The National Teach-In provided a forum for professors and students to have a dialogue about global warming. The conversation was geared not only toward promoting awareness, but to propose actions that individuals and the campus as a whole can take to combat climate change.
Robert Turner, professor of economics and environmental studies, and Ian Helfant, associate professor of Russian, gave a lecture titled “Colgate: Where do we stand? What should we do?” It was one of more than a dozen sessions held on campus Thursday.
Turner and Helfant are members of the Environmental Council, a group of faculty, staff, and students charged with analyzing and advocating projects to improve environmental sustainability at Colgate.
The professors explained in their lecture that the three big areas of greenhouse gas emissions on campus are heating, electricity use, and transportation.
Turner said there is not a real motivation to curtail electricity usage on campus because the cost per kilowatt hour is very low. But he added that most of the electricity comes from hydropower, which helps keep CO2 emissions low.
Colgate employs a wood-chip-burning heating plant using local waste wood chips to provide steam heat to the majority of campus. By burning 20,000 tons of wood chips (a renewable, carbon neutral resource) annually, Colgate avoids consuming the equivalent of 1,000,000 gallons of fuel oil each year.
A task force organized by the Student Government Association is looking into various transportation options, including improving the operations of the Cruiser bus-shuttle system and exploring biofuel options, as well as creating a usable ride-sharing system.
SGA has several task forces that are part of its campus carbon neutral campaign.
“It’s finally come to the point that people realize that our current consumption is not sustainable. We need to do something to change this,'” said Christov Churchward ’10, who gave a presentation on Thursday titled “Opportunities for student involvement and political action.”
The National Teach-In was part of the 13 Days of Green, a series of campus environmental events leading up to the eighth annual Green Summit on Friday, Feb. 13.
After attending several lectures and discussions, Megan Cronin ’10 said she felt motivated to join in the environmental efforts on campus.
“The National Teach-In made me think that there can be a vehicle for change and that I need to get behind it,” she said.
Cronin will be attending Power Shift 2009, a student rally on Capitol Hill demanding government action on climate change. With nearly 50 students signed up to attend, Colgate is expected to have one of the larger groups attending the Feb. 27 event.