Eco-bike tour coming to campus for Earth Day fest - 2009-04-07

CONTACT: Kenneth Aaron, director of communications, (518) 327-6297

PAUL SMITHS – A cycling team making an 18-day Northeast journey to raise awareness of environmental sustainability is headed for Paul Smith's College on Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22.

They're part of a slate of Earth Day activities at the campus, including a campus clean-up, an evening festival featuring homemade Adirondack crafts and horse-wagon rides, a demonstration of a wood-fired Dutchtub spa and a "hootenanny" featuring local musicians.

The four riders on the Cycling for a Sustainable Future tour will give a presentation at the college, "Radical Simplicity," pushing for their own "radical stimulus package": cutting spending and environmental impact, eating only locally produced food, and urging other measures to reduce carbon emissions. (The 350-mile ride is meant to highlight the notion that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere needs to be cut to 350 parts-per-million.)

The talk, at 6:15 p.m. in the Pine Room of the Joan Weill Student Center, is free and open to the public. "From vision to action, witness the birth of a sustainable culture where low-impact becomes ‘default,’” said Jim Merkel, one of the riders on the tour and author of "Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth."

"We're excited and honored to have Jim and his fellow tour members on campus as part of our Earth Day celebration," said Tom Huber, director of TRiO – Student Support Services and a member of the college's Sustainability Council. "We hope people from the local community will join with us for the Earth Night festivities for some good food, good tunes, and good times - a positive party for the planet."

In all, the four-person team will log 350 miles as they ride from Norwich, Vt., to the North Country Sustainable Energy Fair in Canton, N.Y., making presentations at colleges, book stores and other destinations in 12 towns along the way. Since starting in 1996, the tours have covered more than 17,000 miles. Members of the community are invited to ride with the team members from Saranac Lake to the campus the morning of Earth Day, and to escort them out of town as they head to Canton on Thursday, April 23.

More information on the cycling tour can be found at CyclingForaSustainableFuture.blogspot.com.

About Paul Smith's College

At Paul Smith’s College, it’s about the experience. We are the only four-year institution of higher education in the Adirondacks. Our programs, in fields including hospitality, culinary arts, forestry, natural resources, entrepreneurship and the sciences, draw on industries and resources available in our own backyard while preparing students for successful careers anywhere.