| Dear
EarthTalk: What initiatives are taking place
on college campuses to reduce the footprints of these large
users of energy and other resources?
-- Shawna Smith, Hamilton, NY
| |
A
student harvests radishes at Yale University's on-campus
organic garden, which supplies an on-campus farmer‚s
market for use by campus food services, the local
community and students alike.
© Yale University |
Microcosms
of the world at large, college campuses are great test beds
for environmental change, and many students are working
hard to get their administrations to take positive action.
The initiatives that are emerging are models for the larger
society, and the students pushing for them will be taking
these lessons with them, too, as they enter the work force
after graduation.
Foremost
on the minds of green-leaning students today is global warming,
and many are joining hands to persuade their schools to
update policies and streamline operations so that their
campuses can become part of the solution. Largely a result
of student efforts, for example, nearly 500 U.S. colleges
and universities have signed the American College and University
Presidents (ACUP) Climate Commitment.
This
agreement requires schools to put together a comprehensive
plan to go “carbon neutral” in two years of
signing. (Carbon neutral means contributing no net greenhouse
gases to the atmosphere either by not generating them in
the first place or by offsetting them somehow, such as through
tree-planting or by buying “offsets” from companies
that fund alternative energy projects.)
ACUP
also commits schools to implementing two or more tangible
(and easily implemented) policies right away, such as improving
waste minimization and recycling programs, reducing energy
usage, providing or encouraging public transportation to
and from campus (and switching campus buses over to bio-diesel
fuel), constructing bicycle lanes, and implementing green
building guidelines for any new construction.
Signatory
schools also pledge that they will integrate sustainability
into their curricula, making it part of the educational
experience.
One
place where students are forcing green changes on campus
is the dining hall. According to the Sustainable Endowments
Institute’s 2007 report card, which looks at environmental
initiatives at the 200 colleges and universities with the
largest endowment assets in the U.S. and Canada, 70 percent
of such schools now “devote at least a portion of
food budgets to buying from local farms and/or producers,”
while 29 percent earned an “A” in the “food
and recycling” category. Yale University even has
organic gardens that are student-run and that supply an
on-campus farmer’s market for use by campus food services,
the local community and students alike.
Another
area where college campuses are leading the way is in water
conservation. Colleges consume huge quantities of water
in dormitories, cafeterias, at athletic facilities and in
maintaining their rolling green grounds. According to Niles
Barnes of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability
in Higher Education (AASHE), most of the 3,800 institutions
of higher education in the U.S. have engaged in some sort
of water-saving program. Low-water-volume toilets and urinals,
as well as low-flow showerheads and faucets, are “pretty
much standard practice across U.S. colleges today,”
says Barnes.
CONTACTS:
ACUP;
Sustainable
Endowments Institute; AASHE.
Dear
EarthTalk: What is the status of wetlands in
North America? Years ago I remember that wetlands loss,
due to development and sprawl, was accelerating fast, but
I haven’t heard much on the topic of late.
-- John Mossbarger, La Jolla, CA
| |
The
continental U.S. has lost almost 120 million acres
of wetlands since European settlement in the early
1600s; Canada has lost roughly 50 million. Major factors
today include agricultural expansion, road building,
residential development and the building of large
facilities like shopping malls, factories, airports
and, ironically, reservoirs.
© Getty Images |
Wetlands serve
as primary habitat for thousands of wildlife species—from
ducks to beavers to insects—and form an important
ecosystem link between land and water. They also play a
key role in maintaining water quality, as they filter out
agricultural nutrients and absorb sediments so that municipal
water supplies don’t have to. On and near shorelines,
wetlands provide a natural buffer against storm surges and
rising floodwaters, helping to disperse and absorb excess
water before it can damage life and property.
The eradication
of wetlands in the so-called New World began when white
settlers, intent on taming the land, started developing
homesteads and town sites throughout what was to become
the United States and Canada. Researchers estimate that
at the time of European settlement in the early 1600s, the
land that was to become the lower 48 U.S. states had 221
million acres of wetlands. By the mid-1980s, following another
great period of loss after World War II when army engineers
drained huge swaths of formerly impenetrable marshes and
swamps, the continental U.S. had only 103 million wetland
acres remaining.
Across the U.S.
and Canada, the vast majority of wetlands—about 85
percent—have been destroyed in the name of agricultural
expansion. Other major factors include road building, residential
development, and the building of large facilities like shopping
malls, factories, airports and, ironically, reservoirs.
But growing awareness
about the importance of wetlands has led to new regulations
aimed at protecting those that remain. A variety of state
and federal programs, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
Wetland Reserve Program (whereby landowners voluntarily
protect, restore and enhance wetlands on their own private
property), have been effective in stemming the tide of wetlands
loss. During the 1990s the rate of wetlands loss in the
U.S. declined by some 80 percent over previous decades.
But the nation is still losing upwards of 50,000 wetland
acres per year, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service.
The issue is
of even greater concern in Canada, which harbors a quarter
of the world’s remaining wetlands in its northern
boreal forests. According to Natural Resources Canada, fully
14 percent of Canada’s total land mass is in the form
of wetlands. Researchers believe that about 50 million acres
of wetlands have been lost in Canada since European settlement.
Underscoring the correlation between urbanization and wetlands
loss, less than .2 percent of Canada’s wetlands lie
within 25 miles of major urban centers today.
On the global
level, 158 governments are signatories to the 1971 Ramsar
Convention on Wetlands, an international treaty that provides
a framework for international cooperation in the conservation
and wise use of wetlands. Some 1,743 wetland sites—totaling
almost 400 million acres—have been protected as “Wetlands
of International Importance” under the terms of the
treaty. Although the Ramsar treaty can do little to stop
illegal or legal draining of wetlands, its very existence
highlights how seriously the majority of the world’s
countries take protecting land formerly thought of as God-forsaken
and useless.
CONTACTS:
Wetlands
Reserve Program; Natural
Resources Canada; Ramsar
Convention on Wetlands. |
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