By Stephanie Boyd, Director Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives
Since the recent coal mining accident in West Virginia and the devasting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico I have been hoping that these events will be our wake up call.
I have been hoping that by seeing the immediate dangers to human life and the natural environment of our oil-hungry life-styles and our lack of effective energy policies we will come to under stand our collective responsibilities in driving the energy industry to seek alarmingly risky, and environmentally hazardous methods to fulfill our desires for cheap fuels.
Everyday since April 20, an estimated 42,000 gallons of crude oil have been pumping into our nation’s coastal waters; equivalent to dumping the oil from the huge 420,000 gallon oil storage tank located next to William’s heating plant every 10 days. Imagine.
Our nation’s newspapers have been reporting on the health impacts to people in New Orleans, on the potential devastation of the local fisheries industry, on the fact that we haven’t learned much from the Exxon-Valdez spill in Alaska, on the inadequacies of safety standards, on the irreparable harm to a community that is just beginning to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
Will these event jolt us into a deeper awareness of the impact of our lifestyles, of our insatiable need for oil and oil-derived products, and oil powered production, and oil driven vehicles, and oil heated buildings? Will we begin to act differently?
Every day, we, as American residents, consume energy at a rate far greater than almost any country in the world. Whether we inadvertently spill it or purposely burn it, the oil and gas and coal we use daily eventually ends up negatively affecting us and our global environmental health — acidifying our oceans, reducing our planet’s ability to modulate temperatures, melting our glacial ice-caps, causing droughts, and destroying habitats.
At Williams, we are responsible each and every day for spewing 55 tonnes of (unnoticed) greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere due to our on-campus electricity and heating demands. These emissions do not include carbon emissions related to our driving habits, plane travel, food production, disposable plastic use, paper use or any other off-site consumption of oil products.
Bill McKibben said of the spill and the coal mine disaster: “Let’s really learn from what’s happened in the Gulf. Let’s think about the way that we’re turning all the oceans of the world acid at a rapid rate by pouring carbon into the atmosphere. Let’s think not only about those coal miners in West Virginia, but also about what burning coal is doing to people all over the world. ”
Lets not only think about it, lets do something. Individually and collectively we can respond with purpose.
We can choose to walk or bike to work and class or football practice.
We can wear an extra sweater and wooly socks in the winter and ask Facilities to turn down our heat.
We can make it our responsibility to bring a container or bag for our grab-n-go lunches to reduce the wastefulness of throw away convenience items.
We can take cooler or shorter or fewer showers saving the energy that is used to heat the hot water.
We can take a class in renewable energy or environmental policy or science to learn more about the how to address our energy problems and sensitive eco-systems that we depend upon.
Collectively, we can support the development of clean renewable energy projects on campus rather than demanding that we spend our limited capital adding new spaces.
We can read this article all the way to the end and make a commitment to at least one of these suggestions.
We can volunteer at a campus event to help recycling programs be more successful.
We can bring ideas on how to reduce our energy use to College Council or the Zilkha Center or Facilities or Dining Services and work to make them successful.
We can write a note to our President Falk expressing how important developing a sustainable campus is to our experience at Williams and to our world.
We can turn off lights in our rooms, in an empty classroom, in the gym.
We can choose to leave the clamshell at the counter when we want to eat on Chapin Hall lawn on a sunny day.
We can turn off appliances in our rooms when we aren’t using them.
We can vow to carry a reusable water bottle and drink filtered tap water rather than bottled water and high-fructose corn syrup laden soft drinks.
We can understand that a week-long energy competition is not enough.
We can decide to share a fridge with our friends rather than purchasing our own.
We can use our own cloth towels in the bathroom rather than the paper towels that are conveniently located there.
We can not buy that new (fill in the blank) that we want, or scour second hand stores or websites for used items that fulfill our needs.
We can live smaller, simpler, freer.
We can vote for local, state and federal representatives who are working to develop a greener future and we can remind them of their commitments when they veer off-course.
We can hang our clothes to dry rather than using a gas or electric dryer.
We can agree to share our dorm rooms with a roommate rather than expecting to sleep in a single at Williams.
We can support the added expense necessary to purchase organic sustainably harvested foods, even if it means our food selection and the amount of meat we eat is reduced.
We can reconsider our personal needs in favor of global needs.
We can support Williamstown’s efforts to adopt the energy stretch code as part of the Massachusetts Green Communities Act.
We can leave a smaller footprint.