Address by Jo Ann M. GoraPresident, Ball State University Gora welcomed everyone and recounted some of the history and successes of Ball State's campus greening programs. Ball State has the oldest Green Council of any higher education institution in Indiana (20 years). The school has already implemented dozens of that original committee's recommendations. It has hosted this conference for 14 years, which sold-out with 350 attendees this year. It is about to celebrate its first LEED Silver academic building, the David Letterman Communications Center. They are building a new residence hall which is also expected to be LEED Silver. They have a unique community partnership with "BioTown" in Raynolds, IN. David Orr Chair, Environmental Studies Program Oberlin College Talked about "why movements fail" Quoted Wendell Berry's theories and focused on the argument that they fail because they don't stay radical enough. He quoted the Constitution, pointing out that it declares the right to "the Blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our posterity." Where is the case law on "posterity?" There is none. Called for a "Partnership with Posterity" that starts with applying the precautionary principle to climate change.PrecautionLooked at 12 tipping points (Tyndall Centre, UK) for climate change. He went through a list of alarming global warming data that shows we have 10 years to stabilize the eCO2 levels in the atmosphere. According to the World Health Organization credits 150,000 deaths per year to global warming.Smarter Energy PolicyWhat does all this mean for us as educators? We need solutions thatdon't cause other problems.We need solutions thatsolve security by design.It must usetechnology that is feasible NOW.50 years from now is too late. We need to make reducing carbon competitive. (put a price on carbon) Solutions must be resilient, redundant and reparable at the community level. Instead, we are being told we need more coal. Four medium coal-fired power plants would offset all the reductions produced if all the Campus Climate Challenge schools went carbon neutral. And, "clean coal" is an oxymoron. The extraction, cleaning and combustion of coal is incredibly destructive. The only part they are talking about cleaning-up is the combustion part, but carbon sequestration is unproven and decades away from being industrial scale. We are being told we need more nuclear. It causes more problems. Security target. It's expensive, in addition to subsidy of liability. Safety problems. Weapons proliferation. Waste storage. Civil Liberties. We are being told we need more biofuels. Our entire corn crop would only produce 12% of US gasoline consumption. It would raise food prices. And, industrial agriculture is very destructive in itself. The Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is decreasing for *all*fuels. We MUST invest in efficiency. No fuel (wind, solar, biofuels) is going to bail us out. We must rethink our policy solutions so that energy efficiency pays. He recommended people check out Amory Lovins "Rational Energy Policy."A Robust DemocracyMany leaders, from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln, have warned about the threat of powerful corporations to democracy. Challenged the idea of a "greener capitalism." There is a lot of good happening. But, there is a lot of fine print in this "greener capitalism." Despite the feel-good programs, most corporate lobbyists on K Street are still lobbying for all the wrong things. There is hardly a word about equity and fairness in all the green capitalism buzz. 87% of the economic cost of our environmental resource extraction has been born by nations in the Global South. They are also the ones being hit by global warming first. Is there any talk about that injustice in green capitalism? No. The US Press is ranked the 27th freest press in the world. 91% of talk radio is conservative content. So the question is: Could there be a hyper-efficient, solar powered, sustainable, fascist society? Orr's answer: "You bet. And it could be highly profitable." We need to make sure that we aren't leaving equity and democratic principles out of our advocacy for sustainability. Higher Education's Role: 1) The moral/legal challenge: make the case for the rights of posterity. 2) Curricula: energy, ecology, social justice 3) Commitment: campuses should commit to 100% solar and energy efficiency power (no coal, no nukes) 4) Radicalize professional schools: ecological literacy becomes fundamental to the curriculum 5) Finance: pentions, endowments 6) Use our buying and investing power to catalyze sustainability beyond campus. We need our campuses to blend into the community around them. We need LEED-rated COMMUNITIES.