Global warming has been called “the challenge of a generation.” It has made national and international headlines as a growing, and, in many instances, an immediate crisis. By altering global temperature and weather patterns it has caused prolonged droughts in some areas and heavy monsoons in others; it has seriously impacted agriculture, contributed to the dramatic melting of glaciers and ice caps, spread diseases carried by mosquitoes, and fueled the frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as hurricanes; and it’s just warming up. Politically, it has triggered fierce and controversial debates between countries, between politicians and scientists, and between local and national governments. The issue of the era is global warming, and the challenge revolves around how to deal with its causes and numerous direct and indirect side effects as a world, as nations, as states, and as individuals.

Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are the primary contributor to global warming, and the United States alone is responsible for over 25 percent of total carbon emissions worldwide. According to President Bush’s climate modeler, James Hansen, who is also the lead climate scientist and director of the NASA Goddard institute for Space Science, we as a society have a ten-year window to curb carbon emissions before we hit a global warming “tipping point,” after which it will become impossible to ever prevent any of the consequences listed above. Fortunately, many immediate solutions already exist in addressing this challenge. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the United States can cut global warming-causing pollution by at least 60 percent by 2050 through four main strategies: boosting energy efficiency, building more fuel-efficient cars, switching to renewable energy and biofuels, and scrubbing carbon from the industrial production and processing of carbon. The NRDC reports that boosting energy efficiency could account for 41 percent of that target reduction; building and choosing to purchase better cars could account for 24 percent; switching to renewable energy sources and biofuels could account for 19 percent; and scrubbing carbon from fossil fuels could account for 16 percent. Unfortunately, a critical element is missing from this action plan: political will.

This lack of political will often stems from a misunderstanding of the issue due to a lack of awareness in conjunction with apathy. Politicians will not take action unless their constituents frame the issue in their interests and demand immediate action. Students are a strong constituent body and have great political influence. They have been taking the lead in the global warming challenge through educating others, putting grassroots pressure on local and national politicians, and promoting recycling, energy efficiency, and “green” (energy efficient) construction on campuses. For example, after students agreed to a voluntary increase in tuition, the Board of Trustees of Whitman College committed to purchasing twenty percent of the school’s energy from renewable sources. In 1999, Tufts University became the first institution of higher education to nationally commit to reduction goals for carbon emissions. According to the Yale Daily, “Yale has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 10% below 1990 levels by the year 2020. It also struck a deal with the residential colleges one year ago, pledging to purchase energy from environmentally-friendly sources if students could reduce their power usage by 15% over the following 3 years.” The University of Washington, Evergreen State College, and Western Washington University all receive 100 percent of their energy from clean, renewable sources. While each of these initiatives have been successful on their own, each and every campus could benefit from increased communication with one another, hopefully fostering multi-campus environmental projects around collective goals.

In an effort to unite this creativity and activism among campuses across the United States, the Energy Action Coalition—a coalition of nearly two dozen national and international environmental groups, including the Sierra Student Coalition (SSC)—recently launched a project entitled the Campus Climate Challenge. Their goal is to obtain a commitment from one thousand colleges to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their campuses by 80 percent by the year 2050. This level was originally called for in the Youth Declaration, a document created by students during the United Nations Conference of the Parties on the Kyoto Protocol in 2005. Once a college or university has signed on to the Campus Climate Challenge, it is the students’ responsibility to develop a goal and action plan specific to their campus and its needs and abilities.

Last year, Sustainable Dartmouth, the umbrella group for student environmental groups on campus, took its first step in helping to build the largest student environmental movement in the United States and Canada by signing Dartmouth College onto the Campus Climate Challenge. What this entails is the work of a group of devoted students to the creation of a campaign with specific long-term, intermediate, and short-term goals that could range anywhere from bringing the College into compliance with the Kyoto Protocol (a 7 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels) to buying a certain percentage of Dartmouth’s energy needs from clean, renewable sources and improving energy efficiency. Once goals have been established, the collective work of the Dartmouth student body, faculty, administration, and community will develop an action plan involving four main strategies: energy efficiency and conservation, clean energy use, green building, and campus transportation improvements. Once goals and means to achieve them are agreed upon and put in place, it is crucial to take Dartmouth’s message to stop global warming and promote a clean energy future beyond the campus to build coalitions with other colleges and universities and to educate local and national political leaders.

Two weeks ago, several Sustainable Dartmouth members participated in an all-day workshop led by Maura Cowley (Northeast Representative for the SSC) that took the students through step-by-step campaign strategies to help facilitate the brainstorming and development of long-term, intermediate, and short-term energy goals for the College. Besides discussing the Campus Climate Challenge, Maura covered basic leadership skills such as how to identify potential allies and challengers and how to recruit and maintain participants in a long-term project. Workshop feedback was positive and several follow-up meetings have taken place to work out how to best approach global warming from both an educational and action-oriented angle. A member of Sustainable Dartmouth is now responsible for maintaining contact with Maura as the goals and action plan take shape.

While the Campus Climate Challenge is a student-led and student-run project, Sustainable Dartmouth is working with Dartmouth’s Sustainability Office and Sustainability Coordinator, Jim Merkel, to help develop specific strategies to achieve the outlined goals.

Dartmouth’s participation in the Campus Climate Challenge demonstrates its recognition that global warming is an immediate problem with dire consequences that transcend geographical, ethnic, political, and socio-economic boundaries, and that through a united, grassroots effort, students can make a difference and shape an energy future based on clean, renewable sources of energy, efficiency, and sustainability. The Energy Action Coalition has stated, “Our efforts will educate students and administrators about the dangers of climate change and the importance of taking action to quickly transition off of fossil fuels. And they’ll prove that we can make clean energy a reality, as some of the largest institutions in society take steps that our government and politicians aren’t yet taking.”

Students that are interested in learning more or getting involved in the Campus Climate Challenge can visit their website: www.ClimateChallenge.org or blitz Sustain@dartmouth.edu.