Going (all 400 miles) Green

(written by Jason Aloisio '07 and Anthony Gizzi '07)

Jason Aloisio ’07, a graduate student in biology at Fordham University, and Anthony Gizzi ’07, a graduate student in pharmacology at Thomas Jefferson University are going green - to the annual Ecological Society of America conference (ESA) that is. The topic of this year’s ESA conference is global climate change. According to the IPCC, combustion of fossil fuels for transportation is one of the key contributors to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. With this knowledge the two (hopeful) attendees, Aloisio and Gizzi, have elected to forgo the comfort of carbon emitting cars in exchange for their bicycles to raise awareness that bikes are feasible modes of transport: particularly, given the fact that the vast majority of car trips are fewer than three miles, a distance that many are more than capable of riding or walking.  If you would like to track their progress, you can follow them on Twitter @ GO_GreenRiders or view their route here.

Their journey, spanning 3 states and four hundred miles, began from Fordham University’s Rose Hill Campus on Friday, July 30 and will conclude when the two have reached the annual ESA conference in Pittsburgh, PA on Monday, August 2. 

When asked, why would you want to do this? Aloisio responded “We share two major passions: exploring the world around us and seeking to better understand it.  With this adventure we, not only, fuse these passions by viewing the countryside through a new perspective and gain new insights at the ESA conference, but also bring awareness to a global issue.”  By riding their bicycles to the conference Aloisio and Gizzi have avoided the approximately 420 lbs. of CO2 that would have been released from the tailpipe of one automobile, had they driven. 

Gizzi and Aloisio have been adventuring together for years and when asked, are you worried about finishing? Gizzi responded, "we have been setting lofty goals since we first met in undergrad and neither of us are the type to turn back easily. In comparison to some of the other silly and less thought out adventures we've managed to finish, this seems almost like a well-planed vacation."

Gizzi finishes at Jefferson in August and intends to take a year off after graduate school to gain field experience, and plans to begin a PhD program in 2011 in environmental toxicology focusing on exogenous endocrine disrupting compounds and their physiological effects on humans and wildlife. 

Aloisio is beginning his second year at Fordham where he studies green roofs through an ecological perspective. His rooftop ecology research focuses on integrating biodiversity and functionality of a green roof to maximize the effectiveness for both humans (e.g mitigate storm water and urban heat island) and wildlife (e.g. habitat).