Step It Up and COOL committee CFL Exchange

Sorry this is long. These are two press releases about town events.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

MEDIA CONTACT: Rev. Carrie Bail, Rabbi Jeff Goldwasser
First Congregational Church, Williamstown
Congregation Beth Israel, North Adams
Rev.cbail@verizon.net
Rabbi@cbiweb.org

458-4273

STEP IT UP RALLY FOR ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

A rally for action on climate change will be held on Saturday, April 14 from noon to 2PM, on the front steps of First Congregational Church in Williamstown. This event is part of a national day of action, Step It Up (see stepitup2007.org), organized by climate change scholar and activist Bill McKibben. Local actions will be held in iconic places such as levees in New Orleans, melting glaciers on Mt. Rainier, underwater on Key West's endangered coral reefs, and even in Williamstown, on the steps of a New England church. Over 1,100 events like these will send the message “Step it up Congress, cut carbon 80% by 2050". At least six of these events will be held in Berkshire County.

Climate change is a moral issue as our world is faced with human-caused changes that will harm millions, especially the world’s poorest and most vulnerable., and local clergy have chosen to take a strong stand on the issue. Rev. Carrie Bail, Rabbi Jeff Goldwasser, and Chaplain Rick Spalding will speak. Other speakers include Senator Ben Downing, Jiminy Peak CEO Brian Fairbanks, Williamstown selectman Jane Allen, MGRHS senior Rachel Payne, Tufts University Professor Bill Moomaw, and Chuck MacNeil from Berkshire Regional Transit Authority.

The façade of the church will be decorated to illustrate a graph of the dramatic spike in carbon emissions in the last hundred years— with the final point extending 60 feet to the church’s steeple. The event will feature music by student performers from Williams College and Mount Greylock Regional High School, and opportunities for people to take action to fight climate change. Actions include: purchase energy efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs, sign up for green energy, take a pledge to reduce carbon emissions, and sign up for climate change study groups sponsored by the Northwest Earth Institute that will meet for 4 weeks beginning the last week in April. Water St. Books will have a table selling relevant books. Food will be available for purchase at the rally from Spring St. business Ephorium.

People are encouraged to bike, carpool, or take the bus to the event. Thanks to Berkshire Regional Transit Authority, free bus service will be available from North Adams to and from the rally. You may contact First Congregational Church in North Adams at 663-9940 to arrange for passes for yourself or your organization. People may park in the lower Stetson lot at Williams College, or at the Williamstown Elementary School lot and walk to the rally. In case of rain, the event will take place inside the Church.


*****************

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Wendy Penner
Williamstown COOL Committee
458-4708
wendypenner@hotmail.com

"WILLIAMSTOWN LIGHTS THE WAY" ENERGY EFFICIENT LIGHTING CAMPAIGN LAUCHES WITH FREE LIGHTBULB COUPON AND EVENTS THROUGHOUT THE MONTH. GOAL: INSTALL 15,000 BULBS IN WILLIAMSTOWN RESIDENCES

On April 7, the Williamstown COOL (CO2 Lowering) Committee is launching an efficient lighting campaign –“Williamstown Lights the Way” – aimed at encouraging residents to switch to energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFL’s. The campaign will include information and coupons to encourage Williamstown residents to install CFLs in their homes. To fight global warming, Williamstown has pledged to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent by 2010. To help meet this goal, the town’s Climate Action Plan calls for every household to install at least five CFL’s, for a total goal of nearly 15,000 bulbs.

Electricity production is a major source of CO2, producing nearly 40 percent of the U.S.’s total, so switching to more energy efficient bulbs is a simple way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If every household in Williamstown switches five ordinary incandescent bulbs to CFL’s, it is estimated that this will prevent nearly 7.5 million pounds of CO2 emissions each year, the equivalent of taking over 600 cars off the road.

CFL’s use a quarter of the electricity to generate the same amount of light. In recent years, the cost of CFL’s has come down considerably – some CFL’s cost as little as 79 cents – and the quality of the light has also improved. Because the bulbs contain a small amount of mercury, they should be disposed of safely. They are accepted for disposal at no cost at the Williamstown Transfer Station.

The coupons can be redeemed beginning on Saturday, April 7th at Aubuchon Hardware on route 2 in Williamstown. Also on April 7th, members of the COOL Committee will be at the Williamstown Elementary School pancake breakfast and camp fair beginning at 9 AM with a display of compact fluorescent bulbs, information about lighting, and a stationary bike people may pedal to power a conventional and an incandescent bulb.

The campaign continues on April 14 at the Step It Up Climate Change rally on the front steps of First congregational Church in Williamstown from 12-2. COOL committee members will be on-hand with CFL’s and educational materials. On April 21st, people may stop by The Mountain Goat in Williamstown to try their pedal power with the bike, and pick up their CFL coupon. On April 28th, the bike will be at the Milne Public Library where bulbs will be on-hand for purchase.

The free- CFL coupons will be distributed through the elementary school, and at Milne Public Library where residents can view an educational display featuring different styles of CFLs. Coupons are also available at Town Hall, Williamstown Savings Bank, The Mountain Goat, and Wild Oats Community Market. Coupons may also be printed from www.williamstown.net/cool.htm. The coupons can be redeemed for one free Maxlite bulb, available in two sizes: 15 watts, which gives off the same amount of light as an ordinary 60 watt bulb, and 20 watts, equivalent to an ordinary 75-watt bulb. The coupons are valid only at Aubuchon in Williamstown, beginning April 7, 2007 until May 12, or while supplies last.

The lighting campaign had an unofficial start with a sale of about 1,600 CFLs by 6th graders at Williamstown Elementary School. This event was sponsored by Aubuchon Hardware and raised over $1,500 toward the 6th grade’s trip to Cape Cod in June.

Most CFLs cannot be used with dimmer switches. For use with a 3-way fixture, only a 3-way CFL bulb should be used, which are also available at Aubuchon. Other specialty lighting fixtures such as dimmable and regular floodlights, globe style lights, aand chandelier bulbs are also available as CFLs, from Home Depot or at the Energy Federation Incorporated website. A 10% discount is available when you access this website at www.energyfederation.org/cet and enter promotion code CET10.

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.

Re-Focusing the Mission

Sometimes you just need to re-focus everything that's going on. Life has been hectically split between College Council and climate change. There are lots of actions that we've worked on talked about doing, but its good to set down what the main goals are. This comes from a frank conversation with Justin, Adrian and Sarah Gardner this afternoon about goals and plans.

This week at Thursday Night Group we will continue with three groups. The one with raising campus awareness has expressed interest in running Do It In The Dark during April. It seems this is the most visible and popular thing that we do and its important to maintain that status and message.

Another group will continue to pursue the visits to local high schools. The two visits we've done so far (link) have been hugely successful and this is a model that should be expanded. The presentation will probably undergo some editing (again, this is great), but the biggest task for this group will be setting up the contacts and schedule for each school we want to visit.

And the other group will be pushing the planning of Focus the Nation and looking for ways to integrate sustainability into the curriculum. The Focus the Nation team needs to work with professors directly and personally to ask them to teach us more about climate change as it relates to their discipline. The LUCE Grant has given us a lot of money for all sorts of work in this field, and Dave Dethier has largely let this money sit un-utilized. We need to give him a way to spend that money by paying students to work on projects of this kind.

Beyond that, are there other things that deserve to be worked on? Absolutely, Earthweek, Step it up, first days and many more are all important. Can we do them all at once? Of course not. We'll get to them.

Energy Saving Incentives

A thoughtful Record opinion entitled Invisible Incentives asks if there is a better way to encourage students to reduce dorm energy use. It is a response to an earlier piece by Rob Streicker called 'We Need To Do It All Day'.(sorry, unable to find link). Invisible Incentives argues, quite correctly I think, against Streicker's suggestion of putting student energy costs on the term bill. While this would provide an economic incentive, it would be so small in comparison to the total cost of tuition, already rarely born by students, that it would hardly have any purely economic incentive.

Is there a better way to encourage broader cooperation in energy saving across more than the estimated 30%-50% of the students who do partake? Here's one interesting idea that I found in a facebook group at Connecticut College called "I'm Saving Energy for a Kick-ass Floralia!"

The group description runs:

Concert from Conservation is a student led campaign to reduce energy use on campus.

Here’s how it works:

As a campus, if we can use below what we’ve spent the last five years, we get 25% of our savings will go towards better events at Conn. Saving the earth and making money has never been this easy.

TOP TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO:

1) Turn off everything when you leave your room.
2) Don’t open your windows to cool down when the heater is on right below.
3) Put computers in sleep mode after 15 minutes, and turn them off at night.
4) Unplug chargers, or put them on a power strip and turn it off when not in use.
5) Use CFL’s instead of incandescent bulbs for extra lighting in your room.
6) Do big loads of laundry.
7) Make sure that lights are not left on in empty spaces.
8) Encourage your teachers to reduce their energy consumption.
9) Take shorter showers, and use cold water while brushing your teeth.
10) Buy Energy Star Rated electronics.
Every little bit helps.

Eat Less Meat

This isn't news, so much as a reminder. Eating meat is more wasteful in many ways and emissions is an important one. For the full article see the Christian Science Monitor.

Researchers at the University of Chicago compared the global warming impact of meat eaters with that of vegetarians and found that the average American diet – including all food processing steps – results in the annual production of an extra 1.5 tons of CO2-equivalent (in the form of all greenhouse gases) compared to a no-meat diet. Researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin concluded that dietary changes could make more difference than trading in a standard sedan for a more efficient hybrid car, which reduces annual CO2 emissions by roughly one ton a year.

"It doesn't have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan," says Dr. Eshel, whose family raised beef cattle in Israel. "If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've already made a substantial difference."

Mr. Williams and Climate Change

My talent in the Mr. Williams pageant was juggling and talking. I don't talk very well, but I figured with a prop to make it interesting, people might listen. I guess I did a good job because I ended up winning. Yay, Mr. Williams is a climate activist. You can watch the performance on youtube.



The pageant was put on by the Hurricane Relief Coalition, a group which is going an amazing job to keep a dying issue alive. We raised over $900 with the performance from donations and the money will go towards sending students to the gulf coast during spring break to work.

Morty sits on the mantelpiece of the new Paresky center to be visible to as many people as possible during the opening of the building. Many people have been asking me what sort of green features the new student center on campus has. Here is an official answer, a page on the green features of Paresky.

The page addresses lighting, heating/cooling, recycling of the old building, materials used in the new building and even the cleaning materials used by the custodians. Maybe most significant are the insulation ratings:

Insulation: The Paresky Center is very well insulated. It has R values as high as R25 in the walls and R72 in the roof; Massachusetts Code requires only R2 in walls and R15 in roofs. A highly insulated building retains more heat in the winter and stays cooler in the summer, and thus requires less energy to heat or cool.

Sitting in front of Paresky is the newly finished CFL sculpture. The five foot tall replica of a light bulb was made by Whitney and Cooper out of the incandescent bulbs collected through the CFL exchange. If the sculpture really used the 1000 bulbs that we had at that point, the materials making up the structure alone would represent $8000 that the college wouldn't have to spend this year on electricity costs. And we do this stuff for free!

Morty Saving the World

The eight foot tall cut out of Morty holding up the globe is now prominently displayed in Goodrich hall. Thursday Night Group members are tabling there and in the dining halls all week as part of the week of action.

Yesterday the "Amherst Blows Greenhouse Gases" T-shirts debuted, for sale at $10 each. They are available in the dining halls. Furthermore, in Mission dining hall alone, 200 signatures were collected on a pledge to reduce energy use in dorm rooms. These people will get a bright sign taped to their door which lets their friends know they save energy.

Other events this week include a 'taste test' where you can compare CFL to incandescent bulbs in Goodrich, Schow and Sawyer. We have two nights of unplugged music in Dodd living room and the dining halls. Yesterday two students ran into each of the dining halls, dressed as a coal plant and a wind turbine respectively. They shouted at each other, got in a fight, and the coal plant lost while the diners watched with slack jaws.

When Morty emailed the campus about the new sustainability initiative, the overwhelming response was, "what does that mean?" Our goal with this week of action is to let people know what that means and what they can do to help.

Week of Action

This week is going to be huge. Thursday Night Group has put together a bunch of exciting events to really get the word out about the sustainability initiative. President Schapiro emailed the whole campus, and the overwhelming response has been, "what does it mean?"

That's where we come in, the foot soldiers of the movement. We're going to be visible to every student on campus, answering questions, catching eyes and getting people to talk about sustainability.

Here’s the schedule for the week:

MONDAY

Posters need to be hung up
The fight over clean energy - Smokestack fighting windmill (in dining halls during dinner)
Cut out of Morty holding up the world in Goodrich

Tuesday

On going light bulb “taste taste” in Sawyer/Schow
Potentially Noah’s art opening in Schow
Potentially Adriann’s prints in Schow (we’ll keep you posted)

Wednesday

Valentine’s day posters need to be put up
UNPLUGGED: Live music and coffee in Dodd, 7-9

Thursday

Unplugged 2: Live music in the dining halls brought to you by Dining Services
Dessert and contradance, Dodd living room 6-8
TNG, 10pm in Dodd

Friday

Winter carnival begins, Baxter opens
CFL Sculpture unveiled on Baxter lawn
That’s all for now. More to come.

Coming Attractions

Guster is playing the spring concert at Williams as part of the Campus Consciousness Tour, posts Mark Orlowski, '04. On April 26th Guster and their entourage will do an afternoon of fun and educational events for the campus, like showing off their bio-diesel bus, explaining how they power their concerts with wind power, and doing workshops for students. Then they get to perform and give occaisional 'shout-outs' to various environmental causes.

And who can we thank for this amazing opportunity? ACE concerts of course, and you can be sure they're going to get a very warm thanks from all of us climate activists.

See the video from their tour last year:

What's in a Name?

This blog is an ongoing project to share the successes and issues of the climate movement at Williams to students here and people doing similar things at other schools. In light of that, the old name didn't seem to fit. It did express some of the feeling of climate action today - we're neither in the dark ages nor very close to a sustainable world - but as far as telling a reader what its about, it didn't do much. So, who knows what sort of a change this will make, but it certainly won't be big.

Get Rich

Get rich working for the climate. Richard Branson, (the Virgin airlines/record label guy) is offering $25 million for an invention that will scrub CO2 out of the atmosphere. See article in Reuters

Also, I have 'discovered' an amazing new blog. Read the Carbon CO2alition blog for general climate change news and specifically the politics in NH. I am particularly interested because my summer plans involve working with the SSC in NH for a few months to influence the primaries in those states. So stay tuned.

College Council Presidency

In the spirit of leading the college community towards sustainability, I have announced my candidacy for College Council president. Along with my running mate, Kim Dacres, I promise to strengthen the support for student leaders on campus, work to make our campus greener and involve the student body in that process. In addition we are going to work to support club sports and re-open the discussion of multi-culturalism on campus.

There is a need for leaders who are environmentalists. We cannot limit ourselves to environmental groups when the work that needs to be done is everywhere. I encourage all of you to run for positions, apply for committees and take part in groups that are not directly involved because there is a difference to be made. There is a need for role models of progressive and meaningful action. There must be a visible face to our common goals. I don't claim to be the best face or the most qualified leader, but I am willing to put myself out there. As I think I've consistantly shown, I'm the one who will put out that energy when its needed most, and that's what I plan on doing as we continue into the future.

Visit our facebook group: facebook.com and be sure to vote on Feb 15th-16th on jose.williams.edu.

Press - The Williams Record

An editorial in the Williams Record writes about the recent high grade (A-) that our school recieved on the sustainability report card. They say:

Williams’ “A” (actually an A-) is misleading. The grading system focused on two categories: endowment practices and on-campus sustainability efforts. Williams’ endowment practices, by the SEI criteria, are superb. They are transparent (a list of investment holdings is available at the investment office) and they are responsible (the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility, including students, deliberates over investments). Williams was prepared for the endowment category of the test and aced it, proving that the College can be green when it comes to cash.

The story goes on to urge us to greater effort and not take too much credit for a report that was somewhat slanted in our favor. It ends:

Before we plug our sustainability grade, let’s unplug our personal refrigerators – those energy hogs – and screw in greener bulbs. Significantly reducing our carbon emissions will mean more than any “A” ever could.

Bravo, Record, you hit the nail on the head. For the news article on the Sustainability Report Card, see here

Focus the Nation - the Video

Yes, its worth watching.

The Onion Weighs in on Winter

Normally this blog is reserved for real news about exciting things at Williams and the student climate change movement in general. But of course there's more to life than just that. Like this recent Onion headline for instance:

Northeast Stunned By Freak January Snowfall

And goes on to note...

SYRACUSE, NY—In a rare instance of icy-cold January weather, much of the Northeast awoke Tuesday morning to find itself buried under nearly 1.5 inches of snowfall.

For the full article of this bizarre weather occurance, go to TheOnion.com

Mt. Greylock Reaches Out

The Berkshire Eagle printed a letter to the editor from a student at Mt. Greylock High School on Global Warming.

On Jan. 18, Williams College students came to my school (Mt. Greylock) to talk to us about global warming. Of course, I already know what global warming is, but I never took a good look at what the effects were. In case you haven't noticed, the weather has been getting warmer. Now some people may think, "Isn't this good? Warmer weather means more time to swim or exercise." Yes, of course that is good because a lot of us like the warmer weather and the swimming.

You can find the full article here.

News Hits

Inside Higher Ed starts of a recent article entitled The Gold Standard for Green Standards with the sentence, "Justin Bates makes the rounds on his campus carrying a sack of light bulbs. They are compact fluorescent models — the kind that use less energy than the standard incandescent ones found in many dorm rooms". Go Justin. Read the rest of the article here

A Great Day for Williams Sustainability

Two major events occured today to elevate sustainability to the forefront of Williams. The first was President Schapiro's announcement to the college of the Climate Action Plan. The trustees met this weekend to discuss and unanimously passed a plan to reduce college CO2 emissions 10% below 1990 levels (or about 50% below today's levels) by 2020. That letter can be found here

The second item was the release of the College Sustainability Report Card. The Report Card examines and grades 100 schools across the United States and Canada on criteria including climate change policies, green building, and investment practices. It was produced by the Sustainable Endowments Initiative which is run by Mark Orlowski '04. I'm not sure if his connection to Williams swayed his organization's report, but Williams was one of only 4 schools to recieve an A-, the highest grade awarded. More can be found and the full report can be downlaoded here or here

Slide Show Available

The high school slide show is available to download. You can get it by clicking on the following link:
http://www.filehosting.cc/?d=0E0D2C65. Scroll down, fill in the three numbers, wait 30 seconds and then click 'download file'. Sorry for the invonvenience, but that's what it takes to do something for free.

It takes about 40 minutes to run through and emphasizes the science and effects of climate change before moving on to the possibilities for student action individually, in their school and in politics.

Please suggest changes and corrections, since there's a lot of room for improvement.

MiddShift Inspiration

Over 120 students from the north east gathered at Middlebury College to discuss plans to shift their colleges to carbon neutrality. The weekend was held by Middlebury students working with the Sierra Student Coalition, the Campus Climate Challenge, Step It Up 2007 and Focus the Nation to inspire and educate student activists. The conference was entirely student run and many thanks go out to Middlebury students for making it all possible.

I got there late, so I missed a lot of the early talks, but the later ones I attended on education, organizing with an action plan and leapfrogging towards distant goals were all very informative. The best part might have been Saturday night, where we had dinner and hung out in the envi house. Good food and good beer was provided by Middlebury and lots of people just wanted to talk about the awesome things they were doing. It was a great way to peer into how other schools were organized and hear lots of amazing ideas. But even cooler was to feel like we were in part of a movement. The power of so many motivated people was palpable and many students said they felt like it was a life changing experience. Some compared it to the civil rights movement in its scope, ambition and support, and I would be inclined (optimistically) to agree. At the end we gathered in the middle of their science library for more snacks, greeting people and saying farewell, and of course some of Middlebury's classic climate action songs and dances.


Most of our good ideas and goals from the weekend can be found on a Willipedia page here. If you are a Williams student please edit and update this document so that we can have some unifying goals to work from.

One final thought on climate action. I admire the ambition that goes into calling something 'carbon neutral'. It means a large monetary and institutional commitment. But its also a loose term. A school might be able to become carbon neutral overnight for as little as $300,000 a year if they simply purchase enough carbon credits to offset their operation. Sort of a modern day buying-of-indulgences. Middlebury is going to use carbon offsets for a large portion of its emissions, but they are using a time frame of the next 10 years to also make other changes. The issue becomes that its not clear how much they are changing and how much they are just offsetting. They aren't just doing offsets, which means education and infrastructure changes will be important, but its not clear to the casual observer how much they can save through efficiency measures.

Why not divide it up. Offset all of Campus immediately to do our part in achieving 'carbon neutrality' and at the same time work to reduce our Campus Emission Reduction by setting goals for local cuts in energy use. With these twin strategies the school would be doing its part immediately for the larger picture while being held to very high and obvious standards of operation at home.

Mt. Greylock Climate Action

Justin Bates starts his talk on global warming in the Berkshires at Mt. Greylock High School

Thursday marked the second day of the Williams regional outreach program. Five Ephs spoke to six periods of classes and one period of lunch at Mt. Greylock High School, reaching about 250 students and inspiring the creation of an environmental club at the school. The talk was based on the slide show developed over our Winter Study class on student activism with professor Singham. The show is intended to bring up some scary and local possible effects of climate change and then turn the focus to student climate action movement. The goal is to inspire students to become leader and motivate their schools and communities to reduce energy use, seek alternative energy sources and raise awareness on the issue.

When we arrived at the school, all we had was contact with a few teachers through email and a presentation that none of them had seen. By the time we left the students had already created an environmental club, they had their first important discussions on what they wanted to work on and we had over 30 email addresses to add to our contact lists.

The class periods before lunch were led by Williams students giving the presentation for the first time, offering them a valuable, 'trial by fire' learning experience into speaking to groups of students in an engaging manner. Then the lunch discussion involved 10 students who were interested learning whether it was possible to motivate students, even Mt. Greylock students, to act on climate change. We assured these potential leaders that a very wide range of people can become invested in climate change, but they must be approached on their own terms. Not everyone will come to a meeting and table to get signatures on a petition. Rather, students interested in engineering should be engaged in installing solar panels or producing bio-diesel and students who have more talent at art or theatre can use their skills to raise awareness and reach people in a different way.

In talking to this group of students I sensed it was very important to emphasize the group aspect of climate action, and really activism in general. Acting as individuals can be extremely frustrating, and pleas to the student body as a whole are rarely effective (if only everyone did this one small thing, then...). Instead, cultivating a group with a strong sense of membership and momentum, while being inclusive and fun is the best way to expand the scope and effectiveness of student actions.

By the time we left after the last bell our table at the front was crowded by dozens of students signing up their email address and asking lots of good questions. Maybe the most rewarding part for me was giving away the last two DO IT IN THE DARK stickers. We had given them out as prizes for answering questions correctly throughout the day and they were a hot item, probably for their scandalous nature. I thought the best way to give them out was based on a quick question: "Who is going to do the best climate action in the next month?" People's hands jumped up to say things like "convince my family to switch to CFL bulbs", "write a letter to the editor of the newspaper", and "sign my school up for Focus the Nation." I couldn't have been more pleased by the energy.

Outreach

Four Williams climate action heroes drove down to Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington today. We visited four classes to present our slide show and talk about student involvement in global warming. I have given the slide show a few times, and Becca, John Dingee and Collette all took a turn of giving it themselves. The reactions were very good, especially when we gave out DO IT IN THE DARK bumper stickers to anyone who got a question right. We also had lots of props like hats, CFLs, posters and movies which kept the students entertained. The 9th and 10th graders were excellent, asking very good questions and looked very interested.


Perhaps the highlight of my day was speaking to 5 students during their lunch period about what sorts of activism they'd already started on. They have a newly formed club, and at first they said they didn't have much of a plan. But once we started talking about projects like recycling and emissions reductions they knew exactly what they were talking about and how to go about doing it. I was very impressed and could only offer a few words of encouragement. We were sure to encourage them to sign up for Focus the Nation and the Campus Climate Challenge, if only for the resources available on those websites.

Tomorrow we're off to Mt. Greylock High School right here in Williamstown. Another long day, lots more climate action heroes to inspire.

Also, check out my Op-Ed in the Record today. (awaiting link)

King and Social Justice

After the civil rights bill was passed, King turned to focus his energies on deeper problems with American society. We don't heat about these efforts as much because, I think, they are more difficult to solve and lie closer to our core cultural values. He spoke of poverty and worker's rights and criticized America's use of violence in the world. And he urged us to turn away from a consumer society to a people centered society. These two articles say all this much better than I can, so read itsgettinghotinhere.org and FAIR.

Some might say that King is often co opted by many different causes for social justice, and that is as it should be. In fact he stood for many causes and cared about deeply about them all. We have thus far applied temporary bandages (civil rights act, endangered species act, Americans with disabilities act, EPA regulations, etc) to try and fix a bleeding cut. That wound continues to bleed injustice, however indirectly. Are we going to keep adding bandages or are we going to heal the wound?

Thursdays are Wonderful

Biggest meeting yet of the Thursday Night Group Juggernaut! 35 people total showed up, with some drifting in and out to check it out, and others excited about getting involved. Some came because of Jared Diamond last night, others because they'd been meaning to for a while, and still others because their friends dragged them.

We split up into 3 groups again. The first (with Justin) is working on the climate action plan announcement, most likely set for early spring semester. There will be life-size cut-outs of Morty advocating for a cleaner climate, T-shirts that read "Amherst sucks energy (front) Amherst blows CO2 (back)", a 'get some action' party and of course posters, fliers and other information.

The second group (with Adrian) is polishing our ongoing CFL exchange. It is set to receive its second batch of 1000 bulbs and begin a comprehensive plan of notifying dorms before the exchange and then posting a sticker on all doors that have been done. This will show a dorm that everyone is involved and doing something.

The third group (with Julia/Morgan) completed its first project of our "do something" campaign with 120 color posters, printed on re-used paper that went up on campus tonight. After an exciting discussion about a pledge/bumper sticker campaign to reduce driving on campus, we opted to continue to focus on energy, which we know more about here. The project will consist of a pledge and sticker to the extent of shutting off devices when you leave your room. We're hoping to have this project coincide with the climate action plan's announcement.

Although its easy to talk about ideas for projects, TNG has been exciting thus far because of its successes (light bulbs, posters, movie showing, etc) and the ability of people to get involved easily. In most group meetings 20 people sit and listen to the same few people talk. This gets boring. For us, you're involved the moment we get going and everything you have to say or idea you have will get listened to and considered.

I was so excited about it all that I forget to get a big group picture to post here. Alas, some other time.
Happy climate action...

Progress

Two schools are lined up for Williams students to come speak. Great Barrington's Monument High School and Mt. Greylock High School are both on board, probably for next week. In addition, the superintendents of all of Berkshire county are being emailed about our offer.

For those of you who don't know, this involves going to a school to do a slide show on climate change and student activism to several classes. Then we have lunch with students interested in taking on more of a leadership role. We try and use Focus the Nation and the Campus Climate Challenge are our two action plans.

In other news, the CFL exchange is continuing as we speak. The announcement of the climate action plan is going to be heralded by public art (such as a polar bear made from incandescent lightbulbs) and big, cardboard cut-outs of Morty. Tonight a group of 8th graders from North Adams gave a presentation on global warming to a packed crowd in Griffin 6, attended by students, community members and a local senator. Later this week we'll be rolling out a poster campaign, tentatively called the 'do something' campgaign. See example below.

An Inconvenient Dinner

Friday night the Nordic ski team and friends convened in the Mission dining hall to take over the big TV from the football players. We popped in the Al Gore movie and watched it over dinner, much to the consternation of a few of our neighboring tables. Of course we asked if it was OK to change the TV first and they agreed, but some of the football players that came later weren't as happy as their friends.

While we watched we were privy to the interesting conversation going on. A few of them were trying to deny the existence of climate change, while some of their friends were a little more insist ant. The defining argument came down to "...all I know is its 60 degrees outside in January."

I'd call it a successful event. Next week I want to show Who Killed the Electric Car the same way. Perhaps more to follow.

New Dean!

The college will have a new dean, and I, for one, couldn't be happier about their choice. I know Karen a little and I think she will be very interested in making changes to the college that reflect the needs of a warming world and a more aware student body.

To the Williams Community,

I am delighted to report that, after consulting with the Faculty Steering Committee, I have offered the position of Dean of the College to Karen Merrill of the History Department and she has accepted.

Karen will take on primary responsibility for all aspects of student life on July 1 after Nancy Roseman's seven years of remarkable service as Dean. Nancy had announced earlier her intent to return to fulltime teaching and research.

In addition to Karen's distinguished work as a teacher and award-winning scholar she has administrative experience as Director of the Center for Environmental Studies. She also has served on the College's Committee on Academic Standing, the Committee on Pedagogy and Evaluation, and the Stetson-Sawyer Planning Committee.

Williams is fortunate to have someone of her ability to carry on the College's long tradition of calling on members of the faculty to fill senior administrative positions.

I hope you will join me in thanking Nancy and Karen for the important work done, and yet to come, on behalf of all Williams students.

Best regards,
M. Schapiro

In other news, Sweden, led by industrial giants such as Volvo, pledges to eliminate using fossil fuels by 2020. link

Exxon Mobile Accused of Trying to Mislead Public

The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report on Wednesday accusing Exxon Mobil of spending millions of dollars to manipulate public opinion on the seriousness of global warming.

“Many of the tactics, and even some of the same organizations and actors used by Exxon Mobil to mislead the public, draw upon the tobacco industry’s 40-year disinformation campaign,” the report said. link

Similar to the tobacco industries' publicity campaigns, this shows how willing a company is to mislead the public where its own interests are concerned. And yet oil still controls government? Where are they taking us?

Hitting the Ground Running

Winter Study is here. This year that means hardcore activism and we hit the ground running today. 12 students are signed up for our course on student activism in global warming. We come from all different experience levels, but people seem very motivated and excited to work on lots of projects that are going on. Number one will be outreach to highschools, but we'll also be working on a photo presentation from affected peoples in Scandinavia and preparing for the announcement of the Williams climate action plan. Here we go...

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.

Status Report

We're feeling very successful lately here at Williams, although we're definitely still playing catch-up with Middlebury. This Monday the Climate Action Committee presented a complete plan to the senior staff outlining how to bring Williams down to 10% below 1991 levels by 2020. Its not the ambitious goal I was hoping for, but at the same time it is a commitment of millions of dollars and institutional focus for an important and achievable goal.

We're also in the process of changing out every incandescent light on campus, a few dorms a night and today there was a large ice sculpture in front of the science library which spelled out the word E-A-R-T-H which melted slowly for all to see.

My personal work has mostly been (and will continue to be) on focus the nation and energizing a large group of climate action heroes and concerned students. For instance we have a winter study course this year dedicated to organizing that event.

It seems Middlebury is committed to becoming carbon neutral and I think that's a phenomenal goal. I know the Williams senior staff is taking a trip up there this weekend to see how it works.

What I would really like to see is something really worth doing that could be coordinated between a few schools in a way that got more than just the environmentalists involved. Maybe something revolving around a sports match or something.

But all in all its been a good week and its really nice to see hard work pay off. Now if only the Record would publish my op-ed.

Williams College Should be Carbon Neutral

I was doing some reading this week, browsing around between the NYtimes and the DrudgeReport, looking for something suitable for a few minutes of healthy procrastination, when I happened to find the Stern report. And no, before you ask, I'm not talking about Howard Stern. I'd heard the report talked about a few times by people here and in some blogs, so I figured it would be worth a closer look.

A year ago the British government, after hearing a sub-par climate report full of fluffy data, commissioned Nicholas Stern to give them the real, scientific and economic deal. According Her Majesty's Treasury website, Sir Nicholas Stern is the Head of the Government Economics Service and was delighted to present his report to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Economics of Climate Change. Now that sounded like a rather impressive resume, and surely not the idealistic environmentalist type, more like a hard headed economist, so maybe he was going to talk about the other side of climate change, the one we don't see in this liberal bubble of New England.

What does the former chief economist from the world bank advise the world to do? Cut emissions of climate changing gases by 80% by the year 2050. Globally. Not 10% below 1990 levels,which is a 'reasonable' number thrown around by liberal leaning administrations. 80% is a huge number and it might as well be 100% because we know that whatever plan we make, some things will go wrong, and as a citizen, I'd like to err on the side of caution for once.

These are the two most important things I have to say. The cost of doing nothing will be far, far higher than the cost of acting now. And, this task is not hopeless.

Williams college is not the world, although we try and be rather worldly in our aspirations. But we are a community of 3400 (total students, faculty and staff) living, breathing and lucky citizens who care very much.

We might not get involved in every issue we are aware of or not invest ourselves in justice when there's too much homework, but I believe we do care very much. We don't just care about the big picture, we care about buildings designed with as much efficiency as flashiness. We care about the status of Williams college and our coveted number one status, but not just because we do things by the book. We pride ourselves in being number one because we are the ones innovative enough to be a leader in academics, in sports, in dining and in arts. If we are given the chance to succeed and the will to commit, just as in our other fields of success, we will soon come to be leading innovators in environmental sustainability.

Why should Williams commit to being carbon neutral? Why should we invest more in the initial costs of buildings to achieve vastly lower operating costs in the future? Why should we commit ourselves even more to a local food supply? Why should we be installing solar and wind power, recovering heat from building ventilation and renovating our most energy inefficient buildings? Because we are a conservative financial institution.

We are conservative and we don't take risks with the big money. Part of not taking risks is looking at and planning for possibilities that other people might not think to look at. We need to get our geology professors into the board room to tell us what the price of oil will be in 50 years. Will it be $200 a barrel or more? Is that a possibility? Are we prepared for that, or are we going to be caught off guard just because we thought a finite resource was infinite?

Williams needs to use less energy. Our administration knows this and the ball is rolling. Its still rolling pretty slowly, but then again administrators are busy people who do an amazing job of keeping it all together. And because of that, they need congratulations and encouragement. Congratulations on being good listeners and encouragement to do things better. I wouldn't use the cliche, except the long mailing list of alumni, which we'll all be on soon enough and who pay for most of college, hear this all the time. I'm going to throw it right back at the people who make decisions, whether it be in student groups or Hopkins hall. Aim for the stars.