Rules for Radicals and John McCain

Senator John McCain wrote a letter to my father today. No, my dads not a big shot in politics - it was a mass mailing - he mailed all registered republicans. My father feels that voting in the republican primary for our state and national districts is more influential than the national presidential primaries, thus he gets republican mailings from time to time.

The short and well written letter was a call to action to support the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship and Innovation act. John McCain, the fairly well respected republican senator, is supporting US action on global warming. From the linked summary, the bill looks good. We'll see where it goes.

I just finished reading Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. It was great, a real handbook for getting large groups of people excited for change. I'd really recommend it. One comment that I'd like to make: Mr. Alinsky spent his life travelling from one issue to another. Civil rights to housing disputes to labor organization to anti-war protests to stopping pollution. He did it all, and he did it all very well and he never tied himself down with one issue. But in the closing remarks in his book he talks about the world he would like to see. That world is a world where the little guy has rights which are respected, where people who have power will always be held accountable for their actions and where the political will of the people is not manipulated in Washington.

Maybe I'm way too optimistic, but I'd like to think that if he lived 30 years later he would have taken a special interest in the issue of climate change. It seems that dealing with climate change will require many of the huge issues to be solved. The people who will suffer because of global warming are the Have-nots, as he would say. They need to convey their dissatisfaction with the wrongs inflicted on them to the Haves who make decisions. That is the only way the issue will ever be grappled with. But In order to do that, in order for the wronged masses wrongs to be righted, many things have to change. People say accountability is the biggest change that has to be made in our culture, because right now we have a society that specializes in displacing effects from actions. That is the nature of the global political-economy. So Mr. Alinsky, if your dream is to secure a better world for the little guys, the have-nots, then this is it. Global warming may only be one of many impending dooms awaiting the worlds poor, but it is unique among those possible dooms because its solution will a) benefit everyone, even businesses, and b) change the culture of exploitation into a culture of respect and balance.


A few other things: I spoke to the 11th and 12th graders of Keene Central School today about global warming. I wasn't the funniest or most animated speaker, but I did make an impression. The talks focused heavily on what students can do, and most important along those lines was forming a group (or using an existing one) to advocate and plan.

Second thing: I ran today, on the ski trails here. It was depressing. Running in shorts is not a correct way to spend the winter solstice in the Adirondacks.

Working on Outreach

Today I stopped by Keene Central School, my alma matter, to see a few teachers about global warming. I went with the intention of asking for class time this week to talk to students and help start some sort of climate action. I was surprised at how eager my teachers were to do it! My old English teacher and history teacher were all I needed to talk to, and in about 20 minutes I had class periods lined up with 10th, 11th and 12th graders, for either 45 minutes of 1 1/2 hours. Now its time to work on my powerpoint and look up a few facts about climate change in the north country and how it will affect hunting, fishing, snowmobiling and other 'local' activities.

Ephblog

I have just become an author of ephblog. For those of you who don't know, its a blog kept by an alumni, David Kane, and written by several alumni, professors and current students covering 'all things eph'. Its readership is decent and I plan on posting occaisionaly update on our activities and perhaps a few of my more thought-out opinions. Kane, the main contributor to the site, will probably be skeptical or outright opposed to much of what I have to say. This is fine, but I would appreciate comments from friendly readers like yourselves as well.

The Endowment

Is it possible to try and influence how the endowment as a whole is invested?
John Chandler, writing as president of Williams College, asserted that "As an investor Williams is in some measure responsible for the behavior of the companies in which it invests." link And "...the College through its Trustees has a right to expect companies in which it owns shares to follow business policies and practices in their foreign and domestic operations that are broadly consistent with the moral and social ideals of American society."

Of course we do have the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility which has student input on proxy voting and does research on companies, but it certainly isn't a tool for big change.

There is also a very small Williams Social Choice Fund which was met with mixed reviews by David Kane. The full story of that fund's creation can be found here.

As Mark Orlowski '04 says, "We seek to advance the alignment of shareholder practices with educational missions". link

Is this an area we could work for meaningful change, or is this a dead end of financial conservativeness?

Graduate Pledge Alliance

A few schools have started a simple program called the Graduate Pledge Alliance. From the Boston University student environmental website:

ESO has recently brought the Graduate Pledge Alliance (GPA) to BU! GPA is a non-binding pledge made by graduating seniors stating that they will take the environment into consideration in whatever job they take in the workforce. GPA seniors wear a green armband during graduation ceremonies in order to distinguish themselves. Their commitment means that no matter what field these seniors go into, they will work to make their organization more environment-friendly. BU is in good company on this initiative. MIT and Harvard's GPA movements are already in full swing. BU's students finally have the opportunity to show the administration and the rest of the academic community that we are committed to a sustainable future!

Other Schools include: Penn State, Tufts, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Harvard, Middlebury, U of Massachussets, U of Michigan, and more, totalling about 100. Visit www.graduatepledge.org for more.

This might be something Williams could do fairly easily, but then again we need to weigh it against other projects that we wish to bring up to the college.

CAC

From the Daily Messages:

CAC to make greenhouse gas emissions recommendations in January
Last spring, President Schapiro created the Climate Action Committee to recommend by the end of the calendar year a goal for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and ways to attain that goal. We estimate that it will take approximately one month longer than expected to complete our work.

Last spring, President Schapiro created the Climate Action Committee and charged its members to recommend by the end of the calendar year a goal for the reduction of College greenhouse gas emissions and ways to attain that goal. We have spent the past six months engaged in a study of the various aspects of this complex issue and are working on a final draft of the plan for internal review. Consequently, we now plan to release our recommendations by the end of January. The Committee is very grateful for your interest and patience. from Stephanie Boyd, Facilities

On a totally different note, vegetarians are smarter

Al Gore in Great Barrington

I saw Al Gore speak last night in Great Barrington. Prof. Singham got us two tickets to the press conference as well as the talk and I got to ask the first question: "What is your plan for the next 5 years? Are you going to keep being an educator or is there some program that you plan on pursuing to be even more effective?" He answered, "I don't have any special or different plans, I'm going to keep doing what I do because I think its working and its important. I will keep up my international activities of advising national governments and just trying to make changes where I can."

Yes, he was a little stiff in his movements even as he eagerly sat on the edge of his chair, but as he warmed up, the power of his oration overcame anything noticeable about his demeanor. I've never been so impressed with an orator. Its very rare to listen to someone talk and know that reading the same words just wouldn't have the same effect. The way he jumped from point to point, citing statistics and anecdotes, quotes and jokes led the audience with him on every point. He gave a short talk and then answered written questions from the audience, but even through his answers, which did answer the questions, the momentum and drive of his talk continued so that the climax to the talk came not at the end of the talk but in the answer to the last question.

Good Points

If we are going to solve the climate crisis we need to solve the democracy crisis first. American democracy came from the enlightenment when men believed facts and reason should rule. It was threatened this century by the ideologies of modernity - fascism and totalitarian-communism, and luckily we triumphed. But the enlightenment ideals are under attack again, not from ideology but from a regime of economic consumerism. It is based on the mindless, one-way nature of television (the primary source of America's information about the world). Big-money controlled television allows us to drown out facts and reason with inanity which leads decisions to be made on false opinion rather than reality. At the time congress voted to go to war in Iraq, 77% of the American public believed Saddam Hussein was the person most responsible for the 9-11 attacks. This is a false opinion which was supported by big money interests. Its not that big-money hasn't influence politics before, its that its influence far exceeds any historical precedent.

We cannot rely on nuclear power to get us out of this mess. Not because of dealing with waste and not because of the chance of a meltdown, although both are real. It is because our policies will be mimicked abroad, and any country that can build a nuclear reactor can also easily build a bomb. Increasing nuclear power will significantly decrease the security of the world. And in America there hasn't been a single new nuclear plant commissioned in 33 yrs for economic reasons - the investment is so great and the payoff so long that companies don't think its worth it.

Public opinion change, like climate change is non-linear. They both can seem unchanged for a long time and then suddenly spring to life to create radical change. We are nearing a tipping point in public opinion which will be based on grassroots initiatives but quickly overwhelm the obstacles that big-money has in place. It is not a long process but a short one, a matter of years. And it will happen before it is to late to act effectively on climate change.

Where to Next?

Possibly upstaging Gore, two high school students performed a rap that they composed about global warming. Gore invited them up and it was amazing. It should be on Youtube soon, and you can bet I'll post it. I found these kids after the talk and bombarded them with questions about what sorts of actions and organization they have going on at Great Barrington High School. They said not much but they're looking to get started. I said, 'great, Williams college can help you'.

We must keep up the hard work here at Williams, but there is no denying the huge strides that need to be made in schools that have no organization and no process of change underway. We have the experience and the type of events/programs which have worked well. We are students and yet we are almost as well informed as anyone that speaks about climate change. We must spark the neighboring schools to action. Looking on the maps for focus the nation and campus climate challenge it is painfully obvious that western MA is blank. We're not doing anything and we have the power and imperative to change that.

Steve Klass on Middlebury

These are some quick excerpts from an email I received from Steve Klass when I asked him how the Middlebury trip went.

"I think their greatest achievement has been in institutionalizing the multidimensional principles of sustainability in a very complete and natural way, i.e., it's neither simply top-down (which isn't completely effective in higher ed anyway), nor is it simply a special interest/politically-charged issue...it's something that's a part of their daily lives, a part of every one's shared vocabulary, and a part of everyday decision-making, whether that's business decisions or simple daily behavior choices.

This, in a nutshell, is what I refer to when I talk about making sustainability a guiding principle of the institution. So, they are further down that road than we are and it's provided them with momentum to make decisions about co-generation, composting, engineering, etc. that require substantial resource commitments. When we're ready to make that kind of institutionalized commitment, I predict that we'll build similar momentum and other things will begin to fall into place for us over time.

The other area where they are ahead of us is in the maturity of their narrative. They've done a good job of pulling together all of the actions that they take along
these lines into a single, compelling story. I think that once we look at all the strands of activity that we have going on, we'll have a really nice initial story to tell as well. This makes me think that we're not light years behind them, and that we're positioned to be more successful over time."

Climate/environmental action on campus is as much about concerted effort as it is about presenting that effort in a prominent public way. Writing and talking about our actions is as important as doing them. (What happened to those pictures of the EARTH sculpture?!!)

Articles for today:
NYtimes Business: Why coal companies want us to take action to limit carbon
NYTimes Travel: Buying Carbon credits to offset travel impact

Today's Links

Holiday Energy Police
Christmas and global warming: we can't have one if we have the other. So turn off christmas tree lights of your neighbors and tell them they're ruining christmas.

Buying Solar Power Pays! Finally!

home owners can get a solar system installed on their house with no system purchase, no installation cost, no maintenance fees, no permit hassles, no performance worries, no rate increases, no security deposits for those who commit before the end of the year, and no risk.

Climate Action Week
Adopt a Senator and make the first week of the new congress the biggest week of climate action ever!

Burning Tires and Turning Turbines
Why can't an entire state oppose a test of burning tires as fuel (yuck!) and yet a few people can oppose testing renewable energy projects?

Harvard Commits to Reduction Goals

HARVARD STUDENTS PASS GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION REFERENDUM: 88.3% VOTE YES

Thursday night, the Harvard Election Commission announced the results of Harvard's Undergraduate Council presidential elections, which included a referendum entitled A Greener Harvard: Title II asking Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The referendum passed with 88.3% of the vote. Authored by the Environmental Action Committee (EAC), it read, I call on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to a level 11% below total emissions in 1990 by the year 2020. I pledge to do my part to realize these reductions while I am at Harvard."

This referendum is an overwhelming student mandate for Harvard to make a tangible commitment to a sustainable future by reducing its own contribution to global climate change. With this strong student directive, the EAC will ask FAS to setup a task force with student representation to work towards the 11% reduction. link

Prospect Ski Area

Quick News brief:

Prospect Ski Area, the cross country trail system near Bennington VT where the Williams-college, Mt. Anthony and Greylock Highschool teams ski is looking into ways to drastically cut back emissions and energy use.

Owner and operator Steve said he hopes to run his snow cats entirely off of bio-diesel by next year as well as looking into forms of wind power for his lodge. Sugaloaf and Sunday River Ski areas already run snow cats on bio-diesel and purchase wind power. Also the Middlebury snow bowl has gone carbon neutral by purchasing renewable energy and carbon credits for the vehicles.

note on Middlebury post

Please see the relevant wso discussion about the Middlebury post.

Middlebury Field Trip

This past weekend two vans of administrators took a trip north to tour the environmental programs of Middlebury College. The trip was initiated by Dave Dethier in Geosciences. His comments on the trip are as follows:

They saw what I wanted Middlebury to show us and heard that it was ok to experiment, calculate building paybacks for long-term, use LEED even if they didn't believe in the "medallion" cuz it was an easy target for fundraising, think about the total built area of the campus, etc...and on a budget far less than ours. We saw architecturally beautiful, high-tech buildings of all sorts and scales and heard that each one built on the learning that came with the previous building, etc. We talked at length to the wood-chip plant VP--it is still a work in progress--and were amazed at their recycling system (loses $) and composting (gains the bucks back). Most of all, I was again impressed with the top-down commitment to sustainability and to helping the local economy.

A quick talk with Bob Volpi, director of Dining Services, today also confirmed that the composting there is very impressive and they are interested here in learning from it.

Another report through the grapevine from Stephen Klass, VP of operations at Williams, was a general observation that Middlebury isn't nearly as far 'ahead' of us as we had been thinking and possibly a year of concentrated effort could bring the Williams campus up to the level of environmental action as them. As an addendum to that, Williams should be much more vocal about the things that we do do and get more credit instead of being so subtle.

Memes

Are memes real? Do you want to find out what they actually do, and if there's anything behind the hype? Then make a quick post with this link in your blog.

Visit with Mitchell Thomashow

Mitchell Thomashow was at Williams yesterday talking about inspiring a sense of wonder in the world around us and how that makes people start to care about the environment and climate change. His book is called Bringing the Biosphere Home.

From his talk, a few things were brought home to me. Our education does not teach kids about space and time. We don't learn what a million means, when the ice ages were compared to the dinosaurs, and how to conceive of how many people and species there are on earth. In part this is because these concepts are culturally very new. It was only 150 years ago that people began to think of evolution, think that the earth was more than 6000 years old, and some people still don't think that way. That change in thinking hasn't come down to the basic levels of education.

Just as we don't learn how to think of very large numbers, we also learn nothing about the immediate world. How many people know off the top of their heads what species live in their nearby woods, which birds migrate through, when the next full moon is, where our water comes from or what the place looked like before European settlement? If we are not aware of what is around us, how can we possibly be concerned when these things change?

But people live indoor lives and for some it is not feasible to get outside enough to really learn about it. But indoors are also unique environments which we know little about. There is just as much to learn about buildings as backyards. Where does our electricity come from? Our heat? Our disposable products? Where does it all go? How much head escapes through leaky windows as opposed to constantly opening doors as opposed to too little insulation in the ceiling? Again, if we are not aware of these things, then how can we care about what happens to them?

We can make that information part of how we build buildings. They should be accessible to learning in such ways that casual users can know how they work. Maybe it's just a plaque near the front door with some basic numbers, or maybe its glass doors around the mechanical rooms, or maybe manual controls for ventilation and instructions on how much ventilation is needed for certain numbers of occupants. In many ways we are talking about putting the controls in the hands of people, and it is possible that it can lead to wasteful practices like leaving everything on. But there is no shortage of waste in the way it currently works. What there is a shortage of is wonder and awareness of what is going on in front of our eyes.