Posted: 02/14/07

A more sustainable St. Michael's?
Why isn't our campus greener?

Tara Hostnik | contributing writer
thostnik@smcvt.edu


If you step into Middlebury College, which has a campus comparable to St. Michael's College, and which shares a commitment to a strong liberal arts education, one might be surprised to find many things that are very different from here.  For example, at the dining hall, students eat local and organic foods and reduce their ecological impact through composting.  They have an organic garden that is maintained by students.  Fruits and vegetables that are grown there are then sold to the dining services.  When the college needed to deconstruct a science hall, more than 97 percent of the building was diverted to salvage, recycling and reusing. They have a Web site that explains their environmental initiatives and even instructs students on how to print papers double-sided in the library.

Environmentalism is a growing movement in the world. The United States has a particular responsibility to reduce our emissions.  Our country makes up 5 percent of the total world population yet we use 25 percent of all the world's energy consumption. Take a moment to let that soak in.  The first time President Bush even mentioned climate change or global warming in a State of the Union address was in his most recent.

Every year, the emissions at St. Michael's go up and we currently spend zero dollars towards any kind of environmental program. It is our responsibility as an institution that uses so much energy in our community to start working towards carbon neutrality.  Although the administration is partly responsible for working towards this issue, the student body also has responsibilities.  Every weekend thousands of recyclable beer cans are thrown into the trash.  In Alliot, students throw away more food than what they actually eat and those with cars still refuse to take public transportation, walk, or bike to nearby Burlington.

As citizens of the world we need to start thinking about the way we live our lives. Bill McKibben, a forerunner in the environmental movement surrounding global warming and professor at Middlebury, tells us, "I want us to think in new ways about the things we buy, the food we eat, the energy we use, and the money that pays for it all."

I completely agree with him.  We need to start thinking about the future of the world if our emissions continue to rise.  For those of you who have seen the film An Inconvenient Truth, you know that our dependence on oil is killing us.  Ocean waters will displace hundreds of millions of people as the sea level rises. Storms will intensify and we can expect more events like Katrina to occur. Remember the frog in the boiling water? That is us.  It is happening so fast, yet many of us are disinclined to even notice it.  

The trustees at Middlebury College have endorsed an initiative to cut greenhouse gas emissions on campus by 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. More than $65,000 has been granted for students, faculty and staff to more than 40 environmental projects. These include establishing a community bike plan, assessing the potential for hybrid community vehicles, using biodiesal and towards an organic garden.

St. Michael's needs to emulate their goals.  As a campus, I propose that we form an environmental working group made up of interested students, faculty and staff so that we can work towards a more sustainable campus.  How cool would it be to have solar paneling in our buildings, an organic garden that provides fruits and vegetables to Alliot or even a working recycling system!  What about composting, selling fair trade coffee or providing first year students with the opportunity to take a seminar on Global Climate Change?  There are so many issues we could be working on to help St. Michael's join the world-wide fight to a more sustainable future.  This school has graced me with four amazing years and the time to start making an effort on educating the administration on the changes we want to see made here is NOW.  I also hope that we all start changing our individual actions to help reduce our ecological footprint on the world because I personally hope we have a future for ourselves and our children.