When winter hits this year, and the face-numbing New England cold along with it, most students will find themselves wishing Medford were just a few degrees hotter. But according to environmental groups on campus, students should be careful what they wish for.
As the new school year begins, Tufts Climate Initiative (TCI) and Environmental Consciousness Outreach (ECO) are encouraging students to be more conscious of energy consumption to help combat the effects of global warming.
TCI Outreach Coordinator Anja Kollmuss stressed the importance of maintaining the environment, which she said some students underestimate.
"Most people just say 'oh, we'll get a little warmer,' but that's not the case. Global warming is the most serious threat [humanity has] ever faced. Period," she said.
Beginning with "ClimateFest," an event planned jointly by TCI and ECO which will take place Oct. 14, the groups will be working to highlight the issue and offer students simple ways to help.
"We're not trying to overwhelm people with the gloom and doom of what climate change implies for our society. We just want to raise awareness and empower people to feel like they can do something about it," said senior Amanda Fencl, an ECO officer who helped plan the event.
"It's about coming together, celebrating campus performance groups, eating organic and fair trade food, and getting a chance to discuss between sets and via posters how climate change affects us and what each of us can do to lighten our 'climate footprint,'" Fencl said.
According to Kollmuss, students will be offered at least one concrete way to 'lighten their climate footprint.'
"Starting at ClimateFest, students will be able to purchase green power for their dorm room," she said. "It's going to be $10 per semester, and that basically means that the electricity used in your room will come either from wind energy or methane."
Kollmuss said students will be able to pay with either cash or points, which will make it easy to help the environment in a significant way.
"This is a very easy way to do the right thing. Basically you just pay 10 bucks, and it means you create less pollution and less global warming," she said. "It's a small thing, but it's a simple thing and everybody can do it."
According to Fencl, ECO thought of the idea after introducing last year's wind power referendum, which would have transferred some of the university's energy needs to power produced by wind. Approval of the referendum showed student support for wind power, but ECO was unable to convince the university to raise the Student Activities Fund to pay for it.
Senior Aditya Nochur, another ECO officer, explained their solution. "We came up with this program to give students the option to actually purchase wind power. The funds raised will go towards purchasing renewable energy credits in order to subsidize sources of clean, renewable energy," he said.
Nochur explained that while the individual payments will be small, they may have a significant effect.
"Renewable energy is important because it represents a more sustainable way of life. Our current dependence on dirty fossil fuels wreaks havoc on the environment and causes climate change," he said.
Fencl agreed: "The money will actually work to offset the average energy consumption of a dorm room here," she said. "We have this global dilemma: our planet is warming, humans are contributing to the warming and you have scary consequences. But instead of despair and panic and helplessness, you can be empowered to be an active citizen, to use Tufts' favorite phrase."
According to the TCI Web site, Tufts uses 64 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year, and burns approximately 840,000 gallons of number 6 fuel oil.
The programs will come at a particularly relevant time: on Sept. 25, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) released a study which found that "the Earth is now reaching and passing through the warmest levels seen in the last 12,000 years," according to a press release on the GISS Web site. The report noted "a rapid warming trend over the past 30 years," and cited increased greenhouse gas pollution as a main cause.
However, with increased publicity, particularly since the release this summer of Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," the severity of global warming has become a topic of national debate, and Tufts is no exception.
"Global warming is not a given," said sophomore Michael Hiner, who writes for the Primary Source and is a member of the Tufts Republicans. "There is debate. There is dispute. There is controversy."
Hiner cited a speech, also given on Sept. 5, by Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, which outlined a series of arguments questioning the articulated gravity of the threat. The speech referenced an Apr. 6 letter sent to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, signed by 60 Canadian scientists who question the climate science behind the Kyoto Protocol, an international emissions reduction treaty that the United States has not ratified.
Inhofe's speech, entitled "Hot & Cold Media Spin: A Challenge to Journalists Who Cover Global Warming," described the issue as a figment of excessive media hype.
Hiner said the wind power program is an unnecessary expense. "If a student is willing to part with his hard-earned money or stipend for a cause he believes in, that's his freedom. If the cost of their happiness is $10 to fend off a specter, that's their business," he said.
Nochur, however, believes the issue is anything but a specter. "Whether their reasons are political or ideological, it's unfortunate that some people continue to downplay the importance of climate change," he said. "Credible institutions from the Pentagon to the National Academy of Sciences have warned about the dangers of climate change and the time for concrete action on this issue is now."
Fencl agreed. "Most people accept that climate change is a reality, but it's kind of intangible because environmental change is so slow," she said. "We just want to raise awareness and empower people to feel like they can do something about it."
Citing statistics from the TCI Web site, Fencl said students can make a difference through small actions in their every day lives.
"If all Tufts students turned off their computer every night [for] at least six hours, we could prevent 363 tons of carbon dioxide from heating the atmosphere each year and it would save over $55,000 in electricity bills," she said.
Fencl explained that such habits lead to a larger culture of environmental responsibility: "I think environmentally sensitive behavior, like turning lights out, recycling, conserving water, drinking tap water instead of buying tons and tons of plastic bottles ... cultivates a sort of consciousness that reconnects subconscious decisions with the reality of their consequences," she said.
"Little behaviors can be contagious," she added.
Nochur agreed that general awareness and small daily efforts can make a difference, but also stressed the importance of addressing the larger issues.
"Individual lifestyle changes and energy conservation behaviors alone are not going to be enough to solve global warming," he said. "The ultimate solutions to global warming are political, and so we as students must demand that our elected leaders take concrete action on climate change and keep this issue in mind when we go to the voting booth."
