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
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
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.
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.
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.
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)
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?
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...
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. 
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.
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
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
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...
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.
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.
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.
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?
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!
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
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.
