Global warming on campus has finally gotten some national attention.
The work that the University and its students are doing to address the
problem is getting noticed by powerful players like Rep. Frank Pallone
who agreed to come to a screening of "An Inconvenient Truth" after
being invited by students of the New Jersey Public Interest Research
Group.
The
fact that Pallone came to speak to students shows that they are
starting to gain a notable voice in the national sphere. This event
must mark a paradigm shift in the public eye and in politics that will
help to inspire and educate students and citizens about solutions to
the problem that we have caused.
In fact, this comes after the
release of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
report, which states that there is a 90 percent consensus that humans
have caused global warming. It also states that larger and faster
changes in climate may occur in our future.
Pallone's visit means that students are finally starting to gain a voice in the national sphere.
Rutgers
is beginning to emerge as a leader on the subject, because last week, a
group of distinguished University scientists held a panel about the
problem and possible solutions entitled "Global Warming: It's Later
than We Think; But It's Not Too Late!"
During the panel last
week, images of melting glaciers in Greenland were shown and the
overuse of fossil fuels such as coal was stressed. The consensus among
the scientists was that there must be a national goal to implement new
energy-efficient solutions for everyday life - such as solar panels and
more efficient hybrid cars.
The attention devoted to the
subject of global warming is a victory for students of the Campus
Climate Challenge campaign of NJPIRG Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change - which seeks to inspire and educate students about ways that
they can reduce the trend individually. But the campaign is just
getting started, and we need to convince more politicians to take
action other than Pallone, but this is an important step.
However, there is hope.
Then another breakthrough
was made with Governor Jon S. Corzine signing Executive Order No. 54,
with the goal of reducing New Jersey's global warming emissions by 20
percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.
Executive Order No. 54
calls for the various departments in New Jersey such as the Department
of Environmental Protection and the Department of Transportation to
cooperate with each other, to find solutions and - at the same time -
promote economic efficiency.
I am not sure that it would be as
efficient for a truck to run on ethanol, but like former President
Jimmy Carter said, the cure is research. Of course he was referring to
pancreatic cancer, but the same can be said for biodiesel, ethanol,
wind and solar power.
We as students should step up and take
more bold actions to show that we as individuals care about our future.
The fact is that changes can be made and right now, we have cars that
can get up to 100 miles per gallon, and we have the ability to build
houses that run completely on solar power with enough energy left over
to power a hybrid car. Denmark gets 20 percent of its power from wind
and compact fluorescent bulbs are 66 percent more efficient than
standard light bulbs.
Since Rutgers is the great research
University of New Jersey, students and faculty should follow several
steps. First, they should write more often to their elected officials
and car and bus corporations, asking them what they are doing about the
problem of climate change and global warming. Second, both groups
should work together to brainstorm about what ways they can get more
people to commit to solving the problem, because the impact of many
people conserving energy in dorms and homes can be like taking millions
of vehicles off the road.
Students, professors and politicians
should push for more solutions such as busses with solar panels and
wind turbines to help newly constructed buildings obtain energy in a
cleaner way. Research should be devoted to cleaner carbon dioxide
filters that can be attached to chimneys of current coal-burning power
plants, and new catalytic converters on cars can temporarily reduce
emissions.
Finally, Rutgers should lead the way for change by
calling for nearly 100 percent reductions of campus global warming
pollution as soon as possible. Rutgers should show true leadership by
reducing their emissions by 20 percent in the next five years and by 90
percent by 2050 - thereby setting a faster pace than the rest of the
state that will continue to inspire and influence.
