By Charity Spicer & Kaya Henkes-Power PRODUCTION EDITOR & EXECUTIVE EDITOR
On Tuesday, San José State came together to celebrate its 55th Annual Earth Day Celebration.
“Earth Day: Our Power, Our Planet” was hosted by the Environmental Resource Center and several student and local community organizations.
Sprawled through Tower Lawn included vendors, guest speakers and a sustainable fashion show.
Armani Pallais, an environmental studies student, is a member of the Environmental Resource Center and volunteered at the event.
“I used to go to a different university and we never did anything like this before,” Pallais said. “It’s really nice actually.”
The roots of Earth Day run deep at SJSU, with alumnus Gaylord Nelson, being a principal founder of the establishment of Earth Day in 1971, according to SJSU’s Office of Sustainability.
Then on Feb. 24, 1970 students called for the end of internal combustion in vehicles by burying a 1970 Ford Maverick on campus,
according to the same source.
Nassim Nouri, Santa Clara County Green Party of California councilmember, has noticed that young people understand the effect that this issue has on their lives.
Nouri’s position is in charge of organizing and coordinating the Green Party of California events at the Santa Clara County level, according to the Green Party of California website.
“We find that young people are not just more enthusiastic about it,” Nouri said. “They are starting to realize the impact that these issues, policies can make in their entire life.”
The Green Party is a progressive political party that promotes environmentalism, nonviolence and other social justice issues, according to The Library of Congress.
When President Donald J. Trump took office in January, a series of executive orders came out to dismantle climate action in the United States, according to a Tuesday ABCNews article.
Malvika Malhotra, a fourth-year environmental studies student and director for the Environmental Resource Center, saw a peak in student interest.
“I think people (are) being interested in sustainable fashion, activism and how
some current ongoing events going on in the world (are) related to climate change, environmentalism and sustainability,” Malhotra said.
Sustainable fashion stemmed from the slow fashion movement that began in the 1960s, according to a 2016 research article from the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management.
The slow fashion movement centers on sustainability values such as limiting environmental destruction and good working
conditions, according to the same article.
One of the organizations tabling and educating students on sustainable fashion choices was San José Clothing Swap, a mutual aid which is a part of the San José Peace & Justice Center that facilitates the community to exchange clothes for free.
Maya Bhattacharya, who works for San José Clothing Swap, feels that despite the increase of interest in swaps and thrifting, there is still a lot of fast-fashion production.
“If students can get into the mindset of swapping first or thrift first before buying something new,” Bhattacharya said. “I think that’s the main thing, that whole mind shift.”
Unlike the slow fashion movement, fast fashion was coined in the 1990s and refers to cheaply and massproduced clothing garments, according to a Jan. 20 article from Earth.Org. Fast fashion accounts for 10% of the total global carbon emissions, according to the same source.
“We consider education an investment in the future of our society, so all these policies affect the students in not just San José State University, but everywhere,” she said.
SJSU remembers beloved philosophy professor
By Alina Ta
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
After spending two decades inspiring students to explore the field of philosophy, Professor Anand Jayprakash Vaidya died at 48 in October, leaving behind his wife, brother and many beloved colleagues in the Philosophy Department.
His wife and his colleagues held a memorial service for him at the Spartan Rose Garden on April 15 during the afternoon and evening.
Noah Friedman-Biglin, an assistant professor in philosophy at San José State, was one of Vaidya’s former students who attended the service.
“He was my teacher, a mentor, a role model, and most of all, he was my friend. I will always miss him,” Friedman-Biglin wrote in a speech for his colleague and former professor.
Friedman-Biglin said he remembered meeting Vaidya for the first time when he was a student.
Vaidya taught logical theory, ethical theory, philosophy of economics and justice, early and late modern philosophy, and asian philosophy, according to his SJSU biography.
“He talked so fast. Every sentence had 15 ideas that we’d never heard before,” Friedman-Biglin said. “It was just like a fire hose of a philosophy when you talk to him. But again, it was something that we (students) desperately wanted. And it was like, ‘Oh, this is why
we’re here. This is why we came.’”
Vaidya was born in Chicago, but spent most of his childhood years in Saudi Arabia, according to his webpage.
He lived in a gated community with his older brother and his parents during the First Intifada and during the Gulf War.
Between the 1980s and the 2000s, there were two intifadas, also known as “uprisings” in Arabic, according to a March 22 PBS article.
In 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein started the Gulf War over a conflict on whether or not Iraq owed multiple countries known as the “Gulf states” $37 billion in loans related to previous war efforts, according to a webpage from the U.S. Office of the Historian.
Tony Vaidya, who was older than Anand Jayprakash Vaidya by two and a half years, had a close relationship with his brother.
“He’s my best friend. I used to talk to him all the time,” Tony Vaidya said.
During Anand Jayprakash Vaidya’s teenage years, his interest in discipline almost led him to consider joining the military before his uncle reminded him that there is more than one type of structure in life.
Tony Vaidya said he has fond memories of his brother playing guitar for his 10-year-old daughter.
Andrew Delunas, a senior lecturer in philosophy, has an office located down the hall from Anand Jayprakash Vaidya’s empty office.
On the second floor of the Faculty Office Building, Anand Jayprakash Vaidya’s office still has his name plate attached to the door.
“He would always show me pictures of his guitar, and (he’d say), ‘We need to get together and jam,’ because I play bass,” Delunas said.
“One of my big regrets is that we never got to play music together.”
Delunas said Anand Jayprakash Vaidya was recently preparing to become the new department chair.
Janet Stemwedel, the current interim chair of the philosophy department, was preparing to pass down her position to him for the Spring 2025 semester before he died.
“Last year was supposed to be me just keeping the seat warm for him, with the plan that he was going to start being chair this year,” Stemwedel said.
Anand Jayprakash Vaidya
“He was convinced by (our) uncle, that, ‘Hey, there’s more than one type of structure and discipline. You can have structure and discipline of the mind.’ And got him involved in thinking about higher education,” Tony Vaidya said.
studied both philosophy and Asian philosophy, according to his SJSU biography.
Karin Brown, a philosophy professor, sits in the office across the hall from Anand Jayprakash Vaidya’s office.
“I used to call him ‘problem solver,’” Brown said. “He loved that because that’s part of the reason people love to have a conversation with him and talk to him. We’d always like to find solutions.”
She said he continued to work for months before his death even though he had peripheral neuropathy in his fingers, which made typing painful for him.
Peripheral neuropathy is when the nerve located outside of the brain and spinal cord are damaged. Common symptoms from this condition include numbness, weakness and pain in a person’s hands or feet, according to a Mayo Clinic webpage.
“He worked till he was in the ICU, until the very end, even though he was in pain,” Brown said. “Now his wife is making sure that the last pieces (articles) that he wrote are going to be published.”
Tony Vaidya said he wasn’t expecting his brother to pass so soon.
“(His death) was a huge hole in our family,” Tony Vaidya said.
ISRAEL ARCHIE | SPARTAN DAILY
Jenna Haut (left), Bay Alive Campaign Assistant at Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, and DeVant’e Dawson (right),
postdoctoral researcher at Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford, speak to students and community members.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MANJULA MENON
Follow Alina on Instagram @mniatailmp
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ffect the students in not ju an José State University, bu verywhere,” she said.
SJSU discusses climate change
By Fayoo Ahmed STAFF WRITER
Over the past decade, climate change has gone from a distant concern to a lived reality, especially for students in California.
At San José State University, students are beginning to notice the changing weather patterns not as mere statistics but real disruptions to their health, habits and routines.
According to the United Nations, climate change refers to long-term changes in temperature, precipitation, and atmospheric patterns caused by human activities, particularly fossil fuels.
The Earth’s average temperature has increased by at least 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century, with most of that warming occurring since 1975, according to a NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies temperature analysis.
In California, this has translated into intense droughts and heatwaves, more frequent wildfires, and shifts in seasonal rainfall, according to a Jan. 8 CalMatters article.
For Sabrina Mohamed, a second-year nursing student and daily commuter, these shifts add a layer of stress that affects her everyday experience.
“It’s like my brain is tired all the time,” Mohamed added. “I’m not even doing anything different, but I feel so drained just trying to keep up with everything. It’s hot, then it’s windy, then the skies are gray and I still have to go to lab and study. No one really talks about how tiring it is, mentally.”
Mohamed noted that some mornings start off freezing and foggy, only for the temperature to spike to 85 degrees by the afternoon.
A clear example of the intense weather was in January 2025, when the Palisades and Eaton Fires burned nearly 40,000 acres, destroyed thousands of homes and forced thousands of people to evacuate across Southern California, according to a Jan. 16 aritcle published by the LA Times.
In recent years, cities like San José have seen temperature spikes in spring and fall months, according to a IQAir webpage.
Costanza Rampini, a SJSU associate professor of environmental studies and graduate program coordinator, has seen how climate change is beginning to interfere with students’ everyday lives.
“Extreme weather can affect students in a number of ways,” Rampini said. “Students with specific health conditions are more vulnerable to extreme
weather and poor air quality, especially extreme heat, and are more at risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. This will affect their academic performance but also their daily life in general.”
Rampini’s research centers around how people adapt to environmental changes, especially in areas vulnerable to flooding and extreme weather, both globally and right here in California, according to her biography on an SJSU webpage
Weather that fluctuates dramatically within a week, or even a single day, can affect sleep, sedentary behavior, and physical activity, according to a International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity research article.
“Students who work on research projects that require collecting data outdoors, student athletes who train outside, or students who do intramural sports that are outdoors,” Rampini said. “Will need to be careful and limit their time outdoors as a result of extreme weather and poor air quality.”
Air quality is a particular concern. In 2020 and 2021, Bay Area residents experienced weeks of unhealthy air quality index levels, according to a Sept. 20, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle article.
Kailey Dhanota, a firstyear political science student, said that the constant shifts in weather have started to affect how she navigates her day-to-day routine.
“Some days I wake up and the air just feels heavy,” said Dhanota. “It’s not something I used to think about, but now it’s part of my routine; checking the weather, checking the air. It’s exhausting.”
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issues frequent advisories during wildfire season, often recommending that vulnerable populations, like those with asthma or other respiratory conditions, to stay indoors and use air filtration systems.
“I’m constantly secondguessing what to wear, what to bring, and how much energy I’ll have by the time I get to campus,” Mohamed said.
During heat waves or smoke events, many cities open public cooling centers and clean air shelters; usually at libraries, community centers, or schools. Knowing where the nearest center is, and when it’s open, can make a real difference, according to the National Library of Medicine
SJSU students and faculty were recommended to limit outdoor activity and occasionally shift events indoors or online, as suggested by the SJSU Emergency Management in an air quality report update.
people, according to a March 1, 2021 article from the American Psychological Association.
“I think more people are paying attention now, not just because of news, but because we’re literally living through it. It’s not abstract anymore,” Dhanota said.
students to stay both prepared and politically active.
Being
Sabrina Mohamed SJSU
“It’s just exhausting. It’s just the back and forth that makes everything feel so tiring,” Mohamed said.
In addition to physical discomfort and academic disruption, the emotional toll of climate change is becoming more widely recognized.
Climate-related worry and anxiousness, known as “eco-anxiety,” is rising among young
A global study published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2021 explored how climate change is affecting the mental health of young people across 10,000 individuals across ten countries between the ages of 16 to 25.
Based on those findings researchers found that 59% of the respondents were very or extremely worried about climate change.
As climate impacts become more common, Rampini encourages
“ … Being informed and participating in local elections, like the county and city, and making sure (students) vote for people who have a strong track record when it comes to climate change issues and emergency preparedness is also important,” she said. Mohamed said she tries not to overthink it, but the changes feel impossible to ignore.
“It’s honestly hard to stay positive sometimes. Like, we’re all trying to build a future, but the world feels kind of unpredictable right now,” she said.
Sustainable students flaunt fashion
#1: Moses Avina, a fourth-year business administration student (left) and Jericho Tolentino, a fourth-year student (right), capture the deep blue color of the ocean as they pose in their outfits for the “Ocean Dream” round of the “Sustainable Fashion Show” on Earth Day.
#2: (Left to right) Environmental studies students Anjana Supriya and Winni Lin walk the runway in their outfits made of sustainably-sourced fabrics and real flowers, placing second in the contest hosted by the Environmental Resource Center.
#3: Sociology transfer student Suzanna Lopez channels a floral aesthetic by reusing clothes from her sister’s closet to kick off the “Floral Fantasy” round in the nature-themed fashion competition.
#4: First-year aviation student Wendy Macias-Torres wins the first-place prize for the Earth Day fashion show for her Facebook-inspired, homemade flower outfit crocheted from recycled yarn.
PHOTOS BY ISRAEL ARCHIE
By Jackson Lindstrom COLUMNIST
It’s possible that at some point you’ve heard something about GMOs being in food and that it’s bad for you, but this simply isn’t true.
GMO stands for genetically modified organism, which can be found in plants, animals or microbes that have been genetically engineered, according to MedlinePlus.
According to the same source, some of the benefits of altering the DNA structures of these organisms can lead to increased growth rate of both plants and animals, increased supply of food, disease and drought-resistant food, as well as insect-resistant plants, which can require less pesticide use.
Some of the foods that you might find GMOs in include strawberries, carrots, corn and potatoes, according to a review article from the Journal of Food Science and Technology.
This all sounds great, so who is opposed to the introduction of GMOs and why?
One organization in particular, called The Non-GMO Project, is one of the voices contributing to the resistance against GMOs.
One of the things The Non-GMO Project says on its website is that there is a lack of independent, l ong-term, credible studies on GMOs, so its safety is “unknown.”
foods, especially ones it knows many people are skeptical of, it seems highly unlikely that it would approve use of GMOs without carefully looking at the evidence.
in Plant Science Journal found that growing genetically modified plants in the EU could reduce its total agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5%.
presenting a false narrative that GMOs are unsafe.
cause an allergic reaction, the possibility that added genes may cause a genetic mutation that causes cancer and the overall use of herbicides in their proximity, according to Healthline.
According to the same article, however, the evidence of these harms to consumers is relatively weak, although it should certainly be stated that more research is needed.
The logo for The NonGMO Project shows a picture of a butterfly and a green checkmark which seems to picture what people think they are doing when they don’t consume GMOs.
If you aren’t interested in eating food that has been genetically modified because you don’t want anything unnatural going into your body, that’s okay.
It might not seem like a lot, but if there is anything we can do to fight climate change, especially something so simple, we should do it.
But the reality is that we do know that GMOs are safe. Before being sold, foods with GMOs are examined with great care to determine they are just as safe to eat as non-GMO food, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
If the FDA is closely examining
This type of “naturalist” thinking seems to be present in the antiGMO crowd because genetic modification can’t occur naturally, but the researchers who developed GMOs weren’t some kind of evil mad scientists who want to poison the world. The idea that GMOs are unsafe also becomes a problem when considering agricultural sustainability.
France, according to
GMOs can be part of the change we need to take and there is very little reason why we shouldn’t be doing it.
However, it is important to understand that just because something is “natural,” it does not mean that it is inherently good.
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As it turns out, genetically modified organisms are good for the environment as biotechnology in agriculture can work to reduce the effects of climate change, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
One research article from Trends
In 2021, the U.S. was responsible for about 13.49% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Climate.gov.
Of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, about 10.5% were related to agriculture and forestry, according to the USDA.
Organizations like The Non-GMO Project could be inhibiting the use of GMOs in foods when they are needed by
GMOs are This has already been seen in Europe, where many countries have disallowed cultivation of GMOs, including the United Kingdom, Norway Germany, and France, to the World Population Review. These countries have banned GMOs primarily because they do not feel the science has substantially proven them to be safe and that the risks highly the benefits,
outweigh the benefits, according to a research article from the Plant Biotechnology journal. By banning GMOs, countries are throwing out the possibility of more sustainable agricultural practices.
Some of the risks associated with the use of GMO foods are: a proclivity to have genes that
This is what is called an appeal to nature logical fallacy, the idea that natural things are inherently good and unnatural things are bad.
The holes in this fallacious thinking can be seen with the example of poisonous plants or mushrooms, which are not good for your health, compared to anesthesia, which is entirely synthetic but has extreme benefits in surgery.
GMOs were created to improve the world, and as the current research suggests, there does not appear to be much risk in consuming them, especially when they are in so many foods.
