Getting to Green
An administrator pushes, on a shoestring budget, to move his university and the world toward a more sustainable equilibrium.
An administrator pushes, on a shoestring budget, to move his university and the world toward a more sustainable equilibrium.
April 9, 2012 - 4:10pm
For a while now, I've been struggling with the concept of sustainability. (That's not good, since moving the campus and the institution in a sustainable direction is what Greenback U is paying me to do.) When I first got started in this job, I had a clear idea of what sustainability entailed. The problem was global warming/climate change. The solution was greenhouse gas reduction. The job was to move Greenback towards lower and lower GHG emissions, so that it (and hundreds of its closest friends) could serve as models for the rest of Western Civilization. But over the past five years or so, I've qualified and modified that understanding to the point that, at present, it seems to me that GHG emissions are but one aspect of the sustainability mess we're in, and probably not the one to emphasize.
Comments
April 2, 2012 - 9:00am
Years ago, I was talking to a man -- call him "Randy" -- who made his money selling mortgages. First, Randy's company originated them -- lent money to residential buyers so they could purchase their dream homes. Then he sold them to a consolidator who pooled many mortgages and used them as collateral for the issuance of securities. The difference between this man's behavior and the behaviors that led -- in large part -- to the crash of 2008 was that Randy took a moderately long view of his business.
March 28, 2012 - 2:40pm
According to a recent study by the city of Copenhagen, Denmark, if you ride your bike for a mile you contribute about 42 cents to the overall economy. By contrast, each mile you drive your car costs society about 20 cents. Combine the two, and driving has a net social cost of about 62 cents per mile compared to bicycling.
March 22, 2012 - 5:14pm
My evolving vision of a sustainable campus in a sustainable city includes university-connected mixed-use space around the campus edge(s). Key advantages of such space include minimizing the need for travel as well as making provision of energy-efficient travel/transit options far easier.
March 19, 2012 - 4:54pm
Of late, I've been thinking a lot about how campuses and their surrounding communities interrelate in ways that affect the sustainability (or lack thereof) of both.
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