KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010 / NEWS
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STUDY ABROAD
Program educates on environment
BY ZACH GETZ
zgetz@kansan.com
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Chelsea Cooley (second from left), a senior from Kansas City, Mo., studied abroad in the Sadhana Forest in India over winter break. Cooley spent three weeks helping reforest a 70-acre plot of once barren land.
Instead of going to Europe or some other standard spot to study abroad, Chelsea Cooley traveled to an area with no running water and little electricity — a small southeastern Indian village in the Sadhana Forest.
"I didn't even know where I would be sleeping," said Cooley, a senior from Kansas City, Mo. "It turned out I would be sleeping in an open environment that was very humid and hot."
Cooley discovered the University of Massachusetts Amherst program online that would take her to the community. The program allowed her to get hands-on experience reforesting desolated land.
Instead of studying and attending class in an air-conditioned room, Cooley said she spent most of her time outdoors.
"To keep a community like that running, you really have to do a lot of manual labor," Cooley said.
She helped dig ditches to catch rainwater and raise the watershed in the area to keep the soil moist.
"This land had desertification and was destroyed because people had tried to use it for things that it wasn't meant for," Cooley
said. "This project has only been around for six years and there's now a forest there and tall plants when nothing was there before."
Cooley said projects such as the one in the Sadhana Forest were important for the environment and reforesting once barren land was possible.
"There is damage that has been done, but we really have power to repair the damage." Cooley said.
Because the Sadhana Forest qualifies as an eco-village, Cooley said, the goal of the entire village was environmental stability.
"This place fulfills that goal because it's a vegan community, and animal and animal byproducts contribute to global warming in so many ways," Cooley said. "They are also reforesting the area, using biodegradable products, don't have running water and the electricity is all solar."
Although Cooley will receive school credit for her time spent in India, the eco-village volunteers weren't all students.
While Cooley's trip was not sponsored by the University of Kansas, the University is offering a six-week environmental studies program for the first time this summer.
Without luxuries like trash disposal services and running water, Cooley said, she realized how much waste Americans produce.
world that stumbled on this strange place."
"There were maybe 100 volunteers, and maybe only 10 were students," Cooley said. "The rest were just people from around the
Robert Lopez, outreach coordinator for the study abroad office, said that several students have expressed interest in the new program.
"We're catering it to environmental studies, biology, geography, ecology and evolutionary biology," Lopez said.
Program director Geetanjali Tiwari said the program would give students a chance to do field work and see a tropical ecosystem with an ancient history.
Edited by Kirsten Hudson
NATIONAL
Activist group to protest Islamic campus event
COLLEGE NEWS NETWORK
A newly formed activist group plans to protest an Islamic group's campus involvement at Oklahoma University Saturday.
The recently formed group, called Oklahomaans Against CAIR Hate, said the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is linked to terrorist activities overseas. The group wants to expose CAIR for what they see as a sponsor of terrorism, especially on the OU campus.
"CAIR tries to portray itself as an innocuous civil rights organization, but it is not." Cindy Crenshaw, Oklahomans Against CAIR Hate president, stated on the group's website.
But Roberta Clark, associate regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, said her organization does not see CAIR as a terrorist group with terrorist connections.
Ahmad Khattab, president of the OU Muslim Student Association, said the protesters do not understand what CAIR is and what it does.
"We've worked with CAIR for many years, and they've been very helpful in improving the image of Islam and Muslims in America," Khattab said. "When these people come on campus to protest CAIR, I feel they are attacking me personally."
Khattab said the group's accusations against CAIR do more harm than good.
"CAIR really does do positive things, and by throwing out
rumors and false accusations, they are showing that they are just here to be hateful." Khattab said.
The protest is scheduled to take place at the Oklahoma Memorial Union at 7 p.m. Saturday, but language on the website suggests the group will try to disrupt the CAIR sponsored event in Meachum Auditorium that evening.
"I hope that instead of disrupting the event and being rude, they would be willing to sit down and talk about our differences and clear some things up," Khattab said.
Leawood group receives $25.000
NON-PROFIT
Kids and Cars, a Leawood non-profit organization has received a $25,000 grant by the Chase Community Giving Group through a Facebook competition.
Kids and Cars works to prevent children from being injured or killed in and around cars. Half a million charities entered the contest in November
To vote for this organization, visit www.kidsandcars.org/ vote.
but only 100 groups advanced to the second round. Kids and Cars volunteer manager Amber Rollins said the group was the only in Kansas to make the top 100. The group that receives the most votes from supporters will be awarded $1 million, she said.
— Kirsten Kwon
NATIONAL
Marijuana tax heightens debate
COLLEGE NEWS NETWORK
A significant step was made last week in the fight to legalize marijuana in California, when the Assembly Public Safety Committee passed State Rep. Tom Ammiano's bill to legalize and regulate pot usage. Although the bill is technically dead because it did not meet the deadline for approval by another committee, many say history is in the making.
It is likely that attention will shift to the "Tax Cannabis 2010" initiative planned for the November ballot. If passed, adults over 21 will be able to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and to cultivate a small amount for themselves. Cities and counties would individually decide whether or not to tax the drug.
"This is the first time a bill of this kind was heard and passed in a committee," said Quintin Mecke, communications director for State Rep. Ammiano. "We've made quite a bit of progress with this issue."
The California chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) estimates that a legally regulated market for marijuana could yield the state at least $1.2 billion in tax revenues and reduced enforcement costs.
"It doesn't make sense for California to be paying money to arrest and imprison people when they could be making money by taxing marijuana," said Dale Geiringer, state coordinator of California NORML.
Many groups oppose the legalization of marijuana for health and safety reasons, however. The International Faith-Based Coalition led a rally last Tuesday protesting Ammiano's bill.
"Like tobacco and alcohol, there's no real way to regulate marijuana usage," said Taknesha Allen, youth representative for the International Faith-Based Coalition. The International Faith-Based Coalition plans to continue to fight marijuana legalization.
"I don't think that in our desperate times we should become drug dealers," Allen said. "We shouldn't legalize stupidity at the risk of everyone's lives."
The question of the carcinogenic effects of marijuana is also a topic of debate. Marijuana smoke is on California's list of known carcinogens, but advocates for legalization insist that it is safer than tobacco or alcohol.
"There are so many deaths each year attributed to tobacco and alcohol," Mecke said. "There have been zero deaths ever attributed solely to the use of marijuana."
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