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Rise in Tornadoes, Floods Poses Risk to Colleges
What if the sort of extreme weather that has left the University of Iowa inundated in floodwaters is not a freak event? What if it is a sign of things to come? (Photograph by AP Images)
Art & Architecture Renovations Near Completion at Yale U.
Paul Rudolph's 1963 Brutalist icon is getting a makeover, plus an addition by Charles Gwathmey.
Guest Blogger: Anne Stephenson
Even the greenest construction project increases a college’s carbon footprint.
Other News
Land-Rich Universities Weigh New Options for Real-Estate Development
Universities are taking advantage of new ways to develop their holdings through corporate partnerships, a new report says.
U. of Iowa Begins Mucking Out and Assessing the Damage
The university's insurer spent the weekend starting to assess the damage to the auditorium and 19 other flooded buildings.
U. of Iowa Flooding Takes Costly Toll in Research and Equipment
Parking lots are under water, some roads leading to the campus are closed, and the campus utility infrastructure is damaged.
New campus buildings
Multimedia
A Green Building as a Billboard for Science
(A 2006 Chronicle video)
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About Buildings & Grounds
Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
College of the Atlantic is the First Institution to Achieve Climate Neutrality
The College of the Atlantic has gone climate neutral. It claims to be the first college to do so.
In October 2006, the college set a goal to become climate neutral by the end of 2007. It has met that goal by buying hydroelectric power and by purchasing offsets from the Climate Trust of Portland, Ore. The Climate Trust is a project to optimize traffic signals in Portland to reduce the amount of time cars sit idling at traffic lights.
The college also made changes in its campus infrastructure and policies that other colleges are considering, such as switching to highly efficient fluorescent light bulbs, promoting carpools, and allowing faculty and staff members to work from home.
The college is also very small — it has about 300 students. That, some may argue, makes the job of reaching climate neutrality easier than at, say, a large land-grant university. But in an interview, David Hales, president of the College of the Atlantic, denied that the college’s size was a significant help. For starters, other colleges have more money and therefore “have lots of options,” he said. And the College of the Atlantic, which was founded in 1969 with an environmental ethos, had already done the easiest projects to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
“We’ve been green for a long time. We have less low-hanging fruit,” he said.
Perhaps one advantage of being small, he acknowledged, was that the college could be more nimble in making changes on campus.
“The key is for institutions to realize that carbon neutrality is possible,” Mr. Hales said. “You can do it. If a relatively poor, small school can do it, you can do it.”
Whether colleges can actually become climate neutral has been a point of discussion in higher education lately. A recent Chronicle article about the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment focused on several institutions that face difficult challenges in becoming climate neutral, a pledge that is part of the commitment. Many college administrators think it could take decades for their institutions to become climate neutral — if they ever reach that goal at all. Other institutions refuse to sign the commitment because they think climate neutrality isn’t feasible.
Mr. Hales emphasized that his college’s accomplishment should not be seen as something for the college to simply boast about. He hopes other institutions will learn from what the college did.
“We have laid out everything we did on our Web site,“ he said. “The community of institutions in higher education have a lot to share with each other. There’s a fine line between saying, ‘We did it, and here’s how we did it,’ and, ‘We did it, and we’re better than you.’”
Scott Carlson | Thursday December 20, 2007 | Permalink | Contact usComments
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Instead of paying money to some “carbon offset” entrepreneur like the Al Gore Experience and patting yourself on the back, why not donate the money, avoid whatever ecological sin you were about to commit, and then pat yourself on the back? Even that approach would probably not produce true climate neutrality, but it should get you into Manhattan cocktail parties, which, of course, is the point.
If you’re just an ordinary concerned sap and can’t follow the full theology, well, we’re all doin’ what we can. Go ahead, pay the penance and commit the sin, but do drop the self-congratulation. It’s unseemly.
You may be making a tiny difference, in this case, but you’re certainly not “climate neutral,” whatever that means exactly and however important it might be. Don’t forget that some desirable human activities negatively affect climate — medical research that sustains world-population growth, for example. But, nowadays, who argues against saving lives? Other negative-impact activities have led or should lead, in and for the County of Los Angeles, to technological advances. We’d never have electric- or hydrogen-powered cars if we hadn’t started the race with gasoline.
Hey, man, any college kid with more than one girlfriend can tell you, life is complicated.
— S. Britchky Dec 19, 11:42 PM #