Green Guide 2008 (Page 2 of 1)

SPEAK
The concept of individual and societal responsibility explains why more than 30 UT students are spending their free time on a Monday night in April listening to a talk on eco-feminism. None of the complacency or apathy often associated with this generation of Myspacers and Halo players exists among this cohort. No one’s being graded, yet these students are eagerly participating like this meeting is a final exam for their most important class.

Mary Anne Peine established SPEAK in 1993 as an activist group to promote greener sources of power and sustainability.  Current co-president Hollie Ernest says the club now has nearly 40 members. April is a busy month for SPEAKers because UT hosts a series of film screenings, speakers and conferences for Earth Month.

SPEAK members volunteer at those campus activities, but they also work in the greater community, hosting workdays at nearby Beardsley Farms and attending Save our Cumberland Mountains retreats. At the April meeting, a group of members who recently returned from a Memphis conference on “green-collar jobs” speaks passionately about the options the new field of eco-friendly businesses offers Knoxville. Decreasing local dependence on coal is another hot topic at this meeting.

“Coal mining, and particularly mountaintop removal of coal, is the biggest issue I think this region faces,” says Ernest. “I think that’s the most critical because it affects not just the land but the air and water as well.”
SPEAK continually works with UT on this issue, helping the University find alternatives to mountaintop coal use for the school’s steam plant.

Green Drinks
Green Drinks is an international organization with branches in hundreds of U.S. cities and abroad — even in far-off nations like Malta and Botswana. From its beginning, Green Drinks has sought to provide a networking and discussion forum for like-minded people. Monika Miller, coordinator of the Knoxville meetings, says, “I thought it would be cool if there was a thing where people could get together and cross-pollinate, because all environmental issues are sort of connected, and someone told me about Green Drinks. Ideally, people would just show up, and it would be completely casual — kind of like First Friday where you know there’ll be art. First Thursday: You know there’ll be Green Drinks.”

The Knoxville chapter began meeting more than a year ago but never have its members arrived with an agenda. Instead, people sit around tables, sharing ideas and experiences. Many Greendrinkers already work in environmental fields. For them, the meeting is a chance to breathe, have a beer and get re-inspired by the work others do. Anywhere from 10 to 15 people were present at various points during their April meeting, including an environmental lawyer, an owner of a manufacturing company that “recycles everything,” an employee for a sustainable architect and an employee of The Nature Conservancy.

“It’s really hard to cut out the time, but it’s worthwhile to hear what people are doing,” says Greendrinker Don Barger, regional director for the Southeast office of the National Parks Conservation Association.

Green Party
The Knoxville Green Party began in 2000, when Ralph Nader sought presidential candidacy for the second time. Like the national Green Party, the philosophical base for the Knoxville branch is the “Ten Key Values,” which includes ecological wisdom and personal and global responsibility. The group typically holds a business meeting once a month in an upstairs room at The Sunspot to discuss upcoming opportunities for educating the public on the Green Party — the Green Party has tables at Earthfest and Vestival for this purpose — as well as future projects, like a painting day for the party’s new headquarters.

Eight members settled into couches and chairs in the bar area for the April business meeting, though Norris Dryer, coordinating chair of the Knoxville branch, says more than 200 people are official members of the group. Membership is free but requires attendance to at least two meetings a year.

Green Party wants involvement in the community — they regularly sponsor creek cleans at Second Creek — but it also asks for political change.

Dryer says he’d like to see the Green Party and other small parties attract more members to work together on issues facing society and the environment. “We want to convince people that the Democrats and Republicans are not really addressing the problems our society faces,” he says. “Ideally, Greens, and other so-called minor parties like Libertarians, can attract enough members to have a viable multi-party system in this country. I would like to think the Greens could become more viable in national elections.”