Tom Hayden, a civil rights and environmental activist, a freedom rider, a father to the anti-Vietnam War movement and a former senator, stood at the front of a classroom full of California State University, Northridge students and professors with a simple and powerful message: Sustainability is vital to the future of our Earth, and everyone can do his or her part to keep the planet green.

“I want to talk about California becoming a model economy that is based on sustainable energy,” Hayden said. “I also want to congratulate and urge the university to stay ahead of the trend. There are things you can do now and things you may want to do for the rest of your life.”

California has invested more than $120 billion into sustainable routes by building on wind and solar energy, creating more than 200,000 clean energy jobs and making goals to put one million clean energy cars on the road by 2030.

“California has a first-class advanced economy,” Hayden said. “Compared to other states, California has succeeded in building a clean energy economy that is growing, and shrinking nuclear power.”

While CSUN is doing its part to increase sustainability as well by constructing buildings such as the Valley Performing Arts Center, which received a LEED Gold certification for sustainability, and providing compost gardens that conserve water, Hayden urged the students to continue to work on more ways to stay conscious of the Earth and its resources.

“It falls on your generation, and that is why I’m here: to wake you up to this and to sound the alarm,” he said. “You are well aware we are leaving behind an endangered planet. I think students can find 100 ways to act sustainable. Everybody has to do a little. Don’t count on [California governor] Jerry Brown to do it all. Spread the effort until there are thousands of students doing small things.”

Hayden, who worked under Governor Brown to promote sustainability in the 1970s, explained that at the time sustainable energy was just beginning to see the light of day, and questioning the exploitation of the earth was barely a thought that was considered by many.

“It was at the very beginning of starting to question material growth and the whole idea of a political economy that depends on exploiting the resources of the Earth and turning them into the products for sale with the assumption that there would be no end to those products of the Earth. For the last 50 years we have been trying to get out of that model,” he said.

Hayden provided a model to keep in mind that would help reach a sustainable lifestyle: Lower emissions + environmental justice = a climate justice model.

Hayden also emphasized that sustainability is no longer a challenge to achieve today, and mentioned that technology is making massive leaps toward sustainability, noting the recent landing of the Philae on the Rosetta comet as an example.

“[Philae] travelled for 10 years and it went a million miles before it locked onto this comet,” he said. “The entire journey was powered by solar collectors. Don’t let anybody tell you that it can’t be done. It is not a scientific problem anymore. It is a question of values, morals and economics. We should be able to make it easy to get around Los Angeles without pollutants that are killing our planet. The key is that the transitions we are going through can be made manageable, and we can come out with a better society.”

Environment, Events, Sustainability