Related Blog Posts - Climate

AASHE Interview Series: JR Fulton, Capital Planning and Sustainability Manager for Housing & Food Services, University of Washington

Submitted by Niles Barnes on March 12, 2010 - 11:09am
in

This week’s interview is with JR Fulton, who works as the Capital Planning and Sustainability Manager for Housing & Food Services (HFS), at the University of Washington. Continue reading to learn more about JR's work promoting sustainability, the many ways HFS at UW works with students and the advice he has for other campus sustainability professionals. Also, be sure not to miss his ideas on the need to make campus sustainability "go viral"!

If you are interested in participating in the AASHE Interview Series or wish to nominate someone to participate please email me (niles@aashe.org). To read past interviews, click here.


Results from Winter Shutdown at Williams College

Submitted by Niles Barnes on February 9, 2010 - 10:10am
in

Authored by Stephanie Boyd, Director of the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives at Williams College. Re-posted with permission from the Sustainability at Williams blog. 

For the second year in the college’s experiment, we closed our doors on December 24th, shuttered up buildings, turned down the heat, turned off computers, refrigerators, photocopiers, and all sorts of other electrical equipment in an effort to save energy, minimize spending on utilities, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions during a relatively slow period in the academic calendar. When the doors to the campus opened again on January 4th, the college had succeeded in saving $100,000 in avoided utility costs; 430,000 kilowatt hours of electricity; and 4,840 million British Thermal Units of heating energy. To give an understanding of scale, about 2600 houses would use this amount of electricity in a 10 day period.

This avoided energy use represents 528 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), a 26% increase in emissions savings compared to last year, and 2.7% of FY09 total annual emissions of 19,600 tonnes.


Final Live from Copenhagen Q & A call recording and highlights

Submitted by Justin Mullikin on January 8, 2010 - 4:46pm
in

The Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education at Dickinson College in conjunction with the Office of Global Education recently lead a delegation of 15 students to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 15th Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, Denmark as part of a year-long intensive course on policy development, climate change, and public communication. AAHSE conducted three question and answer conference calls with the students while they were in Copenhagen.  Below are some highlights from the calls followed by the third "Live from Copenhagen Q & A call" available for listening and download. The previous two call recordings are available here.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
audio/mpeg icon
Third Live from Copenhagen Q & A Call

Models for Success and Lessons for the Future: COP15 Analysis

Submitted by Rima Mulla on January 5, 2010 - 1:40pm
in

by Sarah Brylinsky, Sustainability Education Coordinator, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education, Dickinson College

Should we be disappointed, or hopeful?

It was the question on everyone’s mind as the professors, administrators, and students who had spent two weeks in Copenhagen learning from and influencing the negotiations of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) flew home to celebrate the holidays, reflect on the outcome and process, and prepare for work ahead in 2010.

From a political perspective, there is much work yet to be done. The intent of the conference was to complete legally binding negotiations on a new international agreement as the Kyoto Protocol winds to a close in 2012. The aim was lofty -- to create a new agreement be reached, one which surmounts the difficulty of balancing cost-effectiveness with equitable policy architecture and generates enough consensus to come into effect as a long-term solution to mitigating and adapting to climate change.


Lessons Learned from Using Building Energy Intensity to Guide Climate Action Planning Efforts at Foothill College

Submitted by Rima Mulla on January 5, 2010 - 12:12pm
in

by Robert Cormia, Faculty, Informatics and Nanotechnology, and Brenda Davis Visas, Director of Facilities, Foothill College

Foothill College’s ten-point climate action plan addresses both energy and GHG emissions by focusing on a key figure of merit, Building Energy Intensity (BEI), which helps inform data-driven decisions for building retrofits and onsite PV (solar) energy infrastructure, and helps us plan future energy budgets and manage our GHG emissions. Building energy, expressed in annual BTU/sq-ft, is the established reporting mechanism for California Community Colleges and provides both a baseline and benchmarking mechanism for evaluating the effectiveness of energy projects, as well as a means of comparison to similar colleges in similar regions.


Live from Copenhagen Q & A call recordings

Submitted by Niles Barnes on December 11, 2009 - 1:01pm
in

The first two "Live from Copenhagen Q & A calls" are now available for listening and download. Our first call occurred at 3pm eastern on Tuesday December 8th and focused on initial perspectives and how to follow and use the negotiations process. We had a few recording errors, in particular, the abrupt ending due to an internet outage. Our apologies.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
audio/mpeg icon
First Live from Copenhagen Q & A Call

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
audio/mpeg icon
Second Live from Copenhagen Q & A Call

Engaging Campus Sustainability through Students at COP15

Submitted by Rima Mulla on December 2, 2009 - 9:52pm
in

by Sarah Brylinsky, Sustainability Education Coordinator, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education, Dickinson College

As the world turns to watch climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this December, institutions of higher education are paying particular attention to the potential for translated educational opportunities and institutional reform. Eight college and university delegations will be attending the UNFCCC 15th Conference of the Parties, contributing 300 students from American institutions in addition to the more than 500 American youth and 3,000 international youth expected to participate. Student and institutional delegates are attending as researchers, observers, teachers, administrators, and climate activists focused on finding new roads to sustainable development and education.

College and university participants will be blogging, twittering, and reporting on lessons and developments of the COP15 through live Q & A calls, making information and updates accessible to the broader higher education sustainability community (See all of the ways to stay connected during the COP15 negotiations below). Their observations and experiences will provide lessons on how to create timely and aggressive climate reduction commitments, re-think institutional policies for economic and environmental savings, and use the reduction of campus greenhouse gas emissions and resource-intensity as a model for sustainability education.


What to Expect from Copenhagen

Submitted by Rima Mulla on December 2, 2009 - 9:25pm
in

by Benjamin Leard, Ph.D. student, Department of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University

In a few weeks, the results of the United Nations Climate Conference (COP) in Copenhagen, Denmark will influence the future path of climate change policy. December seventh marks the opening of the 12 day event. Those involved are expected to make progress toward an international agreement on combating global warming. The results should be a function of several factors, including the political will of the attending nations and the strength of the scientific evidence at hand – making it difficult to predict the conference’s outcome.


Are Your Energy Savings Real? Energy Modeling and Management at Rice University

Submitted by Rima Mulla on November 3, 2009 - 5:01am
in

by Richard Johnson, Director of Sustainability, Rice University

When are reductions in energy consumption verifiable savings?

With the emergence of the ACUPCC and increasing focus on energy costs and supplies, universities across America are pursuing measures to reduce their energy consumption and their greenhouse gas emissions. As these schools attempt to measure their results and document savings, I ask how do they really know when they are saving energy?


EPA Signs Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Rule

Submitted by Rima Mulla on November 3, 2009 - 5:01am
in

by Brittany Zwicker, Second Nature Intern

On September 22, 2009, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator Lisa Jackson signed their Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Rule. This is the final version of the proposed rule we alerted you to in the April issue of The ACUPCC Implementer (EPA Proposes National Reporting of GHG Emissions).


Syndicate content