773 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(02/10/11 5:26am)
We are losing the fight with carbon usage. Since the summer of 2009, climate and energy legislation has gone from passing the House of Representatives with bipartisan support to worse than dead on arrival in the Senate. Climate change has evolved — according to President Obama — from an “epochal man-made threat to the planet” to something not even worth mentioning in the State of the Union. Widespread concern over the reliance on oil that led us to Deepwater Horizon has all but vanished from present discourse. Where Copenhagen was a household term in the winter of 2009, earning daily front-page mention in the New York Times, the international climate negotiations have resumed their status as relevant only to the wonky and involved.
Climate science has not assumed the same downward trend. The World Meteorological Organization and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration both reported last year that 2000-2009 was the hottest decade on record. Human-caused Arctic warming has overtaken 2,000 years of natural cooling; oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred; carbon dioxide concentrations haven’t been this high in 15 million years, when seas were 75 to 120 feet higher than present levels.
We are clearly in need of a new strategy. It may be decades before the salience of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions can be raised on the political and social agenda to a point of action. To some extent, this is understandable; reliance upon a pollutant that literally drives our economies and societies is not an addiction easily overcome.
Luckily, options are emerging that could buy time. Carbon will always be the thermostat; it will always determine the long-term trajectory of average air and water temperatures globally. But scientists are increasingly finding that in the short term, gases like methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and pollutants like black carbon are major determinants of warming.
Methane originates predominantly in factory farming and agriculture. HFCs were what we replaced CFC’s with when the hole in the ozone layer was discovered; they are generally required as aerosols and refrigerants. Black carbon’s number one source is inefficient cooking fires; billions of people around the world lack stove technology and therefore cook their food mostly on open pit fires, fuelled by wood, dung and biomass.
The ancillary benefits of reducing these short-term warmers could motivate significant change in the next few decades. Transitioning away from large-scale agriculture toward more local, sustainable methods would do much to hedge against widespread antibiotic resistance and water pollution resultant of manure and fertilizer run off. Providing households across the Global South would do much to improve respiratory health (indoor air pollution from combination fires and poor ventilation kills more than 2 million people per year) and gender equity (women are often standing over fires all day, while young girls are tasked with the gathering and chopping of fuel), in addition to helping curve fuel-demand-driven deforestation in some of the world’s most important forests. Reduction in diesel consumption — another black carbon source — would also contribute to improved respiratory health in urban areas, and less pollution-caused damage to buildings, etc.
And in the end, addressing sources of black carbon, methane and HFC’s would bend the warming curve substantially in the 30-50 year range, and in the favour of low-lying coastal areas, small island states and tropical in-lands. We will always have to take on carbon if we are to take on global climate change in the next centuries, but it is entirely possible that we cannot, and do not, necessarily have to in the short term. For anyone committed to the climate that is crestfallen on carbon, it’s some food for thought.
(01/20/11 5:42am)
Jon Isham is an associate professor of economics
This Winter Term, 21 students and I have learned a lot about social entrepreneurship. First, the idea is not new. For three decades, leading champions of social change have promoted social entrepreneurship. Bill Drayton founded the Ashoka Foundation (1981) to support innovators worldwide; Jeff Skoll - Ebay’s first president — created his foundation (1999) to promote “a sustainable world of peace and prosperity.” Yet while social entrepreneurship is in some ways ‘old news,’ it seems to be everywhere these days. The White House already has an Office of Social Innovation; rumor has it that President Obama will commit more resources to promoting social entrepreneurship in his State of the Union address next week. Stay tuned!
The concept’s ubiquity right now is both good and bad. Good because it’s a sign that leaders who are taking on the toughest 21st-century challenges — poverty, climate change, and the lack of human rights — have found an approach that works. Bad because like many popular terms, it can mean too many things to too many people (A critique that was also true of social capital when President Bill Clinton embraced that concept in the 1990s.). In academic communities, we demand clarity and rigor. Is there a clear, rigorous way to define social entrepreneurship?
In our class, we’ve adopted Roger Martin and Sally Osberg’s definition from their 2007 article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Social entrepreneurship occurs when individuals identify an unjust equilibrium — say a poverty trap — and lead a creative process whose goal is the establishment of a more just equilibrium. The definition echoes Joseph Schumpeter, the great economic historian: social entrepreneurs lead ‘creative gales of destruction’ designed to build a better world.
Yet admittedly, definitions of social entrepreneurship abound. Furthermore, too many are mushy. For some academics, this — and the term’s ubiquity — may cause alarm. It turns out, though, that social entrepreneurship has good company. Plenty of grand modern ideas — culture, governance and markets come to mind - have scores of sloppy definitions. Needless to say, this hasn’t stopped academics from placing such ideas in the front-and-center of student inquiry.
But for those who suspect that social entrepreneurship is no more than a fad, another alarm may go off: is this really an idea that matters? In the last few years, leaders at top universities have concluded that it is. Oxford, Duke, Stanford and NYU (just to name a few) have recently established centers and programs for social entrepreneurship, which are helping scholars, students and staff to integrate social entrepreneurship into core curricular and co-curricular activities. The outcomes of such programs often inspire. For example, after engaging in Harvard’s Social Enterprise Initiative while earning her MBA, Abigail Falik started Global Citizen Year, a nonprofit which is building a movement of diverse high school graduates who spend a pre-college “bridge year” in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
But research-oriented universities with prominent business schools are one thing. Academics in at liberal arts institutions may still argue that social entrepreneurship is an idea that doesn’t belong. It’s an argument that’s not hard to make. The liberal arts are designed to stand slightly apart, to allow students to dig deep into ideas as ideas, with no regard for their practicality. Furthermore, a professor’s argument might continue, the great goals of the liberal arts — to help students learn how to reflect, to write, and to analyze as they prepare to lead a life of meaning — may well produce social entrepreneurs in the long run; it’s up to our colleagues in MA and MBA programs to teach our alums the necessary practical skills to get there. In a nutshell, let’s keep social entrepreneurship out of the liberal arts.
I’d agree with this case — if the teaching of social entrepreneurship were viewed as nothing more that providing students with practical tools. This month, I’ve concluded that the most persuasive case for teaching social entrepreneurship in the liberal arts is quite different.
It begins with an observation about being a liberal-arts teacher in the 21st century. What we do when we are at our best is to give students the time and space to reflect on their own agency in a complex world. Every student on a liberal-arts campus, echoing Yale’s Anthony Kronman, should confront, wrestle with, and ultimately celebrate that most fundamental question: “What is living for?” For example, when my own economics and environmental studies classes really succeed, it’s because the course material and the learning process have allowed students to stumble, to sometimes really falter, but in the end to confidently stand up and say: “In this class, I’ve learned a little more about the world and my role in it.” I’m guessing that that my colleagues in Physics, Philosophy, Portuguese — you name the department — feel the same way.
But the truth is, we don’t always do this as well as we should. Here’s where social entrepreneurship can come in. To carefully teach students about leading creative, even destructive processes whose goal is a better world, we must begin with the students themselves. To paraphrase the great organizer Marshall Ganz, we must help students to ask: “What is my story of self? What is the story of us? What is our story of now?” Put another way, we must ask students to first reflect - and only after to connect.
What I like most about this perspective is that it takes us back to Kronman’s question: “What is living for?” And to begin to answer that question well (has anyone really figured it out?), a student needs to explore the breadth of the humanities - in many ways the core of the liberal arts. If it were up to me, the teaching of social entrepreneurship would start with the great lessons from philosophy, religion and theories of political science.
Social entrepreneurs are already all around us at Middlebury. Think of the Davis Peace Scholars, graduates of MiddCORE and the many young leaders aided by the Project on Creativity and Innovation in the Liberal Arts. Like Moliere’s Monsieur Jourdain, who was delighted to discover that he’d been speaking prose for years, we’ve been in the business of social entrepreneurship for some time now! If we decide to commit to do more, we must begin with the core ideals of the liberal arts. The final words of the College’s mission statement are: “Students who come to Middlebury learn to engage the world.”
The key to achieving this mission is to help students to engage themselves in a reflective, guided process of inquiry. Only then can they go on to be world changers.
(01/20/11 5:03am)
A native third-generation Vermonter, Jeff Costello’s favorite spot in Middlebury is the Town Green. He grew up in town and often worked in his father’s eatery, the Middlebury Bakery, before the store was sold to its current owner Jim Rubright in 1979. The café was shortly renamed Middlebury Bagel and Delicatessen and remains a popular dining option.
After studying business and business law in California, Costello returned to Middlebury and became involved in the trades department for 15 years. In 1996, he closed his business and began working at the Middlebury Inn. He said he was introduced to the hotel through the trades, and he quickly became interested in “the front of the house.” His curiosity led Costello to be named general manager in 1999, a position he has held for 12 years.
“I think I have the right personality for my job because I enjoy mingling and talking to people,” said Costello, who now lives in Bristol, Vt.
Steven and Michael Dopp bought the inn in 2006, but the brothers live out-of-state. Though the two “off-site” owners visit frequently, Costello is in charge of all affairs when the brothers are away. The Dopps ordered minor renovations to the inn five years ago; Costello says “cosmetic” changes were performed, such as the repainting of certain walls and the installation of tile floors.
“My favorite part about Vermont is the seasons,” said Costello Most tourists who visit the inn agree, as the majority of travelers visit Vermont in the summer and fall. The hotel sees the greatest amount of action from July through October.
“Our goal is to offer guests personal and friendly service,” Costello, who values “good old-fashioned service,” said. “This is not as abundant anymore because of electronics.” A recent guest told the general manger that he felt “welcomed in an old friends’ house” during his stay.
The Middlebury Inn has undergone much construction since it was founded in 1827. In the 1890s, the hotel added a kitchen and a banquet room, which is now a popular space for wedding parties. Later, in 1926, plumbing, electricity and an elevator were installed. Nonetheless, most of the inn’s architecture is original. The inn’s restaurant, Morgan’s Tavern, has 48 chairs and several tables that date back to 1948. The eatery is open to the public for breakfast, lunch (Monday through Friday) and dinner (Wednesday through Sunday).
“We are in a constant renovation,” said Costello. “It is sort of like ‘modernizing history.’” The inn has added wireless connection and climate control to all rooms.
The College and the inn also work hand-in-hand. While the College was founded 27 years before The Middlebury Inn, Costello believes the two have a “long-standing relationship” and says the College is “always in the background.” Parents frequent the inn on parents’ weekends or other visits; there are prospective students walking down the hotel’s halls all months of the year. The parents of John Dawson, the assistant men’s hockey and golf coach, stay at the inn on a regular basis in the winter, as Costello says the two attend many of the games.
The Middlebury Inn also works with Vermont Sun Sports and Fitness. All hotel guests receive complimentary passes to the gym’s facilities during their stay. The Waterfall Spa, below the inn, which was actually once an old pub, is also available for visitors.
“Our location is key because we are within great walking distance of the town,” said Costello. “Many of our guests enjoy sitting on the porch and looking out over the town.”
With 41 rooms, the inn also has space in its two Courtyard Annex’s and in the Porter House Mansion. The annexes are “modern motel-style” buildings that were built in the 1960s. A private residence at first, the mansion became part of the inn in the 1940s. Wedding parties often rent out the mansion’s 10 rooms. Costello said the inn had a 90-person wedding last Sunday, but the hotel can hold a party for as many as 150. The ceremony took place in the banquet hall. Guests then moved to Morgan’s Tavern for cocktails and finally back to the banquet hall, newly decorated after the vows were exchanged, for a four-course plated meal and an evening of dancing.
“The building is best when it is busy,” said Costello.
He also believes the inn offers guests a “perk” in its daily afternoon tea from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. The public is welcome to join, as well, for a minimal fee. Contrary to the standard high tea, the inn tempts guests with sweet-tea, complete with scones and cookies to sample.
With all of its activity and rich history, the Middlebury Inn continues to value its relationship with the College. Costello is proud college alumni and their families visit the inn during the winter, so they can ski at the SnowBowl.
“We want to keep working with the College,” he said. “It is a quality institution and we want to be a quality town partner to that.”
(01/13/11 5:04am)
In 2004, UPS decided to stop making left turns. With a tweaked GPS system, they eliminated all left turns from the routes that their 95,000 delivery trucks would take — except for those absolutely necessary to avoiding ridiculously circuitous journeys. By eliminating the need to idle at red lights where right turns were allowed, they reduced the number of vehicle miles driven by 28.5 million and saved 31,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
In 2009, responding to the growing alarm that honeybees were disappearing, Haagen-Dazs decided to create a microsite devoted to raising awareness about the issue. The company donated a portion of proceeds to research on the topic and launched a Twitcause campaign (#HelpHoneyBees) that raised $7000 and generated 643,748 tweets in two days.
Last year, Coca-Cola moved to invest in Haiti’s mango juice market. This initiative alone has helped 25,000 mango farmers gain access to markets, more efficient technology and associated infrastructure, like roads, etc.
A little while ago, I wrote a column about the value of consumer awareness and activist campaigns — about how everyday people could force the hand of multinational corporations at scale. But as I have been thinking increasingly about what I want to do for the rest of my life, I realized that my initial thinking was incomplete.
I meet people everyday at Middlebury whose main goal in life is to make the world a better place. Be it through journalism, political activism, academia or art, they strive to deliver people from poverty, restore the environment or pursue a world of greater equality and justice. But very few people think about pursuing a life in the private sector, devoted to the gruelling, often superficial, incremental world of corporate social responsibility. Correct me if I’m wrong, but we generally don’t think about multinational corporations as potential places to live out lives devoted to a greater good.
But what if we did? What if in addition to each being socially responsible and active consumers, we signed up to work at Exxon Mobil, General Mills, Nike or any other of the multinational corporations we all love to hate? What if we were the ones campaigning for initiatives like the ones mentioned above; the ones that leverage these companies’ scale for initiatives that serve to improve the world around us?
The state of the corporate world is such that companies, with the slightest supply chain change, marketing campaign or market expansion can sometimes achieve more than some small countries can with federal policy. It will no doubt be difficult — more often than not I hate everything these companies stand for; understanding the need for profit margins and growth, but not at all comprehending why the margins have to be so wide that slavery and environmental annihilation are necessary conditions.
But in the end, multinational corporations represent a unique opportunity to move mountains. With carefully thought out company policies, regulations and initiatives — that continue to generate profits but also other kinds of wealth — we might find ourselves just a few steps closer to a world where a 7.0 magnitude earthquake doesn’t kill 200,000 people and where climate change does not threaten entire nations and peoples. Hearts and minds that can be won run these corporations that we both rely on and simultaneously despise. Maybe we should think about making our living by striving to win them over.
(12/02/10 5:10am)
If you’ve ever been in Proctor Lounge, you’ve probably seen Rhiya Trivedi ’12.
“I spend a disgusting amount of time here,” Trivedi said. “People call it my office.”
If you can’t find her in Proctor, you could probably find her coordinating youth organizations in her native Canada, working on policy in Washington D.C. or participating in the climate talks in Copenhagen.
Trivedi is a grassroots clean air activist.
“As an activist, you spend most of your time on e-mail and Twitter,” she said. “So I spend my time in Proctor drinking unhealthy amounts of chai [tea] and seeing my friends while I work.”
Trivedi has done tremendous amounts of work for clean air, but she was not born an activist.
“The way I see my life is that I didn’t have thoughts until I was 14,” Trivedi said. “I ended up at a boarding school in New Hampshire where my older brother ran the environmental group. The organization fell into my lap.”
When Trivedi joined the group, EcoAction, in 2006, the organization was not very active. However, during this time, climate talks were kicking up. Trivedi began looking at local environmental action and saw that what people did on an individual basis mattered, and suddenly the group, and Trivedi’s activism, began to grow.
“I grabbed on with two hands,” Trivedi said. “And I took ownership.”
So the environment went from being something Trivedi did not think much about to something that was the defining force in her life.
“It’s why I came to Midd,” Trivedi said. “And they put me in the Feb class, which was the best thing that ever happened to me.
The Febs were the most thoughtful, dynamic group,” Trivedi said. “The environment of being a Feb is awesome. Everyone is passionate about something — I don’t care if that something is underwater basket weaving — but it teaches me how to be passionate.”
Before attending Middlebury, Trivedi spent her semester off in Gujarat, a small town in West India, living the simple life.
“I almost didn’t come back,” she said. “I have this thing where every two years I [go] to the developing world. I have to remember how most people live and do whatever I can to help out.”
This past summer Trivedi travelled to West Borneo to distribute energy efficient stoves. In this area, women spend many hours toiling over a large open pit fire to cook for their large families, which can lead to serious respiratory trouble. By distributing these stoves, Trivedi combined her passions of helping the less-fortunate and environmental activism.
“I can’t decide whether these trips are more for me or for the other,” said Trivedi. “It’s so easy to forget when I’m here. I’m very susceptible to wherever I am.”
Trivedi was also able to meet Middlebury’s Scholar-in-Residence in Environmental Studies Bill McKibben, who runs 350.org, a major environmentalist organization, who then put her in touch with a group of Canadian activist group called the Canadian Youth Delegation.
“The group is the most colorful, amorphous thing,” Trivedi said. “It’s international youth working for change. It’s about the future and our generation, but it’s controlled entirely by our parents.”
The Canadian organization gets support at home and then goes to the international climate talks, including those at Copenhagen, which Trivedi herself participated in.
“I joined the delegation in summer 2009,” Trivedi said, “and worked through December organizing young people in Canada.
“I’m embarrassed to say I’m doing nothing at Middlebury right now,” Trivedi said. “My mood fluctuates with the mood of the climate movement. And right now it’s in a big think. When Copenhagen failed, there was a need for international soul searching.”
So where is the future of environmentalism headed?
“It’s a weird push and pull between grassroots, in the dirt and the federal pursuit,” said Trivedi. “We can’t see the long term.”
And where is Trivedi’s own future heading?
“I hope I can stop caring and bake bread for the rest of my life,” Trivedi admits. “I have this secret hope of being a baker if nothing else mattered.”
But Trivedi understands that things do matter, and she has already immersed herself into the clean air campaign.
“People have invested a lot in me to be prepared,” said Trivedi, “and I am going to try to honor that. I’ll probably do some kind of political thing.”
There is one thing about politics, though, that Trivedi is not particularly fond of.
“You can’t wear flip-flops in that world.” Trivedi said. “I just have this thing about shoes. I hate the fashion of politics.”
Trivedi knows that not everyone can be like her and devote endless energy into the cause and thus bounces her ideas off of her friends.
“My friends are the guinea pigs,” Trivedi said. “They’re the real people who do other things, and that’s what important.
“But right now,” Trivedi said. “I’ve been enjoying Midd, trying to do well in school and loving my friends pretty hard. It’s so easy to be a nerd here, and I need that. I’m unadbashedly a nerd, and at Midd I can be accepted and embraced. I find that very precious, no jokes.”
(12/02/10 4:56am)
On Nov. 14, The Chronicle of Higher Education released its annual compensation report for the chief executives of 448 colleges and universities across the U.S., reporting on tax data from the calendar year 2008. According to the report, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz’s total compensation for 2008 amounted to $729,929.
The Chronicle report represents a dramatic change in how the U.S. Internal Revenue Service instructed private colleges to disclose compensation data for the 2008 reporting period. The new tax form, which is far more comprehensive than its predecessors, required colleges to report data from the 2008 calendar year, rather than the fiscal year ending in June. This change created overlap between the data reported this year and that reported last year for the 2007-2008 fiscal year.
These 2008 compensation packages also reflect salaries set before the recession. The Chronicle reported a base pay for Liebowitz of $286,433; however, after 2008, in light of the economic climate, Liebowitz volunteered salary reductions totaling 10 percent along with, according to the Board of Trustees’ Compensation Committee chair Frederick Fritz ’68, several other compensation package reductions that have not been made public.
As a result of these reductions, Fritz wrote in a memo, “[Liebowitz’s] 2009 and 2010 compensation were significantly less than 2008, and will be reported as such in the Chronicle’s reports next year and the year after.”
“I think the Chronicle this year — it does this often — is trying to present more and more of the full picture,” said Liebowitz. “The difficult aspect of that is that it’s never apples to apples. Each year … it presents newer and more inclusive information, but for the sake of understanding one year to the next it makes it more challenging.”
The figure for total compensation reached by the Chronicle represents a composite of various types of cash and non-cash compensation Liebowitz receives that is divisable into three categories: salary, benefits and a presidential compensation package. Among comparator schools — a group of 24 peer institutions used by the Compensation Committee to assess the package it offers — Liebowitz’s salary, with the accepted reductions, is lowest.
Liebowitz also noted that his “generous” benefits, like health insurance, disability and retirement contributions, are something he has in common with all employees of the College.
“The College has a generous benefits package compared to other colleges and universities, and that’s across the board, not just for presidents,” he said.
A large part of the third category, the presidential compensation package, is rent-free housing; Fritz described residence at the 3 South St. as “a Board-imposed requirement for the president at Middlebury.”
Liebowitz explained what the decision meant for his family.
“Truth be told, I was the second or third president to ask that that not be a benefit,” he said. “We asked to retain our house in Cornwall … but the board has had presidents living at 3 South Street since 1917, so we do that and we get charged for that of course as a benefit, and then everything else that goes into supporting that house.”
Like Liebowitz’s salary, the amount spent on household support has decreased since 2008 due to the recession, but it will always play a part in the president’s compensation as Liebowitz and his wife, Jessica, host many events at their house. The cost of the house, along with household support and travel expenses, are all components of the President’s pay that the Compensation Committee “deem[s] necessary to accomplish the job,” said Fritz.
A final factor in the compensation package reported by the Chronicle is known as deferred compensation. Deferred compensation can take many forms, including bonuses, severance pay or supplemental retirement pay, and has become a common feature of compensation packages for the chief executives of U.S. colleges over the last few years. The Chronicle reported Liebowitz’s deferred compensation as amounting to $169,404 for 2008.
The Board included deferred compensation “as an important tool in its 2003 presidential search process to recruit and, more importantly, retain Middlebury’s president,” said Fritz. One way in which Middlebury’s offer differs from that of many institutions is that it is subject to 100 percent forfeiture.
“It only becomes my benefit upon certain conditions, one of them of course is if I fulfill my obligations to the job, secondly if I serve a specific amount of time,” said Liebowitz. “If I meet those criteria, then it becomes mine.”
Liebowitz, who is also a tenured member of the Geography department, explained the personal significance of deferred compensation for his career plans and for other presidents receiving such a benefit.
“For me, deferred compensation has always been tied to my next career,” he said. “My own personal belief has always been that once one finishes a presidency, one moves on and gives up the tenured position. … I think that’s what it’s for, and I think the Board has been very aware of that and so it sets aside a certain amount of money so I can take the time at the end of my presidency to move into another career.”
The Compensation Committee undergoes a thorough process of external review to determine whether the compensation package it offers Liebowitz each year is appropriate. Each year, it considers external compensation data, the relative size of the College’s budget compared to peer institutions, the operations of the College’s international campuses and affiliate schools and, crucially, the president’s performance against a set of predetermined goals as inputs into any decision-making. The Committee further relies on the legal opinion of a third party “industry expert, opining that our overall package is well within market norms,” Fritz said.
Fritz supported his Committee’s compensation decision on the basis of Liebowitz’s performance as President.
“Middlebury has a first-class president who earns fair compensation for his outstanding performance,” he said.
(11/18/10 4:59am)
Last December hopes were high, and expectations soared as 197 countries sent representatives to the city of Copenhagen to take part in the United Nations sponsored talks on greenhouse emissions and global climate change. Despite President Obama’s comment that these talks were “meaningful,” these hopes were dashed, and expectations left so low that few even bothered to attend the talks held this year in Cancun. Talks have been going on for years, hopes have risen and ebbed, and yet little has been decided upon and almost nothing implemented. This year there isn’t even hope that talks will turn into action.
But why should there be? Experience and study tells us the same thing: international climate treaties can never be agreed upon, much less implemented. The modern world is one of nation states, which are limited by territory, and it is better that the Irish and the Indians govern themselves as opposed to being governed by some foreign global empire (after all, will the United Nations do better than the British?). Although globalization has made these states more and more interconnected by treaties, trade agreements, international organizations and methods of communication such as the internet, these states remain separate entities concerned above all with their own well-being and that of their people, their economies and their national security. Within any ruling body, the United Nations included, some people rule and others are ruled. The rulers always benefit more from ruling than do the ruled. Indeed, ruling often occurs at the expense of the ruled. Even where the rulers do not exploit the ruled, nations have interests. International climate treaties are antithetical to these interests, because climate change is not an issue for a particular territory but for the world in general. The well-being of the world is important to every country. If it were not, talks on global climate change would never have been initiated. The problem is not in the acknowledgement of the importance of the environment; it is in its degree of importance ranked among all of the other interests of a state, such as a healthy economy, security and feeding its people. For some countries, caring about global climate change and protecting its other national interests are mutually exclusive.
A state’s sovereignty is necessary for its national security and the well being of the particular citizens of the particular state. Without the power to act in order to protect itself, whether militarily or economically, a state is unable to do the very thing for which it was created — to give its people safety and security. Important as the climate may be, no state is willing to sacrifice too much of its sovereignty to an international treaty whose short turn effect may damage the nation’s interests. The economic stability of a country can be as important to its security as its military prowess. Poverty breeds discontent and, in extreme cases, revolts. It decreases the state’s power on the international arena and makes it impossible to sustain a powerful military force. On the other hand, rising economic standards often breed contentment and stability. Yet many of the economies of countries today, especially developing countries, are based upon methods of production, which contribute to CO2 emissions and climate change. No matter how concerned these countries are about the world climate, in the long run they will never be willing to sacrifice their short term power and stability. It is for this reason that the Kyoto Protocol has failed, and the Copppenhagen and Cancun talks are just that: talking and nothing more. There is no “global” treaty that will not favor one people over another, one set of rulers over those that they rule.
But aside from the inability for countries to agree and act upon global climate change treaties, there is a more fundamental question surrounding them: would a global climate change treaty actually change the world for the better? On an international scale, the answer to this question seems obvious: preventing CO2 emissions and global climate change would, of course, be a good thing. But would climate treaties actually accomplish this? The reality is that it probably wouldn’t.
Any international treaty is dependent upon the willingness of its signatories to obey the edicts of the treaty. International agreements have only as much power as is given to them by sovereign nations. If passed, the likelihood of certain developing countries to actually accede to the demands of the treaty is little to none. If they agreed to sign, the countries that would actually enact the demands of the treaty would be those who are more highly developed and had less to lose i.e. the Western democratic states. Those who see their economies hardest hit would never conform to the treaty. Therefore, the United States and the Western European countries would decrease their carbon emissions, which would have the effect of limiting their production methods. This would cause them to use more expensive energy, which would in turn make their products even more expensive and thereby lose markets. The western countries would export their admissions to other countries and let less developed countries raise their carbon admissions, while we in the west claim that we have done our part. Instead, countries like India, China and Brazil would move into these vacated markets. This exchange would actually cause the rate of carbon emissions to increase because, even without limiting their carbon emission in order to conform to a global climate treaty, the Western countries use methods that produce less carbon emissions. So perhaps we should not feel as if our hopes have been dashed in the wake of Copenhagen, instead we should rule ourselves as we think best.
(11/18/10 4:59am)
The Vermont winter makes a solid argument against the existence of global warming, especially when gusts of icy snow get involved. Admittedly, this time of year provides some evidence for climate change — from chilly to colder to Winter Term — but except for a few strangely sunny days, Middlebury generally doesn’t get very hot during the school year. It can be difficult to think about global warming while living in a place where snow boots make their first appearance in November and won’t be packed away again until April.
Fortunately, the College administration has made addressing climate change (the real deal, not just the New England weather patterns that us Southerners don’t quite understand) a top priority evidenced by its commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2016. The biomass gasification and wind turbine at the recycling center will help us get there, but especially with winter approaching, it’s important to note that fuel oil is still burned to bridge the gap in heating campus buildings that steam from the biomass plant can’t quite fill.
So what’s an environmentally friendly MiddKid to do? As difficult as it is to crawl out of bed into a chilly room on a cold November morning (December, January, February and most of March are rough, too), turning the knob on the radiator from 5 down to the little snowflake is a sure way to decrease demand on the campus heating system, and, through a long chain of factors, reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It’s not the most pleasant scenario, but fortunately our New England forefathers (and mothers) developed a way of dealing with the bitter cold long before central heating became a given: the sweater.
Donning a sweater is the perfect way to fight climate change while looking like a hoss. A snuggly wool sweater will keep you toasty while working your way through a late-night problem set, while layering a cardigan or crewneck over your t-shirt smartens up your class time look (definite A for participation). Don’t have any cute sweaters? Not a problem! Buy the most heinous amalgamation of fiber you can find at Neat Repeats and wear it ironically with skinny jeans for a chic hipster look perfect for Proctor salad bar. Sweaters provide warmth and style — the perfect combination of function and fashion — and come in a variety of styles to suit every taste.
Admittedly, I might be somewhat biased here; I have the same feelings toward Sweater Season that most guys have for Skirt Season: Bring. It. On. There’s just something about a man in a crewneck (or a v-neck, roll-neck, turtleneck, sweater vest, cardigan or anything with argyle) that causes the sort of primal feeling within me that I otherwise reserve for guys in lax pennies: I just want to cuddle. A lot. And really, once you’ve got the cuddling going, external heating becomes a moot point. So turn the dial on your heater down and find that sweater your grandmother bought you, the one that makes you look “so adorable.” She wasn’t lying, and things could work out very much in your favor if you happen upon another sweater-wearer. Saving-the-world kind of things, obviously. And really, isn’t reducing your carbon footprint always more fun with someone else?
Amy Prescott ’12 is from Arlington, Va.
(11/18/10 4:59am)
When the woman in the most significant position of international climate policy power says that she does “not believe we will have a final agreement on climate change … in [her] lifetime,” one would approach work in this sphere with precious little hope. The woman is Christina Figueres — a 53-year-old Costa Rican diplomat — and the sphere: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And while I also approach it with precious little hope, I’m writing today to defend what little faith I do have.
The Kyoto Protocol was the first major pact to emerge from this UN convention — a 21-page document that bound the world’s richest nations to greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets on the scale of 5-7 percent (below 1990 levels by 2012). Any new treaty should — based on the increasingly dire science of global warming — scale up the required reductions for the world’s largest emitters, enshrine the slowing of emissions growth in developing nations, raise the value of standing forests (as to reduce emissions from the forestry sector) and provide predictable and adequate “adaptation” resources for nations on the frontlines of climate impacts. Emissions reductions targets on the scale of 80-95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 for the wealthiest, substantial deviation from “business as usual emissions” for the industrializing and adaptation funds in the range of $50 to $100 billion by 2020 are the quantitative parameters currently framing the debate.
Now, $100 billion is a freaking lot of money, and going from 5 percent to 95 percent is a big deal. Many people are right in thinking that a deal like this will infringe upon the sovereignty of nations by imposing unwanted standards and obligations and in modeling potential emergent trade imbalances (the idea is that if a developed country imposes greenhouse gas regulations upon exporting firms, their exports will be costlier and less competitive compared to developing countries facing less domestic regulation). The efficacy of such a document is also questioned — in order to become law in many countries, international treaties have to be ratified (in the United States for example, a two-thirds Congressional vote is required). Without ratification by all relevant parties, certainty of compliance with stipulated measures would be nothing more than a dream.
But these arguments fail to acknowledge a few important realities. We live in a world of global, interconnected problems, where sovereignty lies antithetical to communal responsibility and collective action. Our perceptions of what we were “entitled” to nationally could and should be challenged with the idea that we have growing international obligations. Simultaneously, regulation will make some exports less competitive, yes, but what about the developments in clean energy and energy efficient technology that would be made as a result of negative incentives? Clean tech exports could do much to compensate for, and even exceed, any damage incurred by lack of trade competitiveness elsewhere (not to mention the fact that China is giving us a regular shellacking when it comes to green energy research, development and deployment).
On the subject of efficacy, I’m stumped. Thus far, the arc of climate negotiations has failed to “bend toward justice;” Secretary Figueres isn’t wrong when she questions the possibility of success on the time scale required. Western nations within the negotiations have overtly hegemonic negotiating strategies; bureaucracy and formality often get in the way of substantive dialogue, and regional partnerships are far from facilitated (despite the fact that, in scale, they would be far easier to formulate). But it remains the only process we have to coordinate a global effort on this global problem. As popular support builds for climate action around the world, so too is progress made within the UNFCCC, line by line and point by point. We’re decades away from a document that, if ratified around the world, will achieve the necessary scientific and economic targets. But given the right amount of sustained hope and commitment, we’ll get it done. Of that, I am confident. In the end, it’s not just a matter of the perfect (whatever that is in this situation) being the enemy of the good, but the perfect being the enemy of the planet.
(11/11/10 2:12am)
Despite the effects of the economic downturn in the past two years, the Middlebury Initiative has raised approximately $338 million and is well on its way to its goal of $500 million.
The Initiative is a fundraising campaign that is designed to raise money for the priorities of the College. The money raised consists of donations made by alumni, parents, faculty and others.
This iteration of the Initiative in particular is focused on raising money for global opportunities and global outreach, according to Associate Vice President for Development in the College Advancement Office Risé Wilson.
“Our tag-line is really ‘Liberal arts, global action,’” said Wilson.
First, collected money is spent on students and faculty through things such as financial aid and paychecks. Once these areas have been covered, the rest of the money is put toward advancing the College’s commitment to sustainability and other environmental goals, expanding the C.V. Starr Schools Abroad, expanding programs at the Language Schools over the summer and supporting students in applying their liberal arts education globally through internships and research.
The Initiative began in 2005 and was publicly announced and launched in the fall of 2007, but the recent economic downturn has delayed the $500 million goal.
“We are probably anticipating June of 2014” as the date the College will reach $500 million, said Wilson. “Originally we were hoping 2012. We think we probably lost about two years because of the economic downturn, so it will probably take an additional two years. But time will tell.”
Specifically, the College saw a decrease in the number of donors willing to make multi-year commitments. Long-term gifts are less common because people are unsure of where the economy will be in the years to come.
However, recent months have seen donors increasingly willing to consider making long-term gift commitments. President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz has worked hard to continue to encourage donors to make these long-term pledges to the College.
“I’ve taken more trips in the last 18 months than in the previous 18 months,” he said. “I would say that in the last six to nine months the prospects that I see — those in the top of the giving spectrum — are much more willing to have gift discussions. So it’s getting better and I’m optimistic.”
Liebowitz is not the only one who has worked to keep funds high. In order to accommodate those who would normally be long-term donors, members of the College Advancement Office accept a donation for the year, but ask to continue conversation with the donor later in the year in hopes to encourage them to continue donating.
These are all tactics for higher-end donors, but the College also has a continued focus on smaller donations that help with participation and really add up.
In light of the recessed economy, the Initiative has needed to be flexible, but this seems not to have shaken the attitudes of those in the College Advancement office. Though the date of completion for the Initiative has been pushed back, the mindset of those leading the campaign is focused on the successes of the fundraising instead of the difficulties.
“Certainly the downturn in the economy for two years has made fundraising more difficult,” said Wilson. “The climate has changed and probably changed forever. So really we feel more strongly about the impact that the money we have raised will have than about reaching a certain dollar goal. So we certainly want to reach $500 million, and we will, it’s just a matter of how long that will take.”
(11/11/10 2:10am)
On Nov. 1, the Senior Committee unveiled this year’s senior class gift. After deliberating between three possible candidates, the class voted to donate the $100,000 gift to the Solar Decathlon project.
The other two potential recipients for this year’s class gift were the organic garden and student internships. According to Assistant Director of Annual Giving Jennifer Conetta, had the money gone to the Middlebury College Organic Garden, it would have funded the “construction and establishment of a building that would house equipment and contain a produce packing and washing area and a refrigerated
cooler.”
Conetta also said that the money that would have gone to support student internships would have established “an endowed Class of 2011 fund to support unpaid student internship stipends.
“The fund would have provided student stipends of varying amounts to students participating in an unpaid internship,” she said.
According to Conetta, the process of selecting the recipient of the gift remains the same from year to year. Each year, she said, “the Senior Committee brainstorms possible gift ideas”, which they generate by speaking to their friends and peers about their own personal interests and what they believe would be in the best interest of the class as a whole. Then, after researching these ideas, students present each idea to the Committee as a whole for discussion, and then vote on which three ideas should be presented to the senior class. Finally, the three gifts are put to an anonymous class-wide vote.
This year’s gift will be dedicated to the memory of three classmates: Nick Garza ’11, Pavlo Kevkiv ’11 and Ben Wieler ’11. Later in the year, the senior class will vote on which aspect of the project will be dedicated to these students. The Class will announce its decision about the gift at the 200 Days party this Saturday, Nov. 6.
The College’s Solar Decathlon team is the first liberal arts college team to compete in the United States Solar Decathlon, a competition that has been held by the Department of Energy (DOE) since 2002. According to the DOE website, every two years the department “challenges 20 collegiate teams to design, build and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient and attractive.” The houses must “be affordable, attractive and easy to live in; maintain comfortable and healthy indoor environmental conditions; [supply] energy to household appliances for cooking, cleaning and entertainment; [provide] adequate hot water; [and produce] as much or more energy” than they consume. Teams spend about two years creating houses to show in the competition, which is held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The Solar Decathlon team has been selected as a finalist in the 2011 competition. It is currently in the process of designing and building a New England farmhouse for the 21st century — one that is made “for the Vermont climate” and “combines the best aspects of a traditional New England farmhouse with the efficient technologies of today,” according to the group’s website. The group says that, while its long-term goal for the farmhouse is to “inspire people to adopt a comfortable, healthy, green lifestyle,” for its home to have real meaning, it “needs to inspire changes in how everyone makes, uses, and transports energy.”
Ultimately, the project will cost about $500,000; prior to receiving the class gift, the team managed to raise almost $55,000 through donations from members of the community.
(11/11/10 1:37am)
The Community Council, with its representative membership of students, faculty and staff, is an encompassing forum through which every member of the College community is represented on non-academic issues and aspects of the College and its community.
“The Community Council is the only organization on campus that combines student voice with faculty, staff, and administration voice,” stated Raymond Queliz ’11, the co-chair of the Council.
This diversity of its membership assures that the views of the different sections of the College are expressed and understood. As one of the most representative bodies, the Council addresses policies and issues in every aspect of the non-academic life of the College in which students, faculty and/or staff share mutual concerns.
Queliz explained the importance of the Community Council.
“I believe that the role of Community Council is crucial to student life because the concerns each year brings change and having a [truly] representative group of the Middlebury community as a whole helps move the college forward in a better direction.”
The Community Council can directly implement decisions for which it can be held accountable, but it can only make valid and valued recommendations to President Liebowitz in order to address other issues for which they cannot be liable — either financially or legally — but hold significance for those who the members of the Council represent.
The varied and numerous responsibilities of the Council range from the Honor System to academic and social interest houses. Of the latter, the Subcommittee on Social Academic Interest Houses assesses and evaluates academic and social interest houses; this year, the delegations in the subcommittee are SGA delegate Riley O’Rourke ’12, Commons Coordinator Linda Schiffer and Assistant Professor of Italian Andrei Barashkov. As the members of this subcommittee, they report to the rest of the Council members the performance of the individual houses in terms of adhering to implemented policies and make recommendations regarding any issues.
Additionally, the Academic Judicial Board, Community Judicial Board and the Judicial Appeals Board — all three of which review alleged violations of either the Honor Code or the College’s community standards — are all accountable to the Community Council. Also, the Council convenes the Honor System Review Committee at least every fourth year to make changes on the system based on recommendations from the committee.
By no means are changing policies in the handbook, determining the statuses of interest houses, and upholding the Honor system of the College the limits of the Council’s authority. The Community Council can execute decisions or make effective recommendations to the President on all areas pertaining to the non-academic life of the College community. The Council, in addition to the issues determined by its members, also hears any proposal brought forth by members of the College concerning non-academic issues that affect the community.
As for this year’s planned actions of the Council, Dean of the College and Chief Diversity Officer Shirley M. Collado, the Co-Chair, outlined, “Some of our agenda items […] include the consideration of gender neutral housing, approving a revised hazing policy, exploring a revised sexual misconduct policy and improving dining issues.”
One of the first changes the Community Council implemented was an internal one; as is tradition, voting members of the Council do not include the alternate student, faculty and staff delegates. However, in order to engage the whole of the College community and give greater flexibility in policy making, the Council motioned for and granted every member of the Council voting power.
“We look forward to engaging [every] Middlebury community members as we aim to improve the overall experience of faculty, staff and students,” said Collado.
On the previous meetings, the Community Council voted in favor of reinstatement of KDR social house and focused heavily on the new version of the hazing policy on campus, although it has yet to be finalized.
During the Oct. 11 meeting, O’Rourke ’12 updated the Council on the SGA’s Grille resolution and the Council responded positively, sending a recommendation to President Liebowitz that supported opening the Grille on Sundays and Mondays, Grille Delivery and Vice President for Administration Tim Spears’ student-run Juice Bar initiative about which Spears recently sent out an e-mail to all students.
The key issue addressed during the Oct. 25 meeting was introduced by Director of Dining Services Matthew Biette, who participated in the Aunt Des video campaign to raise awareness of the cost problems of the lost dishes from the dining halls. The Council discussed the loss of dishes as being pertinent to environmental and health concerns as well as the problem being indicative of social climate of the student body at the College.
The Community Council elected to create an ad-hoc committee that would organize a student-run system with other bodies and organizations to educate other students of the financial, environmental and health aspects of this issue — contrasting the indifference and carelessness with responsibility and formality. This committee will comprise of Assistant Director of Custodial Services Linda Ross, Janet Rodrigues ’12, Addie Cunniff ’13, Rachel Sider ’14 and Dan Prior ’14.
For the upcoming meeting on Nov. 2, the Council will host Associate Dean of Students Doug Adams to further discuss the hazing policy and also to discuss Gender Neutral Housing Initiative in depth.
(11/10/10 11:00pm)
Being a climate activist, I tend to engage in some pretty intense and discouraging discourse. Still, the most terrifying conversation I’ve ever had was with a representative of the International Red Cross, at the UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen last December. We were discussing climate refugees — that is, persons displaced by greenhouse gas-induced rising seas, drought and/or starvation, or more frequent, stronger tropical storms. Looking back, every bit of that exchange has faded to black, except for one idea: the notion that we would never be able to, with certainty, identify a refugee as a victim of the climate crisis; to separate a climate from civil conflict, discrimination or natural disaster as a potential root cause of an individual’s statelessness. Climate change, as a colorless, tasteless, amorphous phenomenon, would never reveal its true nature to us enough to enable truly identifying its victims.
Here’s the problem: having millions upon millions of refugees has rarely fazed the international political community as a whole. Refugee counts today run as high as 62 million, 34 million of whom are internally displaced, or by war. These people are left to fester in camps; deprived of the right to work or to build durable homes (because that would betray a sense of permanence in territory that presumably belongs to another nation/individual), and suffering from extreme food and water shortages and poor sanitation. Disease, trafficking, crime and deportation are faced every second of every day, most commonly by vulnerable widows and orphans. There is little precedent for the idea that we possess the ideal combination of readiness, resources and compassion necessary to coping with and caring for the millions of people who will be uprooted by runaway climate change.
The desire to draw a distinction between climate and non-climate refugees does not stem from my overt passion for the issue of climate change, negligence toward civil conflict or helplessness concerning natural, inevitable disaster. It comes instead from a realization that the countries responsible for inducing the displacement and suffering of climate refugees have both the resources and the obligation to provide aid and support in a way that no countries ever have before.
Let me explain. The world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, responsible for the 0.7 degrees Celsius of warming already recorded, and future warming to come, happen to also be the world’s richest nations (with the exception of China and India): the United States, European Union, Australia, Japan and Canada. In a way that these nations do not necessarily have a literal obligation to Sudanese refugees fleeing ethno-religious discrimination by their own government (who has the obligation but not the resources), we do toward the millions of people who will be displaced by the unfettered dumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we have the money and the know-how to back it up.
Which is why I was especially frustrated by the perception of climate change induced displacement in last week’s screening of Climate Refugees. The film did much to portray refugees of the climate crisis through the lens of a national security issue; to convey the idea that when hundreds of thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans flee their homeland because their predominantly rain-fed crops are failing in drought, and potentially go knocking on the doors of the European Union, they pose grave threats to an otherwise stable, peaceful coalition; that when Pacific islanders take to boats and end up on the shores of New Zealand and Australia, civil conflict and social unrest could ensue; that when millions of Bangladeshis migrate to the Indian border, an already crowded country could be destabilized.
But what the movie failed to communicate was that these wealthy nations who’s citizenship, arable land, and services would be asked for by the new displaced were the ones with the historical responsibility for the climate problem. In some ways, their arrival on our doorsteps would be entirely justified; after all, it’s not as if we didn’t know this was coming.
In the end, I hope that we can look deeply enough to motivate climate action both today and tomorrow not by fear, but by compassion and a sense of collective responsibility. What is at stake here extends far beyond national security in the developed world, or what precious little prosperity, safety, and stability exists in the developing world, but our potential to act with a sense of global community, and a reverence for a higher moral code.
(10/28/10 3:54am)
The Community Council, with its representative membership of students, faculty and staff, is an encompassing forum through which every member of the College community is represented on non-academic issues and aspects of the College and its community.
“The Community Council is the only organization on campus that combines student voice with faculty, staff, and administration voice,” said Raymond Queliz ’11, the co-chair of the Council.
This diversity of its membership assures that the views of the different sections of the College are expressed and understood. As one of the most representative bodies, the Council addresses policies and issues in every aspect of the non-academic life of the College in which students, faculty and/or staff share mutual concerns.
Queliz explained the importance of the Community Council.
“I believe that the role of Community Council is crucial to student life because the concerns each year brings change and having a [truly] representative group of the Middlebury community as a whole helps move the College forward in a better direction.”
The Community Council can directly implement decisions for which it can be held accountable, but it can only make valid and valued recommendations to President Liebowitz in order to address other issues for which they cannot be liable — either financially or legally — but hold significance for those who the members of the Council represent.
The varied and numerous responsibilities of the Council range from the Honor System to academic and social interest houses. Of the latter, the Subcommittee on Social Academic Interest Houses assesses and evaluates academic and social interest houses; this year, the delegations in the subcommittee are SGA delegate Riley O’Rourke ’12, Commons Coordinator Linda Schiffer and Assistant Professor of Italian Andrei Barashkov. As the members of this subcommittee, they report to the rest of the Council members the performance of the individual houses in terms of adhering to implemented policies and make recommendations regarding any issues.
Additionally, the Academic Judicial Board, Community Judicial Board and the Judicial Appeals Board — all three of which review alleged violations of either the Honor Code or the College’s community standards — are all accountable to the Community Council. Also, the Council convenes the Honor System Review Committee at least every fourth year to make changes on the system based on recommendations from the committee.
By no means are changing policies in the handbook, determining the statuses of interest houses, and upholding the Honor system of the College the limits of the Council’s authority. The Community Council can execute decisions or make effective recommendations to the President on all areas pertaining to the non-academic life of the College community. The Council, in addition to the issues determined by its members, also hears any proposal brought forth by members of the College concerning non-academic issues that affect the community.
As for this year’s planned actions of the Council, Dean of the College and Chief Diversity Officer Shirley M. Collado, the Co-Chair, outlined, “Some of our agenda items […] include the consideration of gender neutral housing, approving a revised hazing policy, exploring a revised sexual misconduct policy and improving dining issues.”
One of the first changes the Community Council implemented was an internal one; as is tradition, voting members of the Council do not include the alternate student, faculty and staff delegates. However, in order to engage the whole of the College community and give greater flexibility in policy making, the Council motioned for and granted every member of the Council voting power.
“We look forward to engaging [every] Middlebury community member as we aim to improve the overall experience of faculty, staff and students,” said Collado.
On the previous meetings, the Community Council voted in favor of reinstatement of KDR social house and focused heavily on the new version of the hazing policy on campus, although it has yet to be finalized.
During the Oct. 11 meeting, O’Rourke ’12 updated the Council on the SGA’s Grille resolution and the Council responded positively, sending a recommendation to President Liebowitz that supported opening the Grille on Sundays and Mondays, Grille Delivery and Vice President for Administration Tim Spears’ student-run Juice Bar initiative about which Spears recently sent out an e-mail to all students.
The key issue addressed during the Oct. 25 meeting was introduced by Director of Dining Services Matthew Biette, who participated in the Aunt Des video campaign to raise awareness of the cost problems of the lost dishes from the dining halls. The Council discussed the loss of dishes as being pertinent to environmental and health concerns as well as the problem being indicative of social climate of the student body at the College.
The Community Council elected to create an ad-hoc committee that would organize a student-run system with other bodies and organizations to educate other students of the financial, environmental and health aspects of this issue — contrasting the indifference and carelessness with responsibility and formality. This committee will comprise of Assistant Director of Custodial Services Linda Ross, Janet Rodrigues ’12, Addie Cunniff ’13, Rachel Sider ’14 and Dan Prior ’14.
For the upcoming meeting on Nov. 2, the Council will host Associate Dean of Students Doug Adams to further discuss the hazing policy and also to discuss Gender Neutral Housing Initiative in depth.
(10/14/10 4:07am)
Here at Middlebury, we pride ourselves on our quest for carbon neutrality, our compost piles, our organic garden and overall awareness and attentiveness to the importance of environmental sustainability. We petition for change, we protest abuse and we try to set a good example in the way we live and interact with our limited resources. But what in the name of electric cars and solar energy does any of this have to do with fashion?! EVERTHING. Okay… I exaggerate, but still.
The way I look at it, “Stylistic Sustainability” can be broken up into two categories — Material and Historical. On one end you have the material — clothes made out of recycled textiles, hemp and natural fibers — clothes whose production doesn’t exhaust resources or pollute the local environment. This extends beyond the basic makeup of the textiles and into the structure and practices of the companies themselves. Now I’m not saying you have to research the environmental responsibility of every company you purchase a piece of clothing from, but if you are a consistent patron of specific stores, look into it. For all you know your clothing is being made by seven-year-old orphans with TB who get a dollar every six months, or perhaps your favorite designer is the leading killer of rabbits in Eastern Europe.
So clearly I’m hyperbolizing here, but you get my drift. If we’ve learned anything from this wonderful liberal arts education, it’s that we need to be aware of our consumption.
Now here comes the fun part: historical sustainability, or clothes that were made before (or shortly after) you were born. It’s my belief that any item of clothing that has been in circulation for over fifteen years is fair game on the green front; thrift stores, vintage boutiques and the “take it or leave it” at the dump are treasure troves of forgotten beauty. Often times thrift store chains also contribute a portion, or all, of their proceeds to charities: Second Time Around in Burlington donates to breast cancer research and Planet Aid in Boston helps provide medical supplies for those with HIV/AIDS in Africa. So not only can you be green by buying old, but you can also make a small social difference as well.
Now clearly this isn’t the case in those pricey high-end vintage stores on Melrose or in SoHo, who sell sequined Vivienne Westwood dresses and 1960’s Chanel blazers for hundreds upon hundreds of dollars — but you can still be a conscientious consumer, especially when it comes to our little furry woodland critter friends. Now I may get some backlash for this but my motto with fur is that if it died before I was born, and is being sold by an independent shop owner, and not a corporate affiliate — it’s recycling. Product testing on animals, the destruction of wildlife habitats for logging and urbanization, the pollution of our air and water, climate change, over-hunting and -fishing; these are all problems that threaten our environmental stability and morality far more than a single leather jacket — and while I don’t like supporting the contemporary killing of animals for clothing, I also don’t agree with the way our farm animals are pumped growth hormones and kept in cages all their lives. There are bigger issues at hand, so let’s try and keep that red paint at bay. Your grandmother’s fur coat will appreciate it.
Moral of the story? Almost everything comes back in fashion eventually, so buy old or consume current styles with critical awareness.
Mary-Caitlin Hentz ’10.5 from Dover, MA.
(10/14/10 4:05am)
In 188 different countries, people joined together at 7,347 Global Work Parties across the globe. Groups gathered to celebrate the environment, and to inspire political leaders across the world to take action and to curb the effects of global warming. The College’s Sunday Night Group and local community members coordinated and planned the events of 10/10/10 with help from 350.org, an international environmental organization.
“Today is only a humble part of a lifetimes work,” said Jon Isham, associate professor of economics, who is also involved with 350.org. “Today is a great start and a day to get recommitted to politics.”
Isham believes the most important step in achieving 350.org’s goal of “350” is forcing politicians to listen and to take action, so climate changes can be controlled. This number represents the amount of carbon dioxide in parts per million that is safe for our environment. Everyone must get to work so the world can get to 350.
“We all understand numbers, and this is the most famous number in the world,” said Isham.
After weeks of preparation, community members gathered on the Town Green last Sunday afternoon. To begin the festivities, a drum circle played several West African pieces. The drummers, who have been taking classes together every Thursday for the last 12 years, played djembes or tall drums.
“Our drumming is a community builder,” said Louise Brynn, one of the drummers and a resident of Bristol, Vt.
Fellow drummer from Salisbury, Vt., Netaka White, echoes Brynn, as he believes that the music is not a performance, but rather a loose gathering of community drummers. Laura Asermily, the Middlebury Energy Coordinator, asked the group to open the 10/10/10 celebration. Following the drumming, Isham and Asmerily both spoke to the crowds. Their speeches, along with a photo, were sent to the 350.org leaders in Washington, D.C.
Numerous pamphlets were available for the community, including a booklet called the Low Carbon Diet. This 30-day program teaches people how to save money and energy by, for example, eating less red meat and being more fuel-efficient.
Asermily also organized a Carbon Buster Fashion Show and had volunteers dress up like “Carbon Cuttin’ Cats.” She talked about reducing waste, using energy efficient light bulbs, air sealing and insulating houses, reducing the amount of hot water being used and “thinking before you go,” which is an effort to off-set air travel and encourage biking.
“Forty-six percent is the number on my mind,” said Asermily. “This is the amount of carbon emission related to transportation in Middlebury.”
She advocates modifying transportation and instructs locals about proper space heating methods by “buttoning-up” their houses, as she believes these are two significant ways to reduce the levels of atmospheric carbon. Asermily met with an energy auditor and in the last three years, she has been weatherizing her home. The changes cut her fuel bill by one-third; she has saved 900 dollars per year and now uses 300 gallons less of oil.
“It is about efficiency and conservation,” said Asermily, who weatherized her home by insulating her attic and basement, and sealing her windows. She has also cut an additional 200 gallons of oil by installing a wood stove in her fireplace and placing solar panels on her roof.
Asermily feels efficiency is “environmentally benign.” Her current projects, “Way to Go,” which inspires locals to bike ride and walk instead of driving, and “Efficiency Vermont,” which offers businesses free energy visits, aim to provide people with the necessary information and resources to change their actions. By teaching small businesses about the benefits of saving energy and weatherizing offices, they will save thousands of dollars and help control climate changes. This is why Asermily offers free home and business energy visits; she wants people to make alterations to the space heating and cooling in their homes.
On Sunday, she spoke to a group at the Isley Library about “buttoning up Middlebury.” She discussed the importance of home efficiency because 56 percent of Middlebury’s carbon emissions are due to space heating and cooling.
“People are too dependent on their cars in rural Vermont,” she said. “We need to take local action.”
Middlebury residents also participated in the festivities by taking a solar tour of the town. The walk aimed to spread knowledge to the community about the importance of solar energy. Asermily highlighted the option of group net metering, a process in which neighbors invest in solar energy together.
The day’s events would also not have been possible without the contributions from Sunday Night Group. In addition to singing a catchy tune to engage community members, the club was also involved in canvassing and hoped to register green voters. One member, Audrey Tolbert ’13, talked about the College’s involvement in “Race to Replace” and “Dorm Storm” events. These campaigns seek to register voters who believe in electing green candidates in the upcoming Vermont elections. The college teamed up with fellow schools, including Bennington, Johnson State College and the University of Vermont, to raise awareness about 10/10/10 and to get students excited about voting for clean energy.
“There is only so much we can do on the campus,” said Olivia Noble ’13, another member of the Sunday Night Group. “We need to expand our work into the town and into Addison County, and to integrate all areas.”
Some left the Town Green and went to an elementary school in Cornwall, Vt. to plant a vegetable garden, while others took a hike or participated in gleaning activities.
Asermily realizes it is hard to change habits, but asserts that all must get involved to reach the goal of 350. It starts on a local level.
“We need another political revolution,” said Isham. “We did it with slavery and the Progressive Era.”
The environment is next.
(10/14/10 3:59am)
Climate change is a contentious issue framed by questions across social, economic, cultural, political, scientific and ethical realms. Was the early ripening of apples in Vermont this year a product of global warming? Maybe, maybe not. Will it happen again next year? How much will sea level rise in the 21st century? How long until no glaciers remain in Glacier National Park? When they are gone, will it still be known as “Glacier National Park?” Can we correlate events like Hurricane Katrina or the recent floods in Pakistan to warming oceans? It makes sense intuitively that the warmer Indian Ocean produced more evaporation than usual, and this caused a stronger-than-normal monsoon, which led to tragic events in Pakistan, but can we be certain of the cause? We can also question potential sources of error in climate proxies used to provide temperature records from the recent geological past, or the role that policy should play in responding to carbon emissions, or how the average citizen should respond.
The myriad questions and uncertainties surrounding climate change and its impacts on humans and ecosystems are pretty well known, and the uncertainties embedded in these questions form much of the fodder for debate and global warming skepticism; however, in the complicated world of climate change and global warming, there is one certainty and that is the effect of carbon dioxide on the temperature of the atmosphere.
The molecular structure of CO2 causes heat to be “absorbed” and “trapped” in the atmosphere, and there can be no doubt that higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will trap more heat. The question, “Will increasing CO2 in the atmosphere cause the Earth’s atmosphere to warm?” is not a difficult one. The answer is based on fundamental laws of chemistry and physics, and trying to argue against the role of CO2 in Earth’s atmospheric heat balance would be comparable to trying to disprove the Law of Gravity.
The great 19th century chemist Arrhenius knew that increasing CO2 in air would cause warming, and here is why. The sun sends energy to the Earth in the form of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, much of which occurs as ultraviolet (UV) radiation, visible light and infrared (IR) radiation. We can feel the effect of UV rays when they burn our skin, and we can see the visible part of the spectrum.
When UV rays strike the surface of the Earth, their energy is transformed to IR radiation, which carries heat away from the surface, upward into the air, in the direction of outer space. IR radiation is something we can all feel when we sense the heat emitted from hot pavement or bedrock surfaces. As IR rays travel away from Earth’s surface towards outer space, they encounter gases in the atmosphere.
Nothing really happens when this radiation encounters nitrogen or oxygen molecules, but when IR radiation encounters CO2, it causes bonds in the symmetrical CO2 molecules to stretch and bend. (Other molecules also behave in this way, including water, ozone and methane.) Heat is re-radiated outward in all directions, some back towards the surface of the Earth.
This re-radiated energy represents heat that would have otherwise left the atmosphere for outer space. The name for this phenomenon is the Greenhouse Effect — without it, Earth’s average surface temperature would be about -17 oC, and life as we know it would not exist.
However, too much of a good thing means Earth’s average temperature is rising to levels not seen for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years. If we seek to maintain the climate and ecosystems in which humans and other species have evolved and prospered, we must do something to control the CO2 content of the atmosphere.
Pete Ryan is a Professor of Geology
(10/14/10 3:59am)
It has indeed occurred to me that the position I’ll soon take towards this question will be attacked. Critics and sympathizers alike will accuse me of writing what is both a topical critique, and an assessment lacking requisite emphasis on potentially potent solutions. I do not deny either. My attempting to outline a whole host of complex issues in the space of a limited word-count op-ed should not neglect my offer to engage anyone interested in pursuant rhetorical debate. Nonetheless this written polemic, having been expressly penned for The Campus’s “Green Issue,” seems to be a necessary disruption for Middlebury’s environmental discourse.
The first point, one that I believe cannot be avoided by any critically-thinking environmentalist, is that capitalism itself is unsustainable. This assertion pertains to both the operation of Middlebury College (a corporation “working towards sustainability”) by means of an exploitative endowment portfolio, as well as the entire workings of the system itself. Capitalism is an economic system based on perpetual growth and expansion, with new markets to be created and goods to be sold. Last time I checked, we were living on a planet with an overwhelming list of biophysical limits.
The pursuit of GDP and growth as a universal tool of political economy are being proven wrong by an overwhelming list of accelerating ecological catastrophes of which climate change is only one of many (biodiversity, clear-cutting, desertification, global fisheries etc.) If greenhouse gas abatement is solved at the expense of carbon markets and emissions trading, it will only fuel the concentration in power behind complex, globally-traded financial instruments. Remember that the global financial crisis of 2007-(?) was the not the first — nor will it be the last- crisis of capital to rock our increasingly globalizing world. And while I have no doubt in humanity’s ability to solve problems with profound ingenuity, standard techno-fixes rarely come without unintentionally creating problems elsewhere. As noted academic David Harvey likes to put it, “Capitalism never solves it’s own problems, it simply moves them around geographically.”
Yet the ideological arch of contemporary American politics refuses to acknowledge such contradictions. Sustainability is a politicized buzzword irresponsibly thrown about on both “the left” and “the right.” Furthermore, Democrats and Republicans are both captive prisoners of a corporatist state, failing not only in enacting progressive policy changes, but even in the more basic act of protecting our cherished civil liberties. We are living in a country where corporations have the same rights as an individual. A country where imperialist wars are fought to protect “our American way of life” — not our civil rights — but a front, to be sure, for economic exploitation and market capitalization.
By their very global nature, climate change negotiations are subject to the cooperation and whim of international civil society, negotiations which the U.S has overtly and publicly sought to undermine. Safe with the knowledge that a changing climate will disproportionately affect the global south, our government can sit back and watch as all the cherished tenets of universalism collapse into greedy bickering. With food security becoming the dominant immediate concern of people the world over, the fact that U.S cereal grain production is set to increase in a warming world should give even the most hardened optimist a moment of pause.
The biggest problem here on campus is that most people play into this short-circuit, where their activism empowers the very people who stand in the way of making real systemic changes. Incrementalism and democratic activism only result in “feel-good” moral politics where nothing is actually accomplished save for the individual’s moral absolvency. Lifestyle politics abound on this campus, but serve as nothing more than a dangerous façade for change. Dangerous, because by believing in the legitimate agency of their actions as individuals, they actually play into the hands of those very forces they claim to oppose. Dangerous more so because Middlebury students are exactly the engaged and empathic people the world needs most in this fight.
Our economic system, moving at the direction of transnational organizations and multinational corporations, will need a strong dose of direct democracy in this coming decade. Nobody in this world wants to see their environment degraded, but without the agency or power to stop these forces, their worlds literally crumple around them. We will need to confront these growing problems by recognizing the only realistic option for survival. Already citizens of the world are calling for system change, not climate change.
(10/14/10 3:59am)
At last weekend’s TEDx talks, my friend Sierra Murdoch ’09.5 gave an unexpected piece of advice. “Stay away from screens,” she cautioned, “Be wary of social media. It’s an important tool, but if relied on to much if can trick us into believing change can happen quickly.” I looked up from my laptop on which I had been live-Tweeting the day’s events, appropriately embarrassed. I’ve spent years staying up to date on the latest “Web 2.0” tactics for political organizing, amassing a new vocabulary of “hashtags” and “bit.lys.” I pride myself on my ability to blog in bed. Was all my work for naught?
After all, web-based democracy is supposedly the tactic that helped enable some of the most stunning progressive political changes in my lifetime. Wasn’t it the power of the internet and the “meet-up” that drove Howard Dean’s presidential candidacy (with some help from Midd alum and TEDx speaker Michael Silberman ’01)? Wasn’t it the massive online fundraising that helped Barack Obama compile the largest campaign war chest ever? Didn’t Twitter and Flickr help spread word of the “Green Revolution” in Iran?
But, perhaps uncharacteristically, I decided to keep listening to Sierra rather than start to check out a new album on Facebook or hop on Gchat. The problem, she said, was that climate campaigners (and all other do-gooder types working on the web) aren’t putting our time and energy in the right places. Everyone’s so busy working to get “likes” on their Facebook page or to accumulate views on their Vimeo accounts that we’re forgetting the crucial core of grassroots organizing: human interaction. It is only through a long arduous process of actually talking to people that we’ll be able to build the movement we need to tackle this problem. We need to find out what the average American actually thinks about the state of politics, the wind turbines going up in her neighbor’s farm, and what worries or excites them most about the future. And we need to actually listen when they tell us they don’t give a damn about polar bears, the amorphous promise of “green jobs,” or the unfairness of the filibuster. It’s by meeting folks where they’re at and helping them get engaged on the political level where they feel most comfortable that we’ll achieve the sorts of radical transformation the world so desperately needs. Not by having them sign a web petition.
Where then does the “series of tubes” fit in? Is there no room for the interwebs? Midd alum and 350.org organizer Jamie Henn ’07 tackled this question in a post on the Huffington Post just this month. “All around the world, there's a new set of Young (twittering) Turks that are shaking up the status quo and offering a new way forward,” wrote Jamie, “You'll find them in places like China and India, where students there are building youth climate networks linking hungreds of colleges and universities. Or at campaigns like Avaaz.org, which has built a global activist network of over 5.5 million members in just three years. Or across Africa, where mobile phones are allowing young organizers to coordinate across the continent for the first time.”
All that YouTubing and Facebook poking are helping facilitate that real world interaction. We can’t afford to organize in some bizarre “SecondLife” reality, but we can use the new media and social networking tools to help facilitate in-person conversation and political movement building. That’s what 350.org did this past week as hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world organized “work parties” in their communities and synced their actions with others worldwide through the internet. A click of a mouse can’t put solar panels on your roof, but it can help you find other folks who will help you do it. And at the end of the day, isn’t that all that matters?
(10/14/10 3:59am)
The current environmental movement is driven mostly by concerns about sustainability coupled with energy independence and the threat of global climate change. While we have made progress through more efficient cars, eating locally and switching to compact florescent light bulbs, the vast majority of our electricity comes from technology that dumps carbon dioxide and other dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere. The number of wind farms has grown precipitously in the past few years, but these farms lack the potential to make up for our reliance on coal, oil and natural gas plants.
Every method for generating electricity has tradeoffs (some more obvious than others). We often read of coal miners trapped in cave-ins far below ground while at the same time the emissions generated by these plants heat the planet and pollute our air. Natural gas and oil both have different problems with extraction and with transportation but the same issue with pollution. Despite these significant shortcomings, these three options currently rule the energy market. Hydroelectric plants once seemed like a great way to provide sustainable power but it turns out that blocking rivers causes serious damage to the surrounding ecosystems and the communities downstream.
Even among those who believe that wind power has a role to play in our energy grid, few people want one 300 feet from their house or decorating the top of the nearest mountain. The places people want them generally tend to have less wind. Solar energy cultivation shows promise but, as with most renewable, it requires a lot of space and an expensive investment in technology.
The time has come to renew the construction of nuclear power plants. Despite high-profile failures — Three Mile Island and the recent issues with Vermont Yankee come to mind — nuclear power is safer, cleaner and more efficient than our current options. Nuclear fuel does not come from the Middle East and the reactions in one of these plants do not launch carbon or other chemicals into the atmosphere. A single nuclear plant produces more electricity than 1,500 large wind turbines — far more than even the largest wind “farms.” Nuclear presents the solution for moving forward.
40 years ago, the United States was constructing fission plants at a dramatic rate. In part due to protests and safety concerns, new development ceased abruptly. Yet much of Europe still relies on it as a source of power — France currently produces nearly 80 percent of its electricity through nuclear power while the EU as a whole uses it for 30 percent. We can achieve this with the market incentives as well.
Incredibly high start-up costs prevent new nuclear development. Only government action can prevent fossil fuel-based power sources from continuing their stranglehold on the American electricity market. We have seen this in the government’s approach to renewable energy, where producers are given a rate of 1.9 cents per kilowatt hour to allow them to compete in the marketplace.
President Barack Obama recently pledged to extend this tax credit to the next four nuclear power plants constructed in this country. In addition, the government will guarantee the loans for these plants in order to offset the risk of the investment in an unsure market. Congress and the President should extend this guarantee once plans get underway for more plants and should consider directly loaning money to companies interested in constructing new facilities in order to build momentum and attract investors. If Congress ever allows the creation of a “cap and trade” system to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear energy would become a much more competitive option. But even without legislation that raises the cost of competing energy sources, these loans will be repaid as plants pay off their start-up capital.
No source of energy is perfect. Nuclear power is cleaner, more efficient and is our only technology that can provide the electricity to replace fossil fuels. For the 21st century and beyond, as we improve our ability to capitalize on the massive supplies of power contained in a single atom, nuclear power is the ultimate source of “green” energy.
