University of Oregon’s promotional websites suggest a concerted effort to keep the campus green. The UO Office of Sustainability’s website reads, “Our mission is to lead the integration of sustainability into the University of Oregon’s operations, curriculum […] and engagement with the broader community.”
One student organization on campus seeks to turn such promotion into tangible results. The Climate Justice League meets every Tuesday, focusing on environmental issues on campus and within the Eugene community.
CJL’s annual goals usually revolve around issue-driven campaigns established early in the academic year. According to co-president Hannah Greenberg, the focus of each campaign can vary, and sometimes even concerns off-campus issues.
“We’ve done many campaigns, usually two or three every year,” Greenberg said. “When I first started [in 2013], we were committed to an e-waste campaign called Transition, building gardens for community members.”
Transition allowed CJL to build community and household gardens for Eugene residents who wouldn’t have ordinarily had access to them. “We started an application for people to contact us, and we would go build a garden at their house,” Greenberg recalled. “We built around four or five gardens in total.”
CJL’s membership has remained relatively consistent since its founding. A core group of members numbers anywhere from 20 to 30 students, while attendance at the organization’s meetings usually balloons to around 40.
“It varies from meeting to meeting,” Blick said. “But we definitely have people who are very invested in CJL throughout the year.”
Recently, CJL has shifted its focus away from the larger Eugene community toward issues directly related to campus. Selena Blick, CJL’s newly elected co-president, pointed out that the university’s relatively good track record on environmental issues does not mean there isn’t work to be done.
“I think there are a lot of things [the university does] that are good. We have an awesome zero waste program and a lot of our buildings are really sustainable,” Blick said. “But there are things like the use of fossil fuels that they just choose not to deal with. So I think we could be a lot better.”
This year, Blick and the rest of CJL spearheaded the controversial Divest UO campaign, which sought to divest the UO Foundation from fossil fuels. Efforts included numerous sit-ins throughout the year, as well as protests outside Johnson Hall.
Blick noted that the university-focused campaigns like Divest UO have allowed for direct dialogues and involvement with the administration. For a recent campaign, CJL contacted UO’s dining services to advocate for the use of reusable cups in dining halls around campus.
“[Contacting the administration] is usually the route we choose to take first,” Blick said. “With Divest, they told us ‘no,’ so we chose to take more direct action.”
The Climate Justice League continued their Divest UO campaign in a meeting with University of Oregon’s Board of Trustees on Thursday, June 2 in the Ford Alumni Center.