The Maine Climate Campaign is an assembly of students from several Maine colleges and universities working on various fronts to enact stronger climate protection policies. Owing to my involvement with this campaign, I recently carpooled with some other USM students to attend the Third Annual Northeast Climate Conference held at the University of Vermont in Burlington. The focus of the conference was on what young people can do to stop climate change, both as individuals and as an organized force. The three-day event attracted more than 400 students from as far away as North Carolina. Equally exciting, there were also dozens of young Canadians representing their country’s strong commitment to intelligent climate policy. Being together in one place with so many motivated young people reminded me of the immense potential we hold for affecting positive change in the world, if we so desire.
John Fishman, a UVM alumnus and drummer of the former band Phish, gave a compelling speech highlighting each of our responsibilities to mind our behavior. He likened life’s purpose to an elementary lesson in camping-put simply, we should always leave the campsite better than it was when we found it. Ask yourselves, how does USM’s campsite look? How can we do better?
Before visiting UVM I had been thinking about how to improve the sense of community here at USM. I often think of the words of one of our good philosophy professors who said that the key to life is just to showing up. As much as I love that plain logic, perhaps it is oversimplified. Living at USM takes something more than simply being present. In actuality I think the importance of how we arrive should not be underestimated!
Did you know that Maine was the first state to enact legislation specifically for the sake of protecting the Earth’s climate? The law, passed in 2003, was actually built on an international agreement between the Eastern Canadian Premiers and the six New England Governors signed by Angus King in 2001. Last December the state released its multi-faceted action plan to reduce global warming pollution in Maine. The plan hinges on substantially reducing emissions from 1990 levels, which means first of all that those levels must be known. The effectiveness of the state’s Climate Action Plan depends on the adoption of combination of things that have already been hashed out between various stakeholders during a long process that began in Maine over four years ago. There is good reason to expect further success for Maine’s climate policy, but now is a critical time for awareness and advocacy.
However, USM-unlike the majority of colleges in the state-will not be able to meaningfully participate in the state’s greenhouse gas reduction scheme unless it finds the means to quantify emissions from 7,000+ commuters driving to and from, and in between, various campuses. To further complicate matters, the baseline 1990 emissions levels must somehow be extrapolated within a certain margin of accuracy. Since USM is a public institution I think it would be especially unfortunate, if not embarrassing, if it was unable to fulfill the edicts of the state. It is high time the University faced up to the ugly issue of transportation-a problem that is only compounded by the construction of more parking lots and garages. Transportation, aside from contributing to sprawl and detracting from community on campus, makes up a huge portion of USM’s total greenhouse gas emissions. I would like to draw upon the USM community to impress upon university officials as well as Governor the need to work harder to 1.) Quantify the University’s vehicular emissions, 2.) Take steps to reduce our emissions from mobile sources, and 3.) Educate the community about the state’s climate action plan.
What we do here is by no means inconsequential. I know we are all busy people, but the load becomes much more manageable when we work as a team. Please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] if you are interested in learning more what we can do to move forward in the battle to stop climate change. In the mean time, remember to walk, bike and carpool as much as possible!