A new RSO on campus is hoping to impact SVSU’s sustainability and environmental relations in a major way.
Cardinals For Future is a student organization focused on encouraging student activism for environmental issues.
Biology sophomore Emily Titus runs the organization, but it originated from another student’s idea based on a similar group.
“She got inspiration for the idea from a youth-led global climate change group called ‘Fridays for Future’,” Titus said.
“They are an inspiring group that we hope to somewhat resemble with our club on campus.”
According to its website, Fridays for Future began in 2018 when teenager Greta Thunberg protested outside of the Swedish Parliament to encourage lawmakers to take action against climate change.
Since then, the movement has gone worldwide with young people from across the globe taking part in climate change activism.
Cardinals For Future plans to hold petition drives this semester to encourage change on a collegiate level.
“Our petition will be to get SVSU to divest their endowment money from the fossil fuel industry,” Titus said.
She explained where the money is currently going, which she believes needs to be changed.
“As of now endowment money at SVSU is going towards supporting the fossil fuel industry which is one major cause of climate change. Our goal is to convince SVSU to invest their endowment money in something like green energy,” she said.
The group decided on this initiative to tackle after seeing student groups on other campuses similar to SVSU have success doing the same.
“Recently we have seen other (students) putting the pressure on their universities to divest from fossil fuels and it worked,” she said. “An example of it happening local to us is U of M.”
According to The University Record of U of M, student advocacy helped push the Board of Regents to implement a plan ensuring the university’s investments have a “net-zero” carbon footprint by 2050.
Titus hopes to make a similar plan to create a net zero footprint at SVSU.
While Titus hopes to accomplish similar results with Cardinals For Future, in the meantime the group is planning for the upcoming semester and looking at other ways to make campus more environmentally friendly, including different fundraising events.
“As of now our petition is our big project for this semester,” she said. “We also plan on doing some club fundraising events like a can drive to earn money and encourage re- cycling. We also plan on doing some campus clean ups. Our goal for this semester is to get our club grounded and slowly start growing and making more of a (difference) in our campus community every day.”
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