Update from Argentina

Peter Nunns, studying in Argentina, writes:

Morgan:

Yesterday, we visited San Carlos, a rural community in the northwest Salta province of Argentina. I got a chance to talk at reasonable length with a local pimento farmer - it's a fairly arid and sunny region in the summer, and so a fair amount of water is needed for the crops.

What's been happening, though, is that the rainfall has been decreasing for 4 or 5 years in a row. The plants this season are maybe a half or a third as large as they usually are - as water has to be transported quite a distance (30 kilometers, I think) if it's not falling from the sky.

The economic effect of this is fairly huge, too. They get around 3 pesos (1USD) for a kilo of dried and powdered pimentos. (Which then sells for 5 pesos in Buenos Aires - the good old intermediary effect.) And generally, it takes around 100 kilos of fresh produce to make 20 kilos of final product. (Which is delicious, by the way.)

With the usual amount of rainfall, they get around 2-3,000 kilos per harvest, and there are harvests every 15-20 days during the pimento season (Planted in January, last harvest in late April or May.) But the latest harvest was only 800 kilos. It's scary.

Keep saving the planet.
Peter

On a related note, I skied Tuckermans Ravine in NH this week. The popular spring skiing destination is usually full of snow until late May. This year, in late March, snow levels were the lowest I've ever seen and some runs even had bare spots.

Are these signs of global warming? No. Droughts often have 5 year cycles, 20 year cycles, 100 year cycles and so on. Bad snow years have always happened. Does global warming increase the likelihood of whether events like these? Yes. There's a distinction that's important to make. But when you know that these kinds of things are more likely to happen, then it makes you mad to see them. I know I'm mad.

Step it Up Update

I just a call from state Sen. Ben Downing's office confirming that he
will attend and speak at our event on 4/14.

Wahoo!

Jeff

This is in addition to Darlingside, Bill Moomaw and the owner of Jiminy Peak (who's installing a wind turbine on the mountain), is going to make this an amazing event, weather permitting.

I'm on vacation now, but this weekend there will be updates from the SSC climate conference at BU.

Better Publicity

This is a document produced by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. It provides a great summary of the initiatives that various campuses have adopted over the past year.

Williams is mentioned only once, regarding our divestment of companies doing business in Sudan. On a side note, we found we did not have any investment in those companies. See presidents statement here.
Middlebury has 4 mentions (commitments of higher ed., green building design, a carbon neutral ski area and a planned biomass facility) Amherst has two, (for divestment and purchasing wind power), and Bates has five (hiring a sustainability coordinator, a new envi studies program, a senior class gift of wind power, heating residences with bio-diesel and for being included in the EPA's green power leadership group.)

I asked Stephanie Boyd, director of special operations, why Williams wasn't more prominent, and she replied:

I don't think getting a mention in this publication indicates how green or not we are - just whether we have been noticed. We all recognize that one area we haven't been doing so well on is publicizing our successes.

and:

Williams has been implementing some very significant energy savings initiatives. We should work on writing up those stories and getting them in the press ( central chiller, variable frequency drives, lighting improvements, water reductions, green(er) buildings, etc.)

Econ 110: How to Save the World

So I've finally gotten around to taking econ this semester. I've been a little frustrated at times in the course because how you phrase a problem and the assumptions you make for the sake of doing our elementary calculations can twist problems out of proportion. We talked about social security in class and the terms of the discussion made me want to jump out of my chair.

However, today I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the topic for our first policy memo is, "What is the best way to deal with the problem of global warming?" (Remember, phrasing is important. Its not asking 'is it worth dealing with global warming') Quoting from the assignment,

"In your opinion, what is the best way to achieve a global reduction in CO2 emissions? For example, should countries voluntarily agree to limit the growth of emissions, as the Bush administration advocates? Or should a system of pollution taxes, or tradeable emissions permits be implemented? If the latter, should this be confined to industrialized countries only, or should it include developing countries as well?"

I'm going to save my analysis to this question for a later post, because I want to think about it some more. Right now I'm celebrating the fact that that 80 Williams students are going to have to think critically about this issue when they otherwise wouldn't have to. This is exactly the kind of academic exercise that we need so much. Maybe we'll get some new TNGers out of this, and maybe we'll come up with an amazing solution, but we'll definitely add to the general atmosphere of concern and popular expectation of action.

Morty at TNG

President Morty Schapiro made it to TNG tonight. He had a beer and chatted with us about his thoughts on carbon reduction and environmentalism. About 20 students attended to ask questions and hear about sustainability from the horses mouth, so to speak. He was open and frank, at least as much as I've seen him, and I think the students attending got a good sense of how the college is handling this.

Some highlights: the inside scoop on why the trustees were so motivated to act. Some said it was good business, some said the prestige, some said because it will attract more students, but none used the reason that Morty gave us as his personal one: because its the right thing to do. he sees the major improvements to the college coming in the forms of better co-gen, more energy efficiency in buildings and operations, moving the parking off-campus and mostly in listening to what the students want. He said the petition of 1100 signatures over a year ago had a huge impact and the climate action plan would absolutely not have happened with out it.

The group seemed good tonight, lots of first-timers and the atmosphere was really happy at the end. Another great Thursday.

Odds and Ends

Step it Up 2007 planning continued today with community members. Its going to be a cool event on April 14th in front of the Congo Church. We have Bill Moomaw, Convening Lead Author, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2001, music performances, student speakers and a few other things lined up for sure. We're also inviting various representatives, mayors and other people who would be important enough to mention when we know who they are. This planning is being done with the religious community, Mt. Greylock, Williams students and others. The highlight will probably be a 30' tall graph of carbon levels in the atmosphere which will extend up the church steeple.

Williams president Morty Schapiro will be at Thursday Night Group this week. He agreed to come and talk about what it means for Williams to commit to carbon reduction and talk with all of us about our goals and plans. This should be a great avenue to get new members excited about TNG and really broaden our efforts.

A meeting with security this morning might yield a partial parking/student driving solution. We talked about creating a 'long-term' type lot intended for students who only use their cars a few times a semester. The rate might be lower in this lot and thus encourage students to park there to save some money. They would then be a lot less likely to use their car to get around campus. Of course this isn't fool-proof since plenty of students won't mind paying more to have a better chance of getting a good spot next to their dorm. Who knows.

We thought of some new ideas yesterday at a tele-conference during Berkely climate activists. Tell first years they can't have fridges! We tell them they can't have candles or toasters, so why not these energy hogs? Create a 'green' co-op as a demonstration. Send a 'real-life' energy bill to all seniors, showing them what they will be paying for power once they graduate. And already on the agenda but now more than ever will be discussions with the tour-guides and campus life to align the institutions goals with these basic contacts incoming students have with the school.

Stay tuned for updates from our evening with Morty!

Political Party?

What would it mean to have a political party within the student body at Williams? And do we already?

Aroop Mukharji and Richard McDowell note in their record op-ed last week, that campus politics would be more competitive and meaningful if there were political parties within the student body. This got me thinking that maybe we already have one.

Environmentalists at Williams, broadly defined, have a strong presence outside of our own groups. We are a special interest which lobbies for our goals within building projects, college operations, student life and academics. We even successfully lobbied for a major change to college policy, the sustainability initiative. But what does our loose organization look like within campus politics?

Well, lets look at the recent CC elections. Kimbo and I won with sustainability as part of our platform, and my very visible involvement in these issues means my election hopefully represents some approval of the student body of the need for action. Two other elected candidates for all-campus positions, Remmington Shepard and Lizzy Brickley, are both devoted Thursday Night Groupers, (our weekly climate action group) and included sustainability as part of their platform. In addition, many members of student-faculty committees have included environmental concerns in their self-noms. This year I certainly plan on encouraging many motivated and qualified 'green' ephs to apply or run for the major committees, such as CPR, CEP, CUL, Lectures. These are all actions that would be taken by a political party, if one were to exist at Williams.

Does that make us a party? Would we gain anything if we called ourselves one? And would anyone care? I'm curios.

The Life of a Climate Activist

My last post talked about the goals of the movement at Williams right now. I thought this might be a good time to jot down what I've been up to this week, both for my sake to keep in mind how everything is going, and for those interested in what kinds of things I actually do. Sorry its long, but that's what the scroll button's for.

Working backwards, I checked itsgettinghotinhere.org for the umptienth time this week to see what news and inspiration there was. This visit led me to treehugger.com where I voted on a number of videos as part of a video contest. This afternoon I had coffee with Kate Merrigan who is organizing a county youth conference. I agreed to lead the workshop on environmentalism and sustainability, even though it will mean rescheduling a tutorial, because the chance to inspire a bunch of bright-eyed high school students is too good to pass up.

Last night was Thursday Night Group, arguably the best student group on campus. The meeting started off slowly, but people filtered in slowly and we got down to having a productive meeting, talking about planning high school visits, influencing the curriculum for Focus the Nation and planning the spring Do It In The Dark. We also had Lauren stop by from MassPIRG to introduce herself and talk about what MCLA and BCC students are working on. We pitched MassPIRG jobs as well as the LUCE grant jobs and the upcoming Boston Climate Summit (sign up for any of those!).

Earlier that day, in between finishing a late paper and running between meetings I finally got access to itsgettinghotinhere.org and published a post that I had prepared earlier for that, see here. I was a little nervous and excited about posting this, since the site is read by over 4,000 people daily.

In between blog posts and meetings on Thursday, I filled out an application for summer funding from the OCC to work in Concord, NH this summer on the presidential primary with a bunch of Middlebury and Dartmouth students. Hopefully they'll give me 3,200.

Wednesday I had an interview with my CC co-president, Kim Dacres, on WCFM with Nathan Friend. He asked us lots of questions about our goals for the year, one of which is absolutely sustainability. I said one of the most important things that I'm doing is simply being elected, showing that an activist can become the president of the mainstream student government - climate change is an issue for everyone, not just environmentalists. But I also hope that the CC position will give us more leverage and insight into making changes at school. For example, earlier that day I had lunch with the dean of the college, Dean Roseman, and we talked about how to reduce student driving on campus.

Tuesday we had lunch with Stephanie Boyd, unofficial sustainability coordinator. She wanted to hear about the various projects we're working on and stay in regular communication. Tuesday evening was Greensense, always a nice relaxing evening. We were planning earth day's water challenge activities. And Monday I met with Sara, Justin and Adrian to talk long-term planning, which was the subject of my last post. Then, Monday evening I listened in on a phone training about working with the media and writing good press releases. Useful for sure.

With a quick glance at my sent email for this week I can see arranging coffee, getting ighih blog access and summer funding, a request for someone to lead an environmentally focused college tour for prospective students. There are requests from students about CFLs, planning for Step it Up 2007 with the Congregational Church, a panel that I can't serve on during spring break, updates from the Youth Environmental Squad at Mt. Greylock high school.

So its been a busy week, but not any busier than usual. Just thought I'd write a bit of this down so it feels like I've done a lot.