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Academic Centers for Athletes Draw Donors
More than a dozen university athletics programs have added lavish new facilities in recent years, and academic-services budgets are soaring, a Chronicle survey finds. (Photograph courtesy of Texas A&M U.)
College Employees Value Campus Environment, Survey Finds
When a Chronicle survey asked college employees what they value about their jobs, they put the physical environment in which they work at the top of the list.
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)
Other News
After Hurricane Gustav, Campuses Clean Up
Cleanup crews scoured Gulf Coast campuses, removing downed limbs and repairing broken windows, while students and staff members forced out by Hurricane Gustav waited for word that they could return.
Lessons From Katrina Improve Colleges' Evacuations for Hurricane Gustav
College officials across the Gulf Coast were cautiously relieved when initial reports suggested the damage wasn't severe.
College of Southern Idaho Cafeteria Goes 'Tray-Less'
Students are also wasting less food because they no longer have the option of overloading their cafeteria trays, says the college's food-services director.
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.
KieranTimberlake on Buying Local and Being Sustainable
Last week Buildings & Grounds reported that Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake, partners in the well-known architectural firm KieranTimberlake, would take a joint visiting professorship at the University of Washington, teaching sustainability. We pointed out that this was a bit problematic, given that Mr. Kieran and Mr. Timberlake are based in Philadelphia and would have burn a lot of fuel to get to Seattle every week to teach. At the time, the university and the firm pointed to each other for a solution to the problem.
Late last week, Carin Whitney, KieranTimberlake’s spokeswoman, replied to the article in a letter. She opened with a statement about the firm’s position on sustainability, the “buy local” ethic, and the global market:
“We take the question you raise about the environmental impact of the commute seriously. This is one of the unfortunate realities of participating in the global marketplace. We firmly believe that architects have the obligation to take responsibility for the impact that our buildings have on the earth, and by extension, to reduce the embedded energy of the design process and all activities related to our work. In many of our projects, sustainable measures include using locally harvested materials and labor. The ultimate consequence, however, of full adherence to the ‘buy local’ position would be the end of globalization and the inability of individuals and organizations to seek the best fit for their needs regardless of location….”
Let’s stop there for a moment. Moving people and goods around the world, and generating lots of pollution and carbon emissions in the process, is indeed one of the “unfortunate realities” of business-as-usual today. However, the last sentence of that paragraph is at odds with conventional thinking in sustainability. Full adherence to buying local would indeed mean an end to globalization and, in the minds of some who support sustainability, the beginning of a society that values and strengthens local communities and local economies.
This idea is at the heart of Michael Pollan’s writing about food and Wendell Berry’s writing about the rural economy. It’s the underlying theme of Wes Jackson’s Becoming Native to This Place, in which he writes: “Although we have told one another on bumper stickers and at environmental conferences that we must ‘think globally and act locally,’ we tend to drift toward mega-solutions. Rather than get busy, we introduce new terms such as ‘sustainable’ to apply to any perceived solution that catches our fancy. Instead of looking to community, we look to public policy. We hold a global conference in Rio.”
James Howard Kunstler, who is known for dire predictions about the looming energy crisis, has said that our unsustainable energy sources will, in fact, lead to a collapse of globalization. We won’t be able to afford to ship toaster ovens, lumber, and well-known architects across the country to get “the best fit” for our needs. He says we’ll have to make do, or start making good fits, with the resources we find around us.
We digress. Ms. Whitney, of KieranTimberlake, then went on to discuss how the partners would limit the environmental impact of their work at the University of Washington:
“To measure the environmental impact of the work and teaching opportunities we pursue abroad, we have undertaken a study of the carbon footprint of our office, including commuting. It is clear that airline travel is a significant contributor to the overall office footprint, and we are faced with a decision about how to offset what we cannot mitigate through conservation. The study will bring into focus strategies for sequestering our carbon footprint, and help us make strides in both conservation and mitigation.
“To mitigate the travel required to teach at the University of Washington, we have planned an innovative teaching model that collapses the number of individual trips into longer trips, during which we will engage the students in near total immersion for two days. In addition, we have been able combine our teaching trips with visits to see clients on the West Coast. We regularly use video conferencing in our office with our clients and affiliated firms around the nation, and we will use it for teaching purposes as well. We are optimistic that this crossdisciplinary, collaborative design studio can only have positive repercussions as the search for alternative sources of energy continues.”
—Scott Carlson
Scott Carlson | Monday February 4, 2008 | Permalink | Contact usComments
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Despite the admiration I have for people such as Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and Michael Pollan, the drive to go entirely local is misguided in my opinion. I work at an institution that actively promotes sustainable community development. I even belong to a CSA in order to purchase locally-grown fruits and vegetables.
However, to cut oneself off from the rest of the world is short-sighted. There is nothing inherently progressive about local development. Local communities can certainly be progressive. The Grange Movement in the 19th century proves that point. However, sometimes local politics and local economics is very regressive. Think about school desegregation in Alabama. The federal national guard was needed to override local prejudice. A recent item reported on MSNBC discussed how indigenous politics in some Mexican communities may supercede the Mexican Constitution. The outcome may be that women or anybody over the age of 60 will be excluded from the local political process.
It might be more useful to use the idea of local development as part of a system of “checks and balances” to reduce the negative impacts of globalization, while taking advantage of the positive attributes of globalization. Fair trade coffee is one example of how local control is balanced against the global marketplace.
Also, the rhetoric of local consumption runs afoul of the idea that we should help impoverished communities and countries. Sustainability occurs at multiple scales simultaneously and must not be anchored to some literal notion of only purchasing items produced within 50 miles of where you live. How can communities in the developing world hope to improve their quality of life without selling their goods to us (and vice versa).
That tired old bumper sticker cliche—Think Globally, Act Locally—still has value, but should be updated to exhort advocates of sustainability to think about one’s moral obligations beyond one’s community. The “buy local” movement, when taken to the extreme, limits our ability to pursue sustainable communities and economies, because if we are already part of the developed world, we will be turning our backs on places that need us.
Remember, when residents of Vermont purchase oranges or coffee, they are part of global trade. But the purchase of oranges and coffee by Vermonters can help local farmers in Mexico, Brazil or somewhere else if the structure of global trade can be modified to enable small-scale producers enter the global marketplace.
— chris Feb 4, 01:05 PM #
It was inevitable that with an increasing hanargue to be green, that there would emerge a sustainability guilt-trip (no pun in regard to KT).We risk becoming needlessly parochial, perhaps even paranoid, as we seek to avoid what we perceive as un-green behavior. KT’s cobbling together of their activities and re-configuring their approach to instruction (presumably no problem for the university) is the right response.I would expect them to also invest in carbon credits to unambiguously demonstrate their commitment.
— chig Feb 4, 04:02 PM #
Some very basic changes would produce huge wins in global warming, fixing our trade deficit through less oil consumption, and boosting American jobs. About half of all the foreign oil tankers coming into America could be stopped with these very basic changes.
1. For the 25% of us that can commute electronically, do so. If you’re reading this you’re probably one of them. Once this is done most office space can be re-purposed. Note to the nitpickers-this saves gasoline, not necessarily electricity. And this is a realistic solution – IBM and Cisco have done this corporate wide for years.
2. Change building codes nationally to mandate energy efficient construction, solar hot water and solar photovoltaic cells on all new construction. Also mandate major remodelling projects include one or both solar power sources as well.
3. Increase Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards to 30 MPG or more. (SUVs would need to be hybrids).
Note that the above are improvements or the status quo in lifestyles for most, not sacrifices. How easy is that?
— True Green Feb 5, 07:01 AM #
...And locally-sourcing most food production is a huge win-win for a variety of reasons: quality of food, quality of local environment, easy verification of good farming practices, food security issues in case of crisis, and likely a decrease in obesity due to better food choices.
Again, all of this should be desirable. Why shouldn’t we all agree on this?
— True Green Feb 5, 07:13 AM #
Until doing the right thing is the default choice, it is unreasonable to expect people to do the right thing. Flying, warts and all, is the only choice when being present counts. Teaching sustainability is clearly a circumstance where first person enhances learning. Ask anybody that’s taken online coursework; yes, you get content—but most prefer in person learning if possible. Phoning it in works occasionally, but not consistently.
Those teaching sustainability are working to create a society where sustainability is the default choice. They are moving us all closer to sustainability as default because teaching has the multiplier effect of reaching many more who, if the teaching is done well, go forward themselves to create a brave new world.
My general rule of thumb is: if a trip will ultimately produce outcomes that reduce more carbon than the trip produces, then do it. And then stay home sometimes anyway.
— NLN Feb 10, 02:17 PM #