The Geo-Green Goes to Campus (The Hidden Friedman)

Tom Friedman visited Williams College recently and--gasp--found out the students are "doing it in the dark" (The Greenest Generation is fully available to Times Select subscribers):

Student dorms, classrooms and campus buildings are pitted against one another to see who can save the most energy. Students are encouraged to turn off lights every time they leave a room, to unplug cellphone chargers when not in use, to take advantage of daylight to study or use precise task lighting at night ("Do it in the dark!"), and to change old light bulbs to compact fluorescents.

The Williams competition got me thinking. Why doesn't every college make it a goal to become carbon-neutral — that is, reduce its net CO2 emissions to zero? This should be a national movement. After all, today's students will be profoundly affected by climate change, the coming energy wars and the rising danger of petro-authoritarian states, such as Iran. Yet on most campuses, the whole energy-climate question still seems to be a student hobby, not a crusade.

C'mon kids, wake up and smell the CO2! Everybody — make your school do it in the dark! Take over your administration building, occupy your university president's office or storm in on the next meeting of your college's board of trustees until they agree to make your school carbon-neutral. (And while you're at it, ban gas-guzzling G.M. Hummers from your campus as well!)

After turning down the lights as much as possible, the next step in going carbon neutral is offsetting what carbon is produced by the energy consumed with donations/investments in projects that either absorb the carbon or promote non-carbon producing energy sources (such as TerraPass):

You can pay to preserve rain forest land in the Amazon so trees there will not be burned, a major source of greenhouse gases, or plant forests in Africa that will absorb carbon, or sponsor a project to turn landfill gas into electricity. (G.M. does that!) In a partnership with Conservation International, the band Pearl Jam offset all the emissions from its last tour by paying to help communities preserve rain forest land in Madagascar. (That also helps reduce poverty and protect endangered wildlife.)

Finally, Tom reminds us that the children are our future--give them the opportunity to go green and let them lead the way:

Al Gore eloquently argues that our parents' generation, the Greatest Generation, turned back the black tide of fascism. They fought the war and built the institutions that preserved peace and freedom for a lot of people on this planet. Today's young people, Mr. Gore argues, have a parallel task. Yes, he means you college students.

You need to become what the writer Dan Pink calls "the Greenest Generation," and build the institutions, alliances and programs that will turn back the black tide of climate change and petro-authoritarianism, which, if unchecked, will surely poison your world and your future as much as fascism once threatened to do to your parents' world and future.

And this doesn't have to be a campus phenomenon--it could be a national priority that could bring the country together. Imagine if we actually had politicians on the national stage seriously debating one another on how to reduce our consumption of energy and production of greenhouse gases? Sound far-fetched? It's happening in the UK now:

Britain's two prime ministerial hopefuls will vie for the green vote today as David Cameron visits a retreating arctic glacier and Gordon Brown delivers his first major speech on climate change, in an address to the United Nations in New York.

The would-be prime ministers have also touted their green credentials in separate articles in the Independent today.

The chancellor [Brown] tried to regain some of the ground Labour has lost to the Tories on the environment by highlighting the government's record and future plans for tackling carbon emissions.

He also suggested that Mr Cameron's environmental crusade was an exercise in spin, in contrast to the "detailed and substantive" commitment of the government.

In his article Mr Cameron claimed credit for pushing the environment up the political agenda and, with an eye on next month's council elections, he highlighted the green record of Tory authorities.

[...]

Mr Brown also plans to swap his petrol powered ministerial car for an electric one.

These contributions contrast with Mr Cameron, who has made much of his green lifestyle, including cycling to work and his plans to put wind turbines and solar panels on the roof of his house.