By Allegra Kirkland
The Oberlin Project, brainchild of the College’s Paul W. Sears Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, David Orr, has recently taken its first steps toward changing the way the members of the Oberlin community live, work, consume and study at Oberlin. The project, organized around five principle goals, is a concerted effort in what Orr refers to as “full-spectrum sustainability:” an all-encompassing joint venture by the town and College to create a thriving, sustainable and environmentally friendly community in Oberlin.
The principle goals of the Oberlin Project are constructing a downtown green arts district, achieving climate neutrality for both city and College, creating a green belt for agriculture and forestry and the realization of these aims as an educational alliance between the College and other local schools. Additionally, in an effort unrelated to the College, the project hopes to serve as a model that can be replicated in towns and cities across the United States.
Ten teams — consisting of educators, city politicians, community leaders and policymakers — are simultaneously working on specific aspects of these overarching goals under the leadership of Orr, College President Marvin Krislov, Managing Director Bryan Stubbs and Eric Norenberg, Oberlin’s city manager. The project is expected to take more than a decade to complete.
As Orr said, “Full-spectrum sustainability is not a simple conversation. … It’s a fancy way to describe a lot of conversations that occur between the boundaries by which we organized the industrial world.” READ MORE >>
