As efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions spread to campuses nationwide, Cornell members of Kyoto Now! will officially launch a student network of over 35 colleges and universities to unite these efforts tomorrow.
Universities involved include all eight Ivy league schools, and others such as Michigan State University and Lewis and Clark College in Oregon.
“Since our success with the Kyoto Now! campaign last spring, we’ve been doing a lot of work with outreach,” said Moss Templeton ’03, Kyoto Now! member, “and there are now groups working on this campaign at over 35 schools across the country.”
Outreach for the group has included attendance at conferences and workshops across the country, from Oregon to Washington, D.C., at which Kyoto Now! members gave presentations and workshops to further their campaign efforts at Cornell.
“Universities across the nation, including all eight Ivy League institutions and schools large and small in 24 states … are recognizing the importance of emissions reductions,” said Jason Fults, a student of Berea College in Kentucky, in a press release.
“We are working together, sharing our ideas, problems and solutions to move our schools toward Kyoto compliance,” Fults said.
After a week-long protest last April outside Day Hall, the Cornell administration agreed to work toward the goal set forth in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below the 1990 levels by 2008.
At their respective campuses, students work with university administrators to reduce emissions “through energy conservation and efficiency projects and through purchases of clean renewable energy, such as wind power,” said Lindsey Saunders, ’03.
Several universities — including University of Pennsylvania, University of Colorado at Boulder, and Connecticut College — have purchased renewable energy sources, according to a press release.
“Students at universities … are beginning to recognize that, since Bush is not taking action on global climate change, they can make a difference on the local level,” Saunders said.
Archived article by Stacy Williams