by Lindsay Ash
Carrboro Commons Writer

Students and community residents took an inventive step toward linking Carrboro to a more sustainable future Sunday at the Carrboro Century Center.

Chapel Hill High School students Alicia Cohen and Erin Holdaway display their fictional sustainable island named Kabuki. Kabuki is an island in the Caribbean that had areas that were developed, including a downtown and business area, but also had reserved green space that was left undeveloped.
Photo by Lindsay Ash.

Chapel Hill High School students and environmental groups dedicated to climate change, sustainable growth and water resources joined forces to explore how to conserve.

The event, called “Celebration of Earth and Sky,” centered on Robert Greenberg’s Earth and Environmental Science class that created models of fictional islands. The islands required extensive research into the notion of sustainability and its relevance in the community.

“Our research triggered the question, why aren’t we doing any of this here?” said Alicia Cohen, 16, a sophomore at Chapel Hill High School.

Greenberg assigned the island project with William McDonough and Michael Braungart’s “cradle-to-cradle” design in mind. Cradle-to-cradle design suggests a framework in which the effective, regenerative cycles of nature are models for human designs.

Writing in their book, “Cradle to Cradle,” McDonough and Braungart explain. “Imagine a world in which all the things we make, use and consume provide nutrition for nature and industry—a world in which growth is good and human activity generates a delightful, restorative ecological footprint.”

The philosophy, that emphasizes the continuing community over the individual’s cradle-to-grave experience, inspired all of the students’ and other environmental groups’ projects.

One group present was the bioenergy Center, founded by two Chapel Hill residents, Marty Hanks and Marc ter Horst. The bio energy center’s mission is to reduce energy costs, raise awareness of people’s negative impact on the environment and advocate real, forward-thinking solutions to address these issues.

One of the bioenergy center’s main solutions that will contribute to the local economy is to produce bioenergy wood pellets using renewable energy. The wood pellets are extremely popular in the European Union and are beginning to spark interest in the United States, said Marty Hanks.

Sawdust, wood chips, bark, and other organic materials are compacted to form the bioenergy wood pellets, which can be burned in everything from stoves to large-scale productions, such as power plants.

“North Carolina does not yet have a facility that produces bioenergy pellets, but the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area could certainly be the first,” said Hanks.

The “Celebration of Earth and Sky” exhibit is the first place Hanks and ter Horst displayed their the bio energy center model outside of the Kenan-Flagler Business School Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative’s “Launching the Venture” program.

SURGE, Students United for a Responsible Global Environment, sponsored “Celebration of Earth and Sky” for the third consecutive year, but this is the first year the event was located outside of Chapel Hill High School. In previous years, the turnout had not been as high as it was at the Century Center.

“The Century Center was the best place to host this event because it is in the middle of town, it is visible and the entire community felt welcome to come and participate,” said Greenberg.

Greenberg said he was ecstatic at the turnout and excitement the community created for the event.

“I am involved in several of the groups that are present here today, but to really get the word out, I placed the event on the [Chapel Hill-Carrboro] Chamber of Commerce Web site and had groups signing up until late last week,” said Greenberg.

The students said they were more than happy to display their month-long effort at creating sustainable islands featuring a public transportation system, natural energy, designs for buildings, a water system, a system of preservation, a waste treatment system and an educational system.

“Researching all of these elements made me realize that, in general, sustainability is not easy, but we should focus on the things that are easy, such as recycling a soda can by throwing it in a recycle bin versus the trash,” said Cohen. “We all have to do our small parts to make big changes.”