sprawling, wasteful citizens had not improved.

The lack of recycling bins in most schools was particularly disconcerting to the teachers. Kerstin Beyer warned, “In Germany we have a fee for not recycling.” The teachers stressed the importance of making recycling a habitual action for children. “In German schools, students are taught to separate the recycling,” states Hieke Gaul. The teacher’s previous experiences in the schools had confirmed the stereotype that Germans were more environmentally conscious than Americans. However, they had not yet been to the Green Institute.

As soon as Will Steger and his colleague Abby Fenton began their presentation on the Will Steger Foundation and Global Warming 101 initiative, the teachers’ negative impressions were immediately challenged. Here were Americans on the front lines of the battle for the environment.

The Educational Program Manager for the Will Steger Foundation, Abby Fenton, showed the teachers lesson plans and videos available on their website (willstegerfoundation.org), and introduced the Will Steger Foundation: a non-profit organization whose mission is to “foster
international leadership and cooperation through environmental education and policy.”

In 2007, Fenton joined Steger and two other Foundation members on a four-month dogsled expedition across Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. The impact the expedition had on her was apparent as she enthusiastically recounted stories of the three Inuit hunters they traveled with, the sled dogs’ encounters with arctic wolves, and the effects of climate change on the terrain. Seeing first hand the effects of global warming motivates her current work with the Global Warming 101 initiative, an integral mission of the Will Steger Foundation.

During Fenton’s presentation Steger sat quietly in the back of the conference room. His calm presence was that of someone who would rather work behind the scenes, but whose compelling background thrust him into the limelight. Clad in a green woolen sweater and hiking boots with tan, weathered skin, and perpetually windswept hair, Steger appeared to be the quintessential explorer. Yet for someone used to climbing through ice caverns in -20°F temperatures he exuded warmth. Offering organic snacks and Cliff Bars, he began to chat amicably about dispatches and images from his various polar journeys.

His passion for the environment was apparent. This was a man who had left the comfort of his secluded home in the wilderness of Ely, Minnesota for a busy life of presentations, conferences, and speeches in Minneapolis. The sights he has seen throughout 45 years of polar exploration feed his determination. The places he has trekked have been irrevocably damaged; such as the three Larsen ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula that have disintegrated in the past ten years, and the Arctic sea ice that decreased by 60% in 2007. He is driven by a need to share what he has seen in hopes that it will spark change.

Steger’s adventuresome nature began with a love of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck’s character was so inspirational to the young Steger that at the age of 15 he decided to follow his lead and boat down the Mississippi to New Orleans with his 17-year-old
brother, Tom. This experience began a lifetime of discovery. Since his first adventure, Steger has gone on to more prestigious explorations, has received the National Geographic Adventure’s Second Annual Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2007 Lowell Thomas Award- whose past recipients include Sir Edmund Hillary and Buzz Aldrin.

Particularly well known in his home state, Steger’s tireless canvassing efforts in Minnesota have made him a ubiquitous fixture in the state’s culture. He has spoken in churches, worked with Governor Tim Pawlenty to protect Lake Superior, and has even manned a booth at the Minnesota State Fair.

Although his primary focus today is on Minnesota, his online educational program has a global audience of millions. He urges teachers around the table to use online tools and first-hand
footage within their classrooms.

International relations were of the utmost importance regarding global warming Steger emphasizes, stating that “It is like a war, we all need to pull together. We don’t have any choice.” The teachers echoed this view. They were hopeful that President-elect Obama, an extremely
popular figure in Germany, would help unify the United States and Europe in the green movement. Steger is also optimistic about a renewed environmental effort. “I think Obama is going to be great, and bring unlikely alliances together,” he asserted.

The teachers believe that Obama will sign the agreement proposed at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen in 2009. They were excited at the future possibilities for transatlantic partnership despite the failure of the United States to sign the 1992 Kyoto Protocol, which incited annoyed grumblings from the German teachers.

The COP15 is Steger’s current focus, and he is working to educate students on what he referred to as “the most important meeting since World War II.” Making the voice of the younger generation heard at the conference is necessary, Steger and Fenton stated, as they will deal with the outcomes of the climate agreement.

Educating a young demographic was the primary purpose of Steger’s recent expedition across Ellesmere Island. He traveled with five “emerging leaders”, ages 21 to 27. The trek crossed 1,400 miles on dogsled, and was an eye-opening experience for the members. They saw firsthand the collapsed ice shelves and rivers cutting through the tundra.

At this moment, after an hour of discussing environmental dangers, one of the German teachers, Carmen Arzig, asked succinctly, “So is there hope? I mean this is depressing.”

However, her depression was received encouragingly, as it is awareness-derived. This awareness is the first step in the endeavor to save the planet. “Many people avoid the edge because they don’t want discomfort, they don’t want to be really challenged,” Steger states, smiling. He knows exactly what achievements are possible when you walk that icy edge.

Though the band carries his name, Jay Walker wasn’t initially sure he wanted to be part of Jay Walker and the Misdemeanors. The band, then consisting of Michael Reynolds (guitar), Iaan Reynolds (bass), and Brendan Troy (drums), was looking for a singer and Jay was looking to do anything but sing. Still, Jay figured he’d give the group a try—and loved it.

JWatM has moved up from high school proms and graduation parties to performing at more popular venues including the Dinkytowner and the Varsity Theater. Part of their rise to success can be credited to radio play by local DJ JP the Radioslave, but it largely rests in the band’s energy and passion for their music. Originally inspired largely by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the band now cites Kings of Leon as one of their major influences. They describe their own music as continually morphing, but mainly “alt-rock with a dash of soul.” Less precisely, it’s groovy rock—hard to dance to but good for grooving!

Fans aren’t the only ones grooving to the music. All four members of the band, now with Jeff Fitzpatrick as their new drummer, fly through practice sessions with uncontrollable smiles. The Reynolds brothers rock out as their fingers fly over the frets, Jay starts conducting with his hands throughout each song, and Jeff just looks giddy to be drumming in the band.

The practices are highly intense and chaotic. Self-described as having ADD, the band segues seamlessly from rehearsing songs, to jam sessions, to guitar and drum solos. “Here’s a snippet,” Jay says, leaning forward conspiratorially. He and Iaan are sitting patiently as Michael and Jeff play their hearts out. Before Jay can finish, Iaan jumps in. “Michael is always doing solos because he’s really good.”

“And Jeff’s like Michael,” Jay finishes. “Me and Iaan hold the fort down.” He gestures at the other two. “They have no idea what we’re talking about.” And they don’t—both are lost in their music. Eventually the four get back on track and begin to work on developing a melody for a new song, but the cohesion holds for mere moments. Instead of a new melody, Iaan starts creating a rap about Little Red Riding Hood and Michael breaks into another guitar solo.

“See, ADD.”

After waiting for Michael to stop playing, Jay throws a stress ball and hits the switch on Michael’s amp. Michael, who’s already holding his own stress ball, tries to grab the second but Jay beats him to it. “It’s like Lance Armstrong. You only need one,” Jay tells him. They decide to finish the song the next day.

The band proudly states that it doesn’t just have one voice but four. “Iaan and I have a definite voice in what we play,” Michael says. “The bass drives everything and the guitar makes it sound beautiful,” Iaan pipes in. Michael thanks him and it’s easy to see the deep connection that holds the band together though half are still back in high school.

If they hadn’t stayed together, all agree their lives would suffer. “We didn’t play near as many shows last year as we did the year before and it was depressing. The band is my outlet for my extroversion and my creativity and if it weren’t there I’d go crazy,” Jay says.

“If it weren’t there, I’d have no self-confidence. Being in a band, it doesn’t matter that I was never good at a sport in my life, because I’m in a band,” Iaan adds.

“Also, we’d have no women in our lives.” Michael grins as he says this. His words are hard to believe, as they come from a talented guitarist/lyricist, who is also pre-med at the U and works as a model.

The high-on-life sensation of performing is another perk. “It’s so fun! It’s electric and you can feel the energy—it’s like an electric storm.” Jay’s eyes come alive when he says this, giving a sense of the energy he speaks of.

For Iaan, the best is “the beginning of the show when I overexert myself. I just go nuts. Like after Serenade, I always think to myself that there’s no way I’m going to make it through the show playing like this. And then I do.” Serenade is “probably the song I like the most and everyone hates.”

“My sister likes it,” Jeff argues.

“Does your sister like Akon?” Jeff nods and the band cackles.

At the next practice session, the group makes progress on the melody of the new song. It’s not easy, as the practice runs in typical ADD format. Jay begins by announcing they are going to write a new melody. Instead, Iaan starts playing Islands in the Sun by Weezer.

“Can we please make a new melody?” Jay begs. Iaan argues that they need Michael first, but Jay insists. By the time Michael arrives, they have developed a wordless melody. Now complete with all four members, the band does the first raw version of the song.

“That’s tight,” Michael says when they finish. Though Michael was referring to the new piece, his words describe the band as a whole. Not only do their free flowing practice sessions churn out an incredible array of music, but they interact as a tightly knit group. Throughout the sessions they perpetually finish each others’ thoughts and break into harmony without any apparent cues. Though Jeff’s still learning both the songs and the history of the band, he’s an enthusiastic participant.

It’s 7:15 and Jeff is supposed to go celebrate his birthday. He tells everyone he’s leaving, but fifteen minutes later he’s still drumming as the band finishes another spontaneous jam session. “I’m glad I stayed for that,” he says as he really does head out the door. “I don’t want to leave.”

Eventually other things—food, debate, other friends—pull the four out of the little cave they practice in, but the band is always their waiting for them. The group is an unusual union of a varsity basketball player, high school philosopher, pre-med sophomore, and an enterprising business student, but their shared passion for music is beautiful.

In 60 years, Mexico’s children will not be hearing stories of mere hardship from their grandparents. Instead, they will hear gruesome tales of mass murders, decapitations, and kidnappings. They will have described to them the sounds of gunshots outside of classroom windows, explosions in city streets, and the sorrow following the deaths of loved ones. This is assuming, of course, that the drug wars of today are not present in 60 years.

Blood on the Tracks
On October 19, 12 adult bodies were discovered outside of an elementary school in Tijuana. The children of the school, already numb to the constant presence of violence in the area, discussed the carnage excitedly. Across Mexico, and especially in towns that border the U.S., the news is the same. In fact, according to the New York Times, there have been over 3,700 drug-related homicides in Mexico this year, a jump from 2,700 in 2007. The killings are a result of Mexico’s rampant drug war and include the deaths of dozens of innocent bystanders, from pregnant women to young children. While the numbers are startling enough, the details of the killings are far more disturbing. Limbless torsos, vats of acid filled with human remains and decapitated bodies seem to turn up with frightening consistency, often in highly populated areas or near schools.

President Felipe Calderón has made the war on drugs in Mexico a primary focus of his presidency. Elected in 2006, his campaign has resulted in the capture or killing of numerous cartel leaders and the arrests of many corrupt officials within the Mexican government. He has arrested over 10,000 people on drug related charges and has sent a total of 24,000 soldiers to pivotal areas around Mexico.

Despite his valiant efforts, there has been major backlash, including the current wave of violent crime. According to the 2007 Annual Report by the Congressional Research Service, the arrests of top cartel leaders have forced a shifting of alliances between the cartels. The once separate Tijuana and Gulf cartels have aligned and are in a turf war against what is known as “The Federation,” an alliance of several of Mexico’s other cartels, including the powerful Sinaloa and Juarez cartels.

The power held by the cartels is astounding. Supplied with nearly limitless capital, they outgun the Mexican army and have bought their way into the highest government offices. They have the resources to employ and bribe hundreds of people, offering more money than the majority of legitimate jobs available in Mexico. They even employ their own armies for protection. Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel’s paramilitary army, were originally members of Mexico’s Special Air Mobile Force Group. They are trained to use highly sophisticated equipment from sniper rifles to helicopters. With their knowledge of military tactics and their expansive arsenal, they pose an enormous threat to both Mexico and the U.S.

“Everybody Must Get Stoned”
Not surprisingly, the United States is the number one importer of the drugs that fund the violence within Mexico. The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report for 2008 lists Mexico as a major supplier of marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin to the U.S. Also according to the report, “90 percent of all cocaine consumed in the United States transits Mexico.”

Marijuana is the leading drug being used across the country, with the highest concentration of smokers being of college age. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) states that the majority of marijuana being sold within Minnesota is from Mexico, an example of the cartels’ stunning range of influence. The report indicates that most retail marijuana is supplied by Mexican drug traffickers but also states that there is an increasing demand for “Domestic High Grade” marijuana of higher quality, which would likely be grown by individuals within the United States.

What can we do about the carnage in Mexico? The United States is currently pumping exorbitant amounts of money into the “War on Drugs.” According to the National Drug Control Strategy Budget Summary for 2009, the U.S. government spent $13.7 billion in 2008, and is proposing an additional $14.1 billion for 2009. The budget states “The Strategy…is based on three pillars: (1) Stopping Use Before It Starts, (2) Healing America’s Drug Users, and (3) Disrupting the Market for Illicit Drugs.” Also proposed for 2009 is the Merida Initiative, a program requesting $465 million in additional funds for Mexico and Central America.

Who is to blame?
Who is truly to blame for the violence in Mexico? Is it the drug addicts and junkies or the dealers that supply them? Is it the farmers growing the coca or is it the cartels that distribute the cocaine? These are all the targets of the war on drugs. Like the war on terror, our government has defined a guilty party in which the good people of the West can unite against. And like any war in which the enemy is a loosely defined as evil (communism, terrorism, etc) the fear generated by the mysterious enemy often distracts people from our government’s own shortcomings.

The American lifestyle and our government’s policies can be directly
criticized for the drug-inspired violence in Mexico. Our government is built on a capitalist, free market economy and yet we somehow fail to recognize what our policies do to the drug market. What could be more capitalist than a drug cartel? The laws of supply and demand are in full effect. As many Wake readers know, the current demand for marijuana is about as high as its users.

Prohibition creates a black market in which demand can only be met by supply from illegitimate sources. Cartels are businesses that are, in true capitalist form, exploiting a niche – one created by our own government’s anti-drug laws. Unlike legitimate businesses, however, they are forced to embrace illegal and often violent methods to survive. The same is true for the farmers who harvest the drugs being sold. The illegality of farming these substances forces many of the farmers to move to more secluded areas, having disastrous effects on natural habitats and ecosystems. The farmers do this not by choice, but out of poverty and desperation, creating a class of victims who also contribute to the problem.

Despite the U.S. and Mexican governments’ efforts, the billions and billions of dollars spent and the countless lives lost, illegal drugs are still readily available. Many people on this campus are only a few phone calls away from scoring anything from marijuana to cocaine. Across the country, the picture is much the same.

The solution, though, is not prohibition. For proof, look no further than the 1920s. Like today, the government deemed a substance damaging to society and made it illegal. The response was organized crime. The illegality of alcohol created a black market, raised prices, and put money in the pockets of crime bosses. This inevitably led to violence as criminals fought for power while police attempted to stop them. The war on drugs today is similar, except instead of one substance in one country, it is dozens of substances all over the world.

So why not legalize? If we are worried about the possible overuse of these drugs due to legalization, we should examine why American citizens are so prone to embrace escapism. We are one of the few countries in the world whose citizens have both the money and the time to experiment with drugs. Our government seems to impose the harshest restrictions on drugs, and yet we do more drugs that any other country on the planet. Capitalism is inherently based around personal greed; perhaps this is what inspires our excess. Or perhaps it is the competition that capitalism and American society inspire, leaving people overworked and exhausted. The increase in divorce rates may reflect this, as people have little time for personal life outside of work. Understanding drugs and why people use them is the first step in creating successful regulatory policy.

Solutions
Legalization and regulation of currently illegal substances would immediately diminish the capital and power of the entire drug industry. From street dealers to cartels, the entire drug empire would slowly collapse. The billions being spent on the war on drugs could be invested in education or the plethora of other areas of society in which there is a deficit of funding. A much larger focus could be put on drug treatment, helping addicts get off the street and get into jobs.

The benefits would extend abroad as well. Instead of Colombian coca farmers, Mexican marijuana farmers or Afghan poppy farmers supplying a bloodthirsty industry to survive, the U.S. could legitimately import crops and put money into their collapsing economies. These crops, in turn, could be sold in a highly regulated environment and taxed, increasing capital and jobs within the U.S. The money generated in countries abroad would decrease desperation within their population, which would in turn decrease violent crime.

The complexity of the struggle in Mexico means every solution will have its downfalls. There would most likely be an initial backlash of violence among the cartels. However, with funding being cut off due to a government-controlled market, they would slowly weaken. The violence inspired would be minimal compared to what would be created by fighting the cartels with brute force. In America, there would likely be an initial spike in drug use. However, with funding going into education and rehabilitation, this would probably return to rates of use comparable to the present. With drugs legalized, much of their glamorization in media would be lost, which may make the use of drugs appeal less to the younger population. Our overcrowded prisons could be relieved of their nonviolent prisoners, allowing taxes to flow into other more worthwhile causes. The $465 million of the proposed Merida Initiative could be used to help spur Mexico’s economy and relieve economic desperation within the country. This would also benefit border control, as it would lessen the surge of illegal immigrants into the United States.

This is not a perfect solution, but the government’s attempt at repressing drug use is obviously flawed. The billions of dollars invested in the war on drugs have created a profitable industry in which criminals thrive. For the sake of countries like Mexico, who are torn apart by the drug war, our perspective needs to change as soon as possible. This can no longer remain a quiet revolution – it must be embraced if we wish to stop the bloodshed as quickly as possible.

Until a major paradigm shift occurs in first world countries around the world, it is up to the individual to start making better choices. Many people already buy local and organically produced groceries, why not do the same with weed? Keep in mind, the harder the drug, the more covered in blood. They don’t call it the “green” movement for nothing.

I can remember the day my dad moved out of our house with crystal clarity. I was in 5th grade and my mother came to the stairs leading to my room and told me that I had to come down because there was something my parents needed to tell me. And I knew, probably through some subconscious interpretation of the tone in her voice, that something very jarring was about to happen.

My dad was gay. And he still is and he always was and always will be, because that was the way he was born. He had no more choice in his being gay than a black person has in their being black or a short person in their being short. Eventually, after much soul searching and emotional confusion, I realized that he was still my dad and I still loved him and that even though his being gay shattered the way our family was, it was the fact that our society never allowed to be himself that led him to decide to leave my mother.

The liberal/progressive element in the U of M and across the country is simply beaming right now. We are elated about Obama’s victory and the milestone it represents. Pundits, politicians, and people on the street are jumping on the chance to declare that we have conquered prejudice in our society and “slammed the door” on our bigoted past.

The concurrent passage of Proposition 8 and other legislation like it blows the door off that argument. While the sociological and cultural details surrounding the oppression of African Americans and that of homosexuals in our society may be different, the character is the same: we are denying a group of people basic human rights based entirely on a genetic characteristic that they cannot change.

In denying homosexuals the right to marry, the right to visit their partners in hospitals, the right to the same tax breaks as straight families and a million other little things that us straight people take for granted, we are denying two basic ideas that our forefathers saw fit to enshrine in our country’s most sacred texts. First is that all men – and in modern interpretation all people – are created equal. How can we uphold this when we do not allowing homosexuals to pursue the same happiness that straight couples can? The second principle is that we believe in the freedom of religious practice. If a church wants to marry gay people and can’t because of a legal barrier, then this – one of our core principles, one that is time and time again invoked by those who attack gay marriage – is being violated.

But beyond even the argument that denying homosexuals marriage is unconstitutional, it is also frankly immoral. I think Keith Olberman of MSNBC put it very poignantly on his program earlier this week: “If you voted for this proposition, or supported this proposition, I have some questions… why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly by night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours, they don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want; a chance to be a little less alone in the world… nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don’t you, as a person, have to embrace that love? Quote me anything from your religious leaders or book of choice telling you to stand against this and then tell me how you can believe both that statement and… ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you?’” Even by religion’s own core principles, opposing gay marriage is wrong.

We have prohibited religious discrimination in this country. We have abolished slavery. We have given all citizens, regardless of religion or race or color or gender, the right to vote. We have allowed workers the right to unionize and to have a fair wage. We have elected a black president. We have, as a people, as a nation, consistently worked to remove injustice from our society and establish a fair world where all people may pursue life, liberty, and happiness. It is time for us to realize that if you believe in what our country stands for and you believe that we must stand against injustice and you believe in an egalitarian nation, then it is your civic duty to uphold those principles by allowing homosexuals to marry. My father’s love for another man is no less potent or pure than mine for a woman.

I leave you with the words of Alice Paul, an American suffrage and civil rights leader: “I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems, are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.”

There are many ways to combat drug use. You can punish the users or you can track down the dealers. You can impose huge fines or force junkies into rehab by threatening them with jail time. You can run sting operations with marked bills and undercover DEA agents. You can do cavity searches at all points of entry and train German shepherds to sniff out drugs. You can legalize it and dish out methadone like candy, hoping that if the problem does not get better, at least the criminality will be eliminated.

Or, you can plant a community garden.

The Emily Peake Memorial Garden in the Stevens Square neighborhood, named after a Native American activist, was planted for just that purpose, according to the Stevens Square Community Organization. The lot on which the garden sits, at 1913 3rd Ave. S., was an open-air drug market. In 1994, a community flower garden was planted. Gardeners were encouraged to keep an eye on the space, and were given cell phones to call 911 if they noticed anything suspicious.

In 2005, it was converted into a rent-a-plot garden. About half of the garden is conserved for flowerbeds and half has been converted to vegetable patches, says Robert Skafte, SSCO Gardening Coordinator.

Another garden in Stevens Square, the LaSalle Community Garden, was started in 1995 for the same reason. Skafte explains that the garden sits on the site of two former “crack houses.” The buildings were torn down, but after they were gone the drug dealers continued to use the abandoned lot to conduct business. The SSCO obtained grants from the Minneapolis Police Department, Anderson Windows and the Neighborhood Revitalization Program to plant the garden on the 1800 block of LaSalle Avenue.

The conversion of the two abandoned lots to a community garden was not easy, Skafte says. Before they could plant on the land, the ground needed to be tested for lead. The north garden–which has two lots that are separated by an apartment building–was contaminated and raised beds were constructed. Nevertheless, Skafte continues, the work was worth the trouble.

“(We) turned an eyesore lot into a place of beauty,” Skafte says.

Today, the LaSalle Community Garden is comprised of two gardens and 50 plots and is maintained by over 40 gardeners. In 1998, women from the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee built and donated a tool shed. Students and professors from the University of Minnesota’s landscape architecture program built a water system, a wheel chair bed, and a water wheel in 1999.

Skafte says that both gardens encourage community involvement. Even though those who rent in Emily Peake are “into their own thing”, they come together for potlucks and designated workdays. LaSalle gardeners also host a potluck every summer and they can participate in classes on sustainability, canning, and composting. Skafte adds that the gardens create a space for community in a densely populated area.

“Everybody just gives each other advice (on gardening),” Skafte says, “Some people are going to give you advice on what they learned from their grandma.”

Skafte adds that the garden continues to discourage crime in the area for two reasons: the gardeners keep an eye on their gardens and the beauty of the space encourages respect. He explains that there were some men who always drank on the street outside the garden and left their garbage on the ground. He put a trashcan on the sidewalk and asked the men to use it. Even though he has had to empty it frequently ever since that day, the men have not left their garbage on the ground.

The LaSalle Community Garden supplies food to the Groveland Food Shelf at Plymouth Congregational Church. In past years they ran a program through the food shelf in which homeless youths were paid $10 an hour to weed the garden. They were also taught how to plant and cultivate vegetables. For the last couple years, however, the program has been discontinued because of lack of funds, Skafte explains.

However, Skafte says, even though the garden is no longer able to actively work with the homeless, it still provides a place for rest and relaxation to the area’s homeless population.

“It’s a place for them to come even if they’re not a gardener,” he says. “Everyone needs somewhere to go. (They can) sit and take a load off.”

The LaSalle Community Garden hosts a small farmers’ market on the corner of Nicollet and Franklin avenues. The price of admission is a box of produce, which is then donated to the food shelf.

The Seward Youth Peace Garden, a community garden in the Seward neighborhood, also hosts a small farmers’ market on Fridays during the summer, outside of the Birchwood Café at 3311 E. 25th Street, says the Rev. Richard Westby, a volunteer with the garden.

The garden is located adjacent to the Seward Montessori School. During the spring, children and teachers plant the seeds with the help of master gardeners, Westby explains.

During the summer, about 15 children participate in the core program with 12 volunteers and two paid workers, says Diann Anders, Seward Neighborhood Group treasurer. Altogether, about 45 children participate in the spring and summer and are taught both gardening and entrepreneurial skills, Anders explains. She adds that they also teach the children about sustainability.

The garden is a unifying force in the neighborhood, Westby says. He says it brings the ethnically diverse children together for a common cause. The unifying power of the garden is represented by the “Peace Pole,” a pole decorated with, “May peace rain on earth” written in several languages.

Anders says that the garden unifies as well as engages. She says that there is much interest in urban gardening right now and that neighbors are happy to donate their skills. She thinks it creates a sense of ownership in the neighborhood.

“A garden is a visible sign that something is going on,” Anders said.

In the past, Westby says, senior citizens from the high rises in the area were invited to plant in the garden. Now, however, the garden does not have as much free space as it did before. If people want to plant a garden in Seward, Westby adds, they still have an opportunity to do so in the Hub of Heaven, a rent-a-plot garden located at 26th Street and 28th Avenue.

Hub of Heaven, like the Stevens Square gardens, is located on a former abandoned lot. After the house that sat upon it was torn down, the lot was left abandoned because it was too small to rebuild anything.

However, Anders says, “It is the perfect place for a garden.”

Located just two blocks from the Hub of Hell, a corner notorious for bars, employment agencies and check cashing services, Westby says the garden is an example of neighbors reclaiming a space for their own use.

“Its an asset to the neighborhood,” Westby says. “It encourages people to plant a seed, harvest the food and experience the benefits.”

Community gardens deter crime. In purely numeric terms, community gardens mean more people with their eyes on the streets, Skafte says. But more than that, they help residents take an active role in their neighborhood and in their community. They give people a reason to care about what happens.

Both Anders and Skafte comment that the community gardens are a visible sign that something is going on in the community. Whether the purpose of the garden is to produce food or to simply beautify an ugly space with wildflowers and sculptures, community gardens provide visible proof that the neighbors are not quite ready to give up their homes, to surrender their communities to crime and stagnancy. A dying neighborhood is a dangerous neighborhood. A thriving neighborhood is safe. Let’s make community gardens a staple in every major city. Who knows, it could be just the antidote we need to reduce crime!

Here at the University of Minnesota, we always see those bins with designated openings for newspapers, trash, bottles and cans, and the like. It makes us feel good when we put our diet Coke bottle into the “bottles and cans” hole, and we feel like we patted Mother Nature on the back today. We pride ourselves in being sustainable and recycling our leftovers, but how much of an impact are we really making?

Every few years or so, a story always surfaces with claims that recycling isn’t doing much good at all. These stories have quotes from experts, and statistics scattered all over the article. They say: recycling wastes more energy than it would to just throw things away. The square footage of landfills wouldn’t change that much in 1,000 years anyway. The waste produced by recycling comes in the form of a goopy sludge that can runoff into lakes, streams and oceans; harming native species there. Another, perhaps shocking revelation is that recycling paper does nothing to save trees. The energy it takes to remove the harmful ink is wasted on such a task. Besides, tree farmers plant enough trees every year to make up for the paper that is recycled.

Then again, there are those who say that recycling is doing a lot for the environment and it is much better than doing nothing at all. With all this ecological and economical talk, it’s difficult to keep the story straight. So what is the truth?

Actually, there is truth to both arguments. While it does take some energy to process recycling, it isn’t as much as some would like people to believe.

The Environmental Protection Agency states that recycling paper requires 40 percent less energy than it would to make paper from “virgin wood,” as they call it. It’s the same across the board with other materials. Recycling aluminum requires 218 fewer gigajoules (that’s an SI unit of energy measuring mechanical work, heat and electricity) per ton than collecting and using “virgin” materials. Recycling greatly reduces carbon dioxide emissions by a ratio of 1:2. For every one pound of recycling, there is only two pounds of CO2 emissions, a substantially lesser number than other methods of waste disposal and resource harvesting.

When done right, recycling can make a difference. Rachel Horstman, a staff member at the University’s Como Recycling Facility lays down the basic process.

First, the recycling is gathered from the many posts around campus and then shipped off to the Como facility where it is sorted into the usual categories: newspaper, cans, bottles, etc. This step is obviously crucial to the entire process. There are many people who do not pay much attention to what they throw where. About 30 percent of the daily intake at the facility is non-recyclable contaminants, which also must be sorted through and separated. From there, the passable recyclables are processed on campus and then shipped off to be recycling at other facilities in Minnesota and around the country.

“Recycling is not the best option for saving our planet,” says Horstman, “Reducing our waste would be the first step.”

Consumers today produce a huge amount of waste, ranging from electronic parts to plastics. From excessive and un-recyclable packaging to just buying too many wasteful items, people feed into the market and produce without thinking. “We consumers need to have a different outlook,” Horstman says. “Marketers will not change until we demand it.” Meaning, until we refuse to use products that are harmful to the environment, the money mongers won’t care and won’t change.

Suddenly, there it is: money. Money is at the center of this mind-boggling enigma.

One problem for recycling which Horstman cites is that people are unwilling to pay the expense to develop new ways to reduce waste. The recycling process isn’t cheap, especially nowadays with the questionable economy. Where it used to cost $60 to recycle a ton of materials, it now costs $150, with the price ever rising. The University processes over 3000 tons of recycling every year. That’s a lot of money. Recycling programs rarely make a profit; and with the seemingly eternal build up of human waste, it is questionable if recycling can even make a dent.

So while the question of, “is recycling worth it?” will always hang over our heads, we need to turn our eyes to a similar, yet weightier matter. Whether you recycle or not, you should make the conscious effort to reduce the amount of unnecessary waste, which hopefully will reduce the need for recycling. As for now, this is all there is. We just need the money and motivation to look towards other and perhaps better ways of erasing our significant toxic footprint on Earth.