While home in Canada last winter break, a friend asked me, “So how glamorous is California?” My immediate response was that glamour is not a Northern Californian concept, unless your definition somehow includes hiking boots. When I returned to Berkeley that January, though, I started noticing hints of glamour amid the usual uniform of Patagonia and Birkenstocks. I began having conversations with the ERG community and gaining appreciation for a…
For years now, the Tiny House movement has been a Big Deal. It’s captured the imaginations of residential homeowners, city planners, international development agencies, homeless and affordable housing advocates, and the renewable energy/sustainable living community.
What do ERGies get up to when they’re not changing the world? Believe it or not, they make the time amid research, classes and internships to perform contemporary dance, play the bassoon in the UC Berkeley campus orchestra and choreograph full-tilt Bollywood performances.
Many of us at ERG wonder why there continues to be electricity waste and resource waste, despite available solutions.
In recent months, politically-motivated events have impacted life at Berkeley, disrupting a place we call home. We asked ERGies how they engage with the world through or outside of the university, why, and to what ends.
As the rains fell generously on Northern California last winter, many local farmers eagerly anticipated the healthy plants and high yields sure to come in this year’s growing season. California’s water problems are far from solved (especially when it comes to groundwater levels that remain well below average in aquifers across the state), but the high soil water content produced lush green hillsides that just two years ago were golden…
This has been a terrifying year. Earthquakes, hurricanes, heat waves, and floods — the news sounds like a chapter from the Book of Revelation, or a scene from the dystopian future that Octavia Butler envisioned 25 years ago. We know that these traumas and calamities are experienced first and worst by those with the fewest resources and means for resilience, and this truth has played out in the varied impacts of storm flooding in Houston, Puerto…
On April 7, 2017, the 2016 cohort (Newbies!) hosted yet another fantastic annual ERG Talent Show. This year’s show really raised the bar, as the young wizards of ERGworts honed their interdisciplinary powers to battle the evil Trumplestiltskin! Amidst the unfolding drama at ERGworts, our department put their full powers on display with live music, acro-yoga, and the return of the famous (from Baghdad to Delhi, via Agra) Bollywood Dance!…
The students initiated an unanticipated ERG Town Hall the day after the presidential election in the department Reading Room.
It’s my second year in ERG. That may not be a long time, but trust me, I kind of know what I’m doing.