by Brandon Rhodes

In the wake of a fallout in national action on global warming, localities ranging from cities and counties to college campuses are taking responsibility to confront the crisis.  Without courage to take action among national leadership, solutions to this global problem are becoming local: city busses are converting to electric-hybrid engines and biodiesel fuel, bicycle lanes are being painted, and public lands are getting more trees; colleges are switching to wind power, serving local food, and retrofitting their buildings to be more energy-efficient.  And families are using less electricity and carpooling.  These groups and institutions are becoming compliant with the Kyoto Protocol, regardless of whether our country as a whole does.

Together, we can stop global warming.  The following stories are far from isolated, and represent countless local efforts to better steward God’s creation by taking responsibility for global warming.  Because much of Restoring Eden’s work is with college campuses, we decided to focus on initiatives in similar contexts.  But the lessons of these stories can also be applied to our churches, businesses, towns, and homes. 

Campus Case Studies
At the front of this movement has been the story of Lewis & Clark College.  Because of the leadership of a few students who recognized the danger of global warming, in 2003 they persuaded LCC to become fully Kyoto-compliant.  That is, the college reduced its CO2 emissions to 7% below 1990 levels.  Between 1990 and 2002, however, the college’s electricity use had increased 20% and C02 emissions by 4%.  Thus, through a combination of lowering emissions and purchasing carbon dioxide offsets, Lewis & Clark College had a net reduction of carbon impact of 11%!

Students Laura Matson and Brian Erickson conducted extensive studies of data ranging from how folks got to campus and average vehicle MPG to electricity use and electricity generation sources.  This hard work translated into success when Matson, Erickson, and others organized around its conclusions with campus leaders, eventually convincing the student government to raise their annual student fee by $10 and thus achieving Kyoto-compliance.

The entire process garnered frequent national media attention, including USA Today and the Los Angeles Times.

I can personally testify to that cutting campus CO2 emissions is a winnable goal.  As an undergraduate at the University of Oregon, I oversaw an ad-hoc committee to secure 100% wind power for our student union building.  The Erb Memorial Union, which some of you may recognize as being the cafeteria for the infamous ‘food fight’ scene in Animal House, is one of our campus’ biggest electricity users.  Many of us recognized the potential to eliminate many tons of annual CO2 emissions by switching to clean energy sources like wind.  Indeed, fighting climate change was a primary drive in the campaign.  A student-led ad-hoc committee of our the building’s board of directors worked with the student senate, the student body president, the Environmental Studies department, and the local utility company to secure a contract for 100% wind power at an outstanding rate.  It just so happened that the utility company was so excited about the opportunity, they were willing to bend over backwards to help ensure the student’s will was heard at a minimal financial cost!

The University of Oregon subsequently won a National Wildlife Federation Campus Ecology Recognition award for the success of this student-powered initiative.

Crucial to success on both campuses were special election polls of the student body regarding the desired changes.  Lewis & Clark’s poll showed that 83% of voting students supported increasing the fee to achieve Kyoto-compliance, and our poll showed that 80% of voting UO students supported a fee increase for wind power.  These polls made clear to student government and school officials that a strong mandate existed among the student body to address the issue.  Letters to the editor, public forums, and other forms of civic engagement can help secure such broad support.  We even made a Facebook.com group for the campaign!  Make no mistake about it: students have the potential to radically control the sustainability – or unsustainability – of their campus community.
 

Further reading:

School Site: Lewis & Clark on Global Warming

LCC Op-Ed: Pro & Con – Should Lewis & Clark fund the Kyoto Protocol?

LCC News: College complies with Kyoto Protocol

UO News: EMU adopts sustainable wind energy

UO News: Eco-friendly EMU wins award for wind power

Ideas for campuses
As we’ve just seen, colleges are great places to make a big difference in the struggle to cut greenhouse gas emissions!  Concerned students, faculty, and staff don’t have to conduct such extensive studies as Laura and Brian did at Lewis & Clark before promoting stewardship on their campus.  Only a few simple steps can help you know how to best cut emissions from your campus.

• Find out where your institution gets its electricity and how it heats itself.  Is it hydro-electric?  Coal?  Natural gas?  Heating oil?  Nuclear?  Generally the more fossil fuels are used to power your school, the more you may want to focus on cleaner, more efficient electricity use.  Ask your school’s facilities department and your town’s power company to get this info.
• Are you a commuter campus?  Or do most students live near or on campus?  What are the bicycle lanes like near your campus?  How is bus service?
• What do campus vehicles run on?  If they have diesel engines, they could be run on biofuels.
• How much cafeteria food is local and/or organic?  Industrially produced food takes ten calories of fossil fuels for each food calorie delivered, so could be a great (if hard to measure) way to cut greenhouse gas emissions!

After evaluating which aspect of your campus’ functions are most contributing to global warming, and which is most politically viable, decide how to lobby for change.  Depending on the size and structure of your school, consider which would work best: student government, faculty senate, a student-signed petition, a faculty-signed petition, meeting with facilities managers, talking with a dean or president, writing an op-ed in the school newspaper, etc.  Building a community of advocacy can be done in person, on paper, and by creating virtual alliances on the web with social-networking sites like Facebook.com and MySpace.

From there, there’s plenty of reforms to work toward.  Among them are:

• Buy clean energy through your electric company – recall the great deal we got at the U of O for our wind energy.
• Include energy-saving features on all new campus buildings.
• Mandate electricity conservation (turn off computers over night, etc.).
• Install solar water heaters atop gyms and dorms.
• Install photovoltaic solar panels on roofs.
• Install bicycle parking racks.
• Give students free bus fare with student ID cards.
• Get bus service near campus.
• Fight construction of more parking lots.
• Start a free carpool coordinating program.

Finally, there are some excellent books on fostering creation care on campuses.  They include Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities, by Will Toor; and Greening the Ivory Tower, by Sarah Hammond Creighton.

And remember: when talking to students and staff about these changes, make it clear that stopping global warming doesn’t give way to a political party or an ideological slant – it’s a Christian responsibility.  Any clamor over not wanting your campus to take a stand on a political issue should be called out as the nonsense that it is -- as one advocate on the LCC campaign noted, inaction on global warming is just as political as action.

Ideas for churches
Many of the same steps discussed in the Campus section also apply here: purchase clean electricity, start carpooling ministries, renovate buildings to be easier to heat and cool, install bicycle racks, buy local food for your soup kitchen, and lobby to improve nearby bus service.  Consider creating a committee among church elders to prayerfully decide which actions to pursue.  Most of these steps will save your church money as an organization and as a people.

Also be sure to check out the UK’s Cool Church Toolkit.  It has a few great formulas for knowing what your congregation’s greenhouse gas impacts are.  Be the world’s first Kyoto-compliant church!

Ideas for families & households
Families and households can do all kinds of things to stop global warming, most of which are listed in the two preceding sections.  But the best thing is: you don’t have to persuade anyone to do it!  These changes don’t require campaigning student government or persuading pastors and elders; all it takes is you!  Drive less, sun-dry your clothes, get rid of the second refrigerator, buy wind power, eat local foods, turn off your TV, or learn a musical instrument instead of using a stereo.  The options are all at your fingertips!

The Virtual March to Stop Global Warming has an outstanding page full of action items here.  They’ve got more easy action items than you can shake an exhaust pipe at!

Most of all, our hope is that these things are done prayerfully for God.  Serving him should be a joy, not a burden!