WCC Earth Week
Monday, April 19-24, 2021
"Today, Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national and local policy changes.
Now, the fight for a clean environment continues with increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more and more apparent every day.
As the awareness of our climate crisis grows, so does civil society mobilization, which is reaching a fever pitch across the globe today. Disillusioned by the low level of ambition following the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and frustrated with international environmental lethargy, citizens of the world are rising up to demand far greater action for our planet and its people." -- From Earthday.org
Monday, 4/19 - Day 1: Sustainability on Campus
Tuesday, 4/20 - Day 2: Native and Invasive Plants
Wednesday, 4/21 - Day 3: Sustainability at Home
Thursday, 4/22 - Day 4: Talking about Climate Change
Friday, 4/23 - Day 5: Do Something! Speak the Change
Saturday, 4/24 - Day 6: Rain Garden Work Day (in-person event)
The Library is virtually hosting 'Earth Day Challenges.' If you participate in the challenge by posting to our social media or our Padlet, you'll be eligible for a surprise prize!
Kaiāulu by
The tide is rising ahead of the early morning sun on the northeast coast of the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i. Waves rush singing onto the outer reef where two throw net fishermen stalk the surge. An elderly woman with her silver hair in a kerchief makes her way toward shore, two octopuses tucked in her mesh bag. Within hours, two hundred tourists will snorkel, sunbathe, and teeter on the coral, few ever knowing that people fish here or that their catch sustains an entire kai'ulu (community) connected to this stretch of reef. This coast is known as a playground for tourists and backdrop for Hollywood movies, but catch from small local reefs, and the sharing of this abundance, has sustained area families for centuries, helping them to thrive through tidal waves, hurricanes, an influx of new residents, and economic recessions. Yet fishing families are increasingly invisible and many have moved away, threatened by global commodification and loss of access to coastal lands that are now private retreats for star entertainers, investors, and dot-com millionaires. Building on two decades of interviews with more than sixty Hawaiian elders, leaders, and fishermen and women, Kai'ulu shares their stories of enduring community efforts to perpetuate kuleana, often translated to mean "rights and responsibilities." Community actions extend kuleana to include nurturing respectful relationships with resources, guarding and cultivating fishing spots, perpetuating collective harvests and sharing, maintaining connection to family lands, reasserting local governance rooted in ancestral values, and preparing future generations to carry on. An important contribution to scholarship in the fields of natural resource management, geography, Indigenous Studies, and Hawaiian Studies, Kai'ulu is also a skillfully written and deeply personal tribute to a community based not on ownership, but reciprocity, responsibility, and caring for the places that shape and sustain us all.
Windward Community College Library