March 28, 2005

Hangin' in Humboldt

we officially ended our Reed Can't Hide from the Sunlight tour last Thursday with our trip to Humboldt State University. We set up the Rolling Sunlight right off the main quad. The business club set up a table where they were selling bagels and coffee, toasted and brewed via the truck. We ran a cable into the building where we powered a television and Play Station 2, with which students played some video games. Josh and Manuel went to meet with Professor Dick Hansis, who sits on the sustainability committee, and a group of students delivered hand-written letters to President Richmond. At 5 o'clock, there was a meeting where the HSU students made some great plans for upcoming Fossil Fools day activities.

Posted by at 03:45 PM

March 22, 2005

Reed Can't Hide from the Sunlight Tour PHOTOS!

they've been uploaded and can be seen at http://www.renewcsu.org/photos/
check them out!!!

Posted by at 08:08 PM

March 21, 2005

Long Beach, Chancellors Meeting, and San Bernardino

Tuesday morning was the first day of the Board of Trustees meeting. Ginger and I sat in and attended the meeting for Vi San Juan's presentation. She gave a very brief reportback (a couple of sentences) on the Sustainability Committee. Student Trustee Corey Jackson asked whether the draft report would be done before it was brought to the Board, allowing time for students, faculty, etc. to evaluate and offer changes to it. Vi clarified that it would be available 2-3 days in advance. Trustee Kathleen Kaiser also commented and thanked the committee for the important work that they were doing.

Wednesday was the big day. Ginger and I got to the Chancellor's Office early, and we set up the Rolling Sunlight in the main parking lot. We served solar coffee and donuts to all of the folks as they walked by, into the building. Some of the folks were very receptive and offered words of support and encouragement.

In the late morning, there was the public comment/open forum session. People offered there thoughts and comments to the Board of Trustees regarding all sorts of issues, including tuition hikes, faculty/staff unions, and student health. Courtney Voss from Chico State spoke on behalf of the RenewCSU campaign. She thanked the board for their work, but urged them to do a feasibility study soon. Shakti Maisen, who's been working on the campaign at Northridge, presented Chancellor Reed with the 2300 postcard petitions signed by CSU students in support of the renewable initiative. Manal from CSSA also said a couple of sentences in support of the campaign and thanked the trustees for their hard work. The students also encouraged the committee and board to release a partial draft policy as it was written. Chancellor Reed really didn't have much to say in response to the two speakers and quickly ended the public comment period.

CSU San Bernardino was our stop on Thursday. CSUSB was in their dead week, in preparation for their upcoming finals, so traffic on campus was fairly scarce. However, we did give away solar slushies. And Felicity from the Green Campus program was also giving out energy efficient light bulbs. Our trip to San Diego on Friday was cancelled as they, too, were in the middle of their dead week. And unfortunately, we didn't go to Burbank on Saturday for the EV1 vigil as the EV1 cars were taken away from the site. The crew decided to move the vigil to local auto dealerships instead.

Posted by at 03:38 PM

March 13, 2005

EV1's and Global Warming Conference

Yesterday morning I went to the EV1 vigil in Burbank, CA. http://www.SaveEV1.org For 26 days, someone has been there, in front of the GM building. This story has made big headlines in the Washington Post, LA Times, etc. It's ridiculous! For those of you who don't know, GM made a 1,000 (or so) prototype EV1's several years ago, which they leased out to various folks throughout Southern California. As the leases are ending, GM is taking back the cars, and won't let the leasees buy them. What is GM gonna do with them? Crush them. Like I said, it's ridiculous! Perfectly good EV1 cars, which a majority of the drivers loved, being crushed. There was a rally there, where some amazing speakers spoke (one of the guys was part of the team responsible for designing EV's, past EV1 owners, etc.). We're most likely gonna go back to Burbank next Saturday, to spend time at the vigil and power their rally. More about this then.

After seeing how powerful the vigil was, I ended up staying there a lot later than expected. I had to fill up on biodiesel, too. The only nearby biodiesel place was a marine dock in Ventura. So, I had to drive out onto the dock to fill up. It wasn't so bad, except for the fact that I had to back out of this dock afterward. And there was no place to turn around. This really put my Rolling Sunlight driving skills to a test.

Posted by at 11:13 PM | Comments (1)

March 12, 2005

Fresno State shows where it's at!

The event in Fresno on the 10th was awesome! The Fresno Campus Peace and Civil Liberties group and the local Renew CSU group pulled together a huge amount of activism, awareness-raising, and good times in the 11 hours we were on campus with the Rolling Sunlight. We generated and delivered 50 letters to President Welty to support the Renew CSU goals for CSU and for CSU Fresno. We got dozens of Renew CSU petition signatures, a rockin press article in the campus paper, support from frat boys and Fresno solar enthusiasts, and powered a rockin DJ and movie at night.

Our event got in the Collegian - "Group Promotes Solar Energy"

The day before the students made a beautiful chalk mural for the Sunlight and got a good article about Thursday's event - "" "Renewable Energy Car to Visit Campus".

We left Monterey Bay on the night of the ninth. After spending forever looking for the place to fill up on biodiesel, a couple of police officers ended up showing us the way. Turns out that the Alliance Gas Station in Monterey is at 2109 Fremont St., not 1209 Fremont as their flyers say. So, any of you that are looking to fill up on biodiesel in Fremont, keep that in mind. The drive from Monterey Bay to Fresno was incredibly foggy, but that didn't keep Josh from roaring away behind the wheel of the Rolling Sunlight.

We got into Fresno on the night of the 9th, but our event wasn't until 7pm on the 10th. We decided to spend the day at Fresno State anyway. We parked the Sunlight on campus at around 11am and garnered interest all day with slushies, the truck, and some great organizing support from the campus Peace and Civil Liberties group. Lots of people came by as we deployed the Rolling Sunlight. We set up the slushie machine and were handing out solar slushies to all of those that wrote letters to President Welty of Fresno State to endorse the RenewCSU campaign. We tried a delivery to the president at this campus as well, and although President Welty wasn't there, he definitely heard about the student support for the RenewCSU campaign on campus. It was a beautiful sunny day. We had some great conversations with students and faculty, and got lots of people interested in the campaign.

The main event kicked off that night. The Rolling Sunlight powered a rockin' event starting at 7pm. DJ Papa Paz was spinning LPs for about an hour-and-a-half with projection onto a screen set-up nearby. And there was more! Fresno State had also arranged a showing of the 4th World War immediately afterward, also on the quad. There was a good showing of people, and Khara and Shawn and the rest of the Fresno State crew did an amazing job of showing that Fresno State is where it's at.

Posted by at 11:52 AM

March 09, 2005

Monterey Brings the Noise to Reed

40+ students came out to our event today in Monterey to show support for Renew CSU and listen to Para La Gente and Kevin Bruecker break it down. The Environmental Committee brought out a great showing. We got an early start this morning and rolled in to sunny weather at 10:30am to kick off a spicy day of music, outreach, and activism on a campus that's foggy 200 days out of the year.

Alex Hofmann, leader of the burgeoning new Environmental Committee at CSU Monterey Bay led off the festivities with some words about Renew CSU, their club, and the solar powered bands that came out. For over two hours we collected a dozen hand-written letters to CSUMB President Smith, several petition signatures, signups for the Environmental Committee on campus, and some great pictures with a message for Chancellor Reed.

At the end of the concert 15 students joined Alex and student government president, Yuri Beckelman in delivering the letters in support of the Renew CSU goals for the CSU system and for Monterey Bay to President Smith in his office. He was a little surprised at first, but warmed up to us with a comment that he's "tired of seeing San Luis Obispo get all the credit" and he'd like to see more renewable energy and green building at Monterey. He encouraged us to follow up with a couple specific names of his staff. We urged him to take the message of Renew CSU to the Board of Trustees and the Chancellor in Long Beach.

Overall it was a mighty good day. Tonight we head on to Fresno to power a band with film projection in the background and a showing of "the Fourth World War". The beat goes on.

Josh

Posted by at 06:06 PM

March 08, 2005

Ups and Downs

The event at Chico State yesterday was great. It was a beautiful sunny day! Chico State Internet Radio (www.kcscradio.com) was out, and the Rolling Sunlight was powering their DJ's as they blasted music to the Free Speech Area.

Afterward, a group of 7-10 students got together and had a meeting to plan for Fossil Fools day. They came out with some great ideas that I can't wait to see come into fruition: packing lots of people into an electric vehicle, SUV pinata, spelling "RenewCSU" on the lawn with students, amongst others. Sounds like lots of fun!

However, as we were leaving Chico yesterday on our way to Humboldt State, we ran into some problems. The fuel filters on the truck started to get clogged, and we were slowly losing power. At one point, Josh couldn't get the truck to go over 19mph. We ended up crashing in a hotel room in Redding, CA. This morning, we went to an auto parts store to buy some new fuel filters, and I had the privilege of getting biodiesel all over me as I was under the truck replacing them.

Unfortunately, the delay forced us to cancel our event in Humboldt. Hopefully, we'll be able to get back up there on the tail end of the tour. The truck is running great now though, and I'm looking forward to some awesome events in Monterey Bay and Fresno in the next couple of days.

As we were getting back to SF, we experienced an awesome act of kindness. As we approached the toll booth to cross the Bay Bridge, the attendant told us the lady in the car in front of us paid the toll for the Rolling Sunlight. Thank you!

cheers,
~satya

p.s. and congratulations to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (http://www.ciw-online.org) for their victory in the Taco Bell Boycott!!!

Posted by at 08:45 PM

March 07, 2005

Rolling Sunlight tour kicks off in Chico!

We're off to Chico State in the morning for the beginning of the "Reed Can't Hide from the Sunlight" tour. We'll be powering a DJ and the campus radio station with the Rolling Sunlight. Check back soon for the details.

Posted by at 01:43 AM