Joining student teams from nine other Maine and Eastern Canadian colleges and universities, Laura Smith, Mark Tanguay, Abby Ahearn, Amanda Starkey (all Criminology majors) and Sarah Ferriter (Environmental Science), attended an invitation-only, all-expenses paid conference hosted by Colby College April 2-3. Dancing wasn’t the only hot topic at Colby that weekend. The conference was about what steps college students can take to slow global warming. Although they were too tired to dance, USM faculty members Sandy Wachholz (Criminology), Sam Merrill (Muskie CPD), and Nancy Artz (Business) also participated, hearing speakers from Harvard, Maine and Canada.
Beth Nagusky, director of Governor Baldacci’s Office of Energy Independence and Security spoke to a rapt audience of steps the state has taken to save taxpayer dollars and make the state more energy-efficient. Noting the multiple benefits of reducing energy waste in addition to slowing climate disruption-reduced mercury levels in loons, lower asthma rates in Maine’s people and smaller budget shortfalls, Nagusky finished speaking and was quickly approached by students interested in the possibility of summer internships in her office. The students were not looking for a job-they wanted to become part of the larger effort of which Beth spoke-reducing the potential of devastating impacts associated with use of fossil-fuel by a world population of 6.5 billion that continues to grow at a rate equivalent to Maine’s population every six days (a net growth rate of 75 million each year).
Leith Sharp, director of Harvard’s Green Campus Initiative painted an inspiring but sobering picture of the difficulties of improving energy efficiency and conservation practices at large academic institutions. In spite of seven years of her exceptionally capable efforts, Harvard’s per capita energy consumption continues to climb. Leith’s management has demonstrably slowed the rate of increase and her office works to ensure that more of the energy that Harvard continues to use comes at lower cost to the biosphere and its residents.
Speaker David Coon, conservation director of the New Brunswick Conservation Council (Canada) made the connection between social justice and more equitable use of the world’s energy resources. Coons spoke directly to the theme of environmental justice and climate change that was also the subject of a poster USM students presented at the conference. As the world’s less fortunate suffer most under the current circumstances, they are expected to suffer even greater hardships as CO2 emissions tighten their disrupting grip on our blue planet. Some small island nations are expected to be covered by rising oceans and low coastal areas worldwide are likely to disappear as well.
Colby’s ecological economist, Dr. Thomas Tietenberg, made a strong economic case for switching to renewable energy sources as soon as possible to avoid what he referred to as a “tipping point” beyond which any response may prove inadequate.
Conference speakers and workshops sessions focused on solutions that students could implement today such as the comprehensive and innovative for-credit student driven assessment of the environmental performance of Concordia University in Montreal. Each of the 10 student teams presented their intentions to tackle tasks ranging from USM’s student team goal to ensure that the proposed new Gorham residence hall will be built to the “greenest” criteria possible, starting a bike loan program and, at Bowdoin, implementing a revolving energy efficiency projects loan fund similar to one already established at USM.
On Saturday, Colby put on the “Sustainable Ritz” with a marvelous, largely Maine-grown gala dinner party that included Maine cheeses, Maine, hot-house grown greens, Maine potatoes, whole grain breads, wild salmon, and a superb apple-cranberry tart Made-in-Maine with local, Maine-grown fruit.
USM students, some of whom had been up since 5 a.m., closed out the dancing at about 3 a.m. but managed to make the 8 a.m. Sunday conference start with the help of generous quantities of organic, fair-trade coffee. USM was probably the only school that sent its entire team to Colby in hybrid cars, one of which got 56.4 mpg on the trip back to Portland. If the car could have been powered with the energy generated by the conference participants, we would have done even better. USM gratefully thanks all the students who participated and the Henry Kendall Foundation for funding of this wonderful conference.