US campuses make a commitment to protect environment

29 May, 2007: College campuses in the United States are once again becoming forums of social change, mainly by working to reduce global warming through lowering emission of greenhouse gases.

According to an article in The Boston Globe, colleges across America are signing The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. About 240 of them have signed the Commitment since December 2006 and the number of committed educational institutions is growing rapidly.

The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, signed by about 30 colleges in Massachusetts itself, requires schools to become climate-neutral – meaning that schools must have net-zero emission of greenhouse gases, as opposed to just lowering them.

Here is one example: If a school lowers its emissions by 90%, it must then offset the remaining 10% by investing in renewable energy, planting trees, or financing energy-efficiency projects in local public schools and housing, among other things. Each school has two years’ time to draw up a plan and set a deadline.

Different schools have set varying goals based on their situations. New York University plans to become climate-neutral by 2050, whereas Middlebury College is aiming for 2015.

In the meantime, all schools must adopt at least two ways of lowering their emissions, such as by buying Energy Star-certified products or buying at least 15% of energy consumption from renewable sources within one year.

The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment makes higher education the first sector of society to commit to becoming climate-neutral. It not only requires schools to battle global warming but also educate students about global warming and fund research for ways to reverse climate change.

The commitment, says The Boston Globe report, comes at the right time – awareness among the students about global warming is high, campuses are becoming greener, and society has largely accepted that global warming is the result of human activity. There is growing awareness that a change in government policy is not the only way to reverse global warming; apartments and on campuses too need to change ways.

Students have started making behavioral changes besides crusading for a greener campus. Students at the University of Colorado at Boulder voted to raise their student activities fee so that they could make new buildings more environmental-friendly. Northeastern University conducted a contest to find which hall could save the most energy over three weeks.

More and more citizens, including students, are becoming aware of the fact that climate change is not only an environmental issue but also a huge social, economic, and political problem, which will affect all professions.