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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.
College Climate Commitments Pass 500 Mark
College and university presidents are quickly signing on the dotted line to commit their campuses to be climate-friendly. Tulane University announced on Tuesday that it was the 500th signatory of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. The agreement binds presidents to make their campuses climate-neutral, meaning that they will eventually zero out their net emissions of greenhouse gases—a formidable goal, which some presidents say will be hard to reach.
Tulane has a special interest in the issue, said Scott S. Cowen, president of the university, in the announcement: “Global warming is a phenomenon that affects us all. For those of us living in New Orleans and other coastal communities, it has even greater urgency because several prominent scientists have linked global warming to the increased intensity of hurricanes.”
The number of signatories has climbed rapidly since the climate commitment’s origin, last year. In fact, Tulane’s signature was quickly followed by others. As of Tuesday evening, 507 institutions had signed on.
Richard Monastersky | Wednesday March 19, 2008 | Permalink | Contact usComments
Previous: Mary Jo Olenick: Can Less Space Be More?
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“…several prominent scientists have linked global warming to the increased intensity of hurricanes.”
And several more have debunked this. Eliminating so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ is an unrealistic goal, and will only serve to increase the already excessive cost of a college education.
— TRB Mar 19, 09:29 AM #
Among the scientists who have debunked the notion that global warming causes increased hurricane intensity are Bill Gray, a pioneer in hurricane forecasting — see his Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Hurricanes and Hot Air,” for a popular exposition of his views — and Max Mayfield, retired director of the National Hurricane Center.
Among other things, both point to more than a century of NHC data showing a regular rise and fall in the number and strength of hurricanes. The first time I heard Mayfield describe the long-term phenomenon was right after I (and he and a large number of other people) suffered through Hurricane Andrew in August 1992.
The next reporter who hears Tulane president Scott Cowen try to link hurricanes to global warming should ask him, “What do you think you know that Gray, Mayfield, and other skeptical atmospheric scientists do not?”
— S. Britchky Mar 19, 11:00 AM #
Tulane University’s statement that “several prominent scientists have linked global warming to the increased intensity of hurricanes” does by no means imply that this idea has gone unchallenged. This said, we point out that one of the key proponents of this theory, Kerry Emanuel of MIT, was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences. By contrast, Bill Gray (who is frequently mentioned as an opponent of the global warming – intense hurricane connection) questions the entire notion of global warming and thus represents a very small and steadily shrinking segment of the climate science community.
Torbjörn Törnqvist
Associate Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Director, National Institute for Climatic Change Research Coastal Center
— Torbjorn Tornqvist Mar 19, 03:25 PM #
Also in the NAS from MIT, and for a tad longer than Kerry Emanuel, is Richard Lindzen, who has decried the frenzy associated with Global Warming. In 2006 he wrote:
Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse.
(WSJ, 04/12/06)
This is not to deride or discredit Emanuel’s work, nor to unreservedly support Lindzen’s, but to appeal for an exchange based on the science, including what we know and don’t know, combined with a vigorous debate about the validity and significance of evidence.
Consensus in science doesn’t hold much water with me. It was only 40-45 years ago that the consensus in geology circles was firmly opposed to the notion of tectonic shift and continental drift. More recently we had a majority of medical researchers poo-pooing the significance of h. pylori as a cause of ulcers.
— Mike Lutz Mar 19, 04:53 PM #
I love these goofs who base their entire argument of “climate change doesn’t exist/isn’t caused by people” on a couple of scientists here and there, when the majority clearly think it exists and that it’s caused by humans. Meanwhile, a top story in this paper today says:
“Satellite observations of the Arctic Ocean reveal that its wintertime ice cover has thinned substantially, leaving it much more vulnerable to summertime melting and potentially accelerating its eventual disappearance, according to government and university scientists.”
— anon Mar 19, 08:52 PM #