Over the past decade, De Anza College has taken strides towards becoming one of the most ‘green’ community college campuses in California, if not the United States. For instance, in September 2005, De Anza unveiled a little project 17 years in the making called the Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies. Ring a bell? Even Al Gore visited it last year. Have you? Probably not.

De Anza’s become an admirable place; it’s a college that we hope others view as an example to build upon in the years to come, especially given the ecological crisis we seem to be approaching as a nation.

Unfortunately, the average student doesn’t seem to care. With the exception of a few campus club members holding seminars about soybean fuel in cars and begging for the attention of every student passing by, most young people at De Anza boast a plentiful abundance of apathy towards the environment. After all, it’s probably being taken care of, right? What are all those recycling bins doing on campus if not saving the environment?

Students have a hard time connecting to the bigger picture when it comes to saving the world. They understand there’s a huge problem with the way people are treating the planet, and they generally understand those problems have to be fixed. But who’s fixing them and how they do it is a whole separate story.

The problem isn’t that every student doesn’t pause at every tree and flower to tell it how much they appreciate its oxygen-giving abilities and shower it with kisses.

The problem is that some student just threw a flaming cigarette butt, or a McDonald’s bag, right on that flower or tree without even a second thought.

Nobody expects students to be writhing in guilt for the environmental sins they’ve committed – that would be unreasonable. But it’s important to try to compensate for how you’ve contributed to the mess.

Consider the following ways to insert some environmental consciousness into your everyday routine, and keep in mind that the world will eventually need bigger and better efforts from our generation.

1. Use the Web site http://www.blackle.com. It was created by a company called Heap Media and uses the exact same search engine as Google. What makes it really great is the search screen is primarily black, instead of white like Google’s, and as a result your computer uses less energy, thus Mother Earth is happier.

2. Donate – maybe not your time, but your lunch money. One or two days a week, pack a lunch from home and put that money into a fund for charity that you can support. It may not be much, but they aren’t kidding when they say every little bit counts.

3. Stop littering. This probably takes the most concentrated effort on your part, but littering is akin to stealing candy from a baby. You’re hurting that which cannot fight back.

4. Cut back on the cigarettes. The smoke isn’t helping, and if you check the smoker areas, there’s more burnt out butts than there is ground.

Lastly, if you must, go out and hug a tree. It’s probably not helping much, but there are worse things you could be doing.