Environmental student organizations talk politics, sustainability
Following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Sunrise Rice co-founder Dyllan Lozano-Lomeli said she worries even more about the future of the Earth’s climate. Originally from Brownsville, Texas, Lozano-Lomeli said her passion for the environment was sparked in 2021 when she saw how the ‘Texas Freeze’ disproportionately impacted poor neighborhoods in her hometown. Now, living in Houston, she said she feels empowered to make a difference, both local and national.
“There’s definitely a lot of opportunities for us to have the capacity to make a lot of change here in Houston, but there’s also a lot of opposition,” Lozano-Lomeli, a Jones College sophomore, said, “We need to preserve what we can now and try to safeguard the progress that we have made in the past four years.”
One of 13 active sustainability-related student organizations on campus, Sunrise Rice was formed this semester as a chapter of the national Sunrise Movement, whose goals include popularizing the Green New Deal and organizing political activism against climate change and social inequality. Chapter co-founder Anna Stravato said a shift in focus will be increasingly vital to making a change following January’s inauguration.
“We’re going to focus more on a local level, trying to get local representatives to support a Green New Deal or announce a climate emergency,” Stravato, a Jones College sophomore, said.
According to a recent issue of the Thresher, Sunrise Rice was formed as the only expressly political sustainability-related group on campus, but Rice Climate Alliance president Bryan Mendoza said he also considers political activism and environmentalism to go hand in hand.
Growing up in Houston suburb Galena Park, Mendoza said he distinctly remembers evacuating his home due to flooding during Hurricane Harvey. He said he’s been passionate about fighting climate change and social injustices ever since. This semester, he’s worked to revamp RCA after several years of dormancy, making environmental activism more accessible to Rice students and often partnering with outside organizations for events and support.
“What’s important, I think, is advocating for other people in the Houston area,” Mendoza, a Lovett College junior, said. “Partnering with [Students for Justice in Palestine] on talking about Chevron and its impacts on ecology, ecological collapse and genocide [shows me that] everything’s connected with the environment.”
“I think [RCA] inherently is [a political organization] because we do advocate politically, and it’s hard not to take a side when one side is funding all these oil corporations,” Mendoza continued.
While RCA saw issues with both presidential candidates in the 2024 election, Mendoza said Donald Trump’s win has inspired a newfound urgency in advocating for change.
“The presidential election has driven that push towards the need for action, especially with Trump’s [Department of Education] picks and [Environmental Protection Agency] picks,” Mendoza said. “We didn’t endorse anyone … both of [the candidates] support genocide.”
Recently, RCA expressed their support for the four referenda concerning Rice’s response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which passed in a senate vote Oct. 28. Also supporting the referenda was Divya Saikumar, president of the Rice Sustainability Coalition, a student organization that facilitates collaboration between groups and individuals passionate about climate change.
Saikumar said she agrees that sustainability-related issues often overlap with social injustices. She also said that sustainability and environmentalism fall outside political party lines — or, at least, that they should. Ultimately, it’s clear that care for the environment varies across the political spectrum, Saikumar said.
“Within [RSC], we have representatives from SJP, from Rice Young Dems [and] from Rice Women’s Resource Center, and we’re hoping to expand beyond that as well,” Saikumar, a Lovett College sophomore, said. “Any time that there’s an inequity, you can tie environmental injustice to a part of that as well.”
“I can’t speak for my organization to say that they have a direct political affiliation, but we will work with the people who care about these issues,” Saikumar continued. “If you take parties aside, everyone should care about the planet that they’re living in … it doesn’t make sense to me that it isn’t bipartisan.”
The political attitude of RSC and its affiliates does not represent the whole of Rice’s environmentalist activity. Led by Chief Investment Officer Duc-Anh Nguyen, the Rice New Energy Fund invests money from Rice’s undergraduate investment fund in energy companies working to transition away from fossil fuels.
Whereas both RCA and Sunrise Rice’s operations are motivated by climate justice and policy issues, RNEF makes investment decisions chiefly based on the financial success of energy companies.
“We are impacted by politics only in the sense that, if the companies that we invest in have businesses [somewhere], then we really care about what rules are getting passed [there], but overall, not really,” Nguyen said.
“It's not like people don't want to transition away from those non-renewable sources,” Nguyen continued. “It takes a lot of capital … it takes time, and not everyone has deep pockets.”
Nguyen also said he does not anticipate president-elect Trump’s upcoming term to have any serious effect on RNEF’s goals or ambitions.
“When we talk about investing, it's [about] where energy demand is going to go,” Nguyen said. “Regardless of who the president is, that demand will still get there at some point.”
Saikumar said all environmental organizations on campus can provide something for students to care about other than success and academic achievement. For those who might not be able to make the time for a permanent, committed role in a sustainability-related group, there are still things you can do, according to the organizational heads.
“I think one thing that a lot of students, especially at high-performing universities, can lack sometimes is reasoning or empathy beyond themselves, their career advancement and their classes,” Saikumar said. “Sustainability is a non-political way of doing that.”
“This is such a crucial time for our climate, such a crucial time for our environment, and we're at such a point of turmoil,” Lozano-Lomeli said. “I think that the most important thing for the average person to do is stay educated.”
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