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College Comment
Towards a Greener Shade of Blue
Summer 2001
by Ian Lindsey Cheney ’02
Ian Lindsey Cheney ’02 is co-chair of the Yale Student Environmental Coalition and director of the Yale Sustainability Initiative. This article first appeared in the Yale Daily News.
Ancient radiators flush heat into crowded rooms in May, sprinklers surge up from the Old Campus in the pouring rain, gas-powered leaf blowers hum in the September sun, a grounds employee pours latex paint into the drain near a soccer field, piles of wasted food slosh down into a gulping sink disposal, and the light from our dormitories, classrooms, and dining halls stains the sky orange and blocks all but the brightest stars. Is this the face of the environment at Yale?
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Yale has been slammed repeatedly as an environmental loser.
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Derided in the Chronicle of Higher Education as “an environmental leader by no means,” ranked below Harvard and Princeton in terms of its waste management and gen-eral environmental policies, Yale has been slammed repeatedly as an environmental loser.
Let’s take a closer look. Yale’s doing some good things: A new environmental studies major, a new provost’s standing committee on the environment, a state-of-the-art cogeneration plant, a motion-sensor lighting program that saves Yale $800,000 every year, and a strong student recycling program are strong steps forward.
But the word on the street is justified—Yale disappoints. Deemed unsightly, recycling bins are not allowed in classrooms, entryways, or on college pathways. According to the office of facilities, Berkeley College consumes 92 percent more energy after renovations than it did before. Students throw out at least 1,000 pounds of edible food everyday. The gas-capable central power plant burned oil (the nastiest stuff) all winter. Our campus recycling rate hovers at a weak 20 percent.
The competition, meanwhile, has fared very well. Oberlin College has built a beautiful environmental center, which exports energy to the rest of the campus. Tufts has committed to reducing their carbon emissions in accordance with Kyoto Protocol levels. Brown students tend an organic garden and enjoy a state-of-the-art green building. Middlebury’s recycling rate is steady at 68 percent. Harvard, bless its soul, has established a fund to support cost-saving environmental design projects.
Yale officials should commit, in a formal declaration, to a vision of an environmentally sustainable campus. But words are not enough. The University should empower its students, faculty, and staff to become active participants in the campus’s future by creating an environmental stewardship committee with real advisory powers. Next, Yale needs to draft, ratify, and implement a broad-based, detailed environmental policy covering all campus sectors.
As the evidence of global warming penetrates the consciousness of even the stodgiest skeptics, and as the world’s population catapults well above six billion, the Yale community should be flooded with green. In the classroom, forest, frat house, theater, sports field, dance hall, dining hall, power plant, library, and laboratory, Yale should exercise its potential to promote and maintain a more diverse, ethical, and environmentally sustainable campus.  |
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