Clean energy goes to college.There is a new wave of activism sweeping across college campuses. Student groups are coordinating efforts to reduce fossil-fuel dependency by pushing for more renewable alternatives, and putting forth specific goals for their colleges. "This is a growing movement," says Billy Parish, director of the Climate Campaign, a network of 10 student environmental organizations. "What's driving it is the Bush administration's disastrous energy policy." Some 125 schools took part in a National Day of Action last April 1. Also known as "Fossil Fools Day," the event included demonstrations promoting renewable energy Renewable energy utilizes natural resources such as sunlight, wind, tides and geothermal heat, which are naturally replenished. Renewable energy technologies range from solar power, wind power, and hydroelectricity to biomass and biofuels for transportation. and protests against Bush's energy plan. College campuses are pollution factories. A recent Yale University Yale University, at New Haven, Conn.; coeducational. Chartered as a collegiate school for men in 1701 largely as a result of the efforts of James Pierpont, it opened at Killingworth (now Clinton) in 1702, moved (1707) to Saybrook (now Old Saybrook), and in 1716 was study reports that the school emits more greenhouse gases than 32 developing countries. Some 84 percent of Yale's emissions come from on campus power plants. Students are bringing the energy protests home. At Temple University in Philadelphia, students are rallying behind wind power, recently passing a resolution expressing willingness to pay Willingness to pay (WTP) generally refers to the value of a good to a person as what they are willing to pay, sacrifice or exchange for it. See also
Sarah Hammond Creighton, author of Greening the Ivory Tower ivory tower n. A place or attitude of retreat, especially preoccupation with lofty, remote, or intellectual considerations rather than practical everyday life. , is leading the Tufts University Tufts University, main campus at Medford, Mass.; coeducational; chartered 1852 by Universalists as a college for men. It became a university in 1955. Jackson College, formerly a coordinate undergraduate college for women, merged with the College of Liberal Arts in Climate Initiative. In 1999, the Tufts campus pledged to meet or exceed the Kyoto Treaty goals of reducing carbon dioxide carbon dioxide, chemical compound, CO2, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is about one and one-half times as dense as air under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. emissions. In 2002, the campus began work on a residence hall incorporating energy efficiency and photo-voltaic electricity. Tufts has also joined the Zipcar car-sharing program, and purchased four electric cars. Environmental groups at Columbia University have joined forces to create the CU Green Umbrella. Goals include pressuring the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of state legislature to cap carbon emissions, and convincing the university to make more socially responsible investments. "Building a solid activist community will guarantee tangible results," says Columbia student Anjana Sharma. "We need to make changes now, instead of doing it when we have no other choice." CONTACT: The Climate Campaign, (203)887-7225, www.climate campaign.org. |
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