Each year, the world celebrates “Earth day” on April 22nd. At Bryn Mawr we celebrated “earth week,” a week-long event from Monday, April 18th to Friday, April 22nd. The student run organization, ECO (Environmental Coalition), was the host of the many events during this week. Some activities included in ECO’s week of information and fun was a school-wide informative Kahoot, a seed bomb and a plant care forum, a potluck, and a painting session where students symbolically painted their thumb green. On Thursday, April 21st, ECO deemed it “bring your plant to school day,” and on Friday, April 22nd the Bryn Mawr community had a spirited green and blue dress down day in honor of Earth Day. 

In celebration of these recent events, Sophie Brynes, the sophomore class of 2024’s ECO representative, shared various important details about her role at Bryn Mawr and our role in the environment. When speaking about her contribution to earth week and more generally her environmentally-friendly routine, Sophie mentioned seemingly small things. For earth week, she spent the majority of her energy planning activities to present to the Bryn Mawr community as well as spending time with her plants for which she cares and cultivates. To help improve the environment using everyday activities, she does her part at home. This includes basic recycling, limiting waste production, and choosing sustainable options. A key factor she participates in is shopping responsibly. Contrary to common belief, shopping responsibly does not have to be expensive. For example, instead of shopping at high price grocery stores such as Whole Foods, people can buy from lower price grocery stores such as Aldi that still offer the same environmental benefits.  In terms of shopping responsibly for clothes, Brynes’ recommendation was to shop local. Apart from the eco-friendly aspect, another benefit of shopping local is it can support minority owned businesses, especially those located here in Baltimore. Shopping local offers a better alternative to online shopping because it reduces carbon emissions, uses less plastic from shipping, and provides more sustainably-created products. Sophie states: “Earth Day is a day for people to make a commitment, upon which they should uphold year-round.” 

Taking a more global approach, Sophie provided her insight on the government’s role in the crossroad of the environment and the economy. She stated that an important organization is the Sunrise Movement. She plans to lead a club next year which brings this topic to the Bryn Mawr community. The Sunrise Movement is a youth movement with the mission of stopping climate change. It includes Maryland general assembly work, Green New Deal legislation, and climate justice. She remarks that the UN and individual countries need to make a move to sustainable legislation. An alarming rate of 71% of all carbon emissions are due to 100 companies in the world, according to The Carbon Majors Database. Global crisis, oil spills, the rise in heat waves, forest fires, and many more critical emergencies that do not get much media coverage all stem from climate change. When asked about the role of government agencies such as the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in passing regulations for the US population, Sophie spoke of a variety of important legislation. The ongoing Climate Solutions Now Act and the Green New Deal is something she believes has importance in being passed alongside many other legislation; however, these are large scale bills and quite complex. In contrast, solutions as simple as a carbon tax may help with the environment crisis. While there is a timeline for the environment, people should not expect to see this problem fixed overnight. Bills must first be passed at the state and city level then blossom in larger communities. The question is not if people want to solve the issue of climate change, but rather what to solve and when? 

In response to the question of what the environment means to her, Sophie said, “the environment is a livable future. The environment means the little green spaces, going for a walk. The environment is the ability to enjoy outdoor spaces on a nice day and know that can be passed onto the next generation.”

A simple but meaningful action members of the Bryn Mawr community can take to help improve their actions towards the environment is to remain conscientious. The Bryn Mawr campus has beautiful green spaces, yet students fail to take great care of these spaces, taking our privileged surroundings for granted. Throughout the duration of earth week more people began to clean up trash, creating a visible difference. A parting advice from Sophie Brynes is simple yet quite understated: to be more conscientious in regards to your actions which impact the environment.