Cornell Store Earth Day Sale: “If You Don’t Buy This Shit, It’s Going to the Landfill”

HO PLAZA–This Earth Day, the Cornell Store is making a special pledge to the planet. For every item that goes unpurchased, they will match it with a generous donation to the Tompkins County Solid Waste Center. Eco-saviors are invited to open their hearts, but mostly their wallets, and find a semblance of purpose within store inventory: the ultimate Earth Day Challenge. 

“‘I’m hoping this event will encourage students to come on out and explore some of the cool new inventory, like the 6-foot latex Touchdown replicas we just got in,” said General Manager Glen Vlasic. 

Like elves in Santa’s workshop, store employees have been prepping for the promotion all week, dusting cobwebs off the St. Patrick’s Day merch and covering it with Go Green! stickers in hopes of a sale. 

“The focus groups are always getting on our case about ‘No one wants a blow up Earth Warrior Touchdown the Bear’ and ‘Inflatable Eco-Prince Touchdown is going to junk up the landfills,’” said Glen Vlasic, general manager. “Well I ordered 20,000 of them, so if you’re so mad, why don’t you come save them from their dumpster death, huh?”

Student activists are determined to intercept before the merchandise makes its way to the Pacific Ocean. Paul Ridley ‘25 was seen leaving the store with a ‘Proud Papa Bear’ mackintosh. “I couldn’t bear to think of the turtles choking on this,” said Ridley, holding his purchase at arm’s length. 

For the concerned treehuggers who can’t make it out today, don’t worry: It’s not too late to beat the garbage truck before next week’s rounds. As per custom, all merchandise will be conveniently vacated to the dumpsters behind the Cornell Store.

Eco-Conscious Student Kicks Beer Can Under Bench

LIBE SLOPE—In a massive Earth Day victory for campus sustainability groups, local student and environmental warrior Devin Carmichael ‘24 helped save the planet by heroically kicking an empty beer can out of a walkway.

“I have a friend who’s an Environment and Sustainability major, so I’ve always been pretty attuned to issues with nature and stuff,” said Carmichael while filling his Jeep Grand Cherokee. “I wasn’t gonna let that can just sit in the middle of the path. Once I took a look and confirmed it was empty, I did what any student who wants to save the planet would do and nudged it over to some bushes.”

Carmichael, a CS major and avid blockchain enthusiast, has had little prior engagement with environmental coalitions on campus. Advocates for these groups suggest actions such as Carmichael’s reflect a rising tide of awareness and concern for sustainability initiatives.

“While Devin displayed some true determination and environmental consciousness with his profound efforts, such heroic deeds are only becoming more frequent,” said Monica Melendez ‘22, leader of Renewable Energy Cornell. “Just the other day I saw another student toss a plastic water bottle into a trash bin instead of leaving it on the ground somewhere. It’s these kinds of inspiring moments that give me hope that our generation will be the one to overcome environmental destruction.”

By press time, Cornell trustees had already decided to take advantage of the media uproar surrounding Carmichael’s activism by quietly investing in even more fossil fuels.

Ithaca Landlords Agree to Rent Freeze After Realizing “We Are All Tenants on this Beautiful Planet Called Earth”

COLLEGETOWN—In a public broadcast delivered via megaphone from the roof of Ithaca Renting Company, representatives of the Lambrou, Avramis, and O’Connor apartments announced their stunning support for a Collegetown rent freeze, after coming to the realization that “We are all tenants on this beautiful planet called Earth.”

“We have, all of us, been led astray for too long,” said a representative of 312 College Avenue. “For at our core, we are all tenants of this special rock we call home, this Pale Blue Dot.” The congregation of visibly reverent landlords continued to remind onlookers that “Every sunrise, every flower, every flake of falling snow, is a gift from mother Earth, who all of us were so very wrong to ever think we could ‘own.’”

The leaders of Collegetown’s primary rental offices apparently came to the realization during a recent Landlord Association of Tompkins County meeting, when a screening of “Resisting the Residents: How To Avoid Pesky Renter Requests” was mistakenly replaced with “The Lorax.” The film’s powerful message of the importance and sanctity of nature quickly won over the assembled landlords, causing local landlord Bill Avramis to shed one solemn, solitary tear. 

The landlords also announced that “they’d be sending someone over to install solar panels on the roofs of all properties,” but failed to provide a comment on whether there’d be any update on fixing the washing machines that have been busted for the last two weeks.