October/November Newsletter

The Sewanee Green“Sewanee’s Source for Sustainable News”

735 University AvenueSewanee, TN

37383

October/November 2011

Bill McKibben Visits Sewanee: Inspires Change

. McKibben addressed the audience with a simple, clear message: climate change is everyone’s problem and we must act now. And act now he certainly is, McKibben’s organization 350.org, dedicated to lowering global carbon levels to 350 ppm, organized a protest on August 12th to stop the creation of the Keystone XL, with over 1,200 individuals being arrested in an act of civil disobedience that hearkened back to the civil rights era, and is in the middle of organiing yet another protest in which 3,000 people (including 60 members of the Sewanee community) will encircle the White House driving home the message that this generation will not stand for continued dependece of dirty energy. While it is easy to live at Sewanee and feel that there is significant work being done towards sustainability (we hosted our own Moving Planey event, after all!), but McKibben warns about the dangers of living in an ivory tower. During his speech, McKibben drew a contrast between what he called the “serenity and timelessness” of academia in a place like Sewanee and the urgency of the world’s needs. “None of it is easy, but sometimes we need to come down off the mountain and into the world with everything we have,” he said. “Take your scholarship and thinking and bring them to bear hard and quickly. Time is the one thing that we do not have.”

On October 11, 2011 Sewanee awarded an honory degree to Bill McKibben, the cer-emony, a part of the Founder’s Day Cer-emonies, was carried out before to acrowd of parents, students, faculty, and local residents, all crammed into All Saints Chapel. Yes, they were there to take part in the gowning, but they were also there for Mr. McKibben. Bill McKibben is an acclaimed author and environmental activ-ists. His works have spent numerous weeks on the best seller lists, and his activism is providing the inspiration for a generation tired of waiting for change.-Sewanee, a community which already viewed itself as environmentally active is now among those affected by McKibben’s passion.

McKibben-mid conversation- August 2011 Keystone XL protest

We’re talking about... Keystone XL, Green Campus Network, Sewanee Unplugged, Community Outreach, Mountaintop Removal

Green Campus Network: A new way for students to be involved.

1

In August of this year, Sewanee was one of six schools to become part of the “Green Campus Network”, a program dedicated to reducing energy usage on college campus

and to fostering responsible consumption habits. The organization has previously been active on the west coast, where California schools have experienced tremendous suc-

cess implementing the program. Thanks to a grant from the Tennessee Valley Authority, the program was able to leave the west coast. Four Sewanee students, selected from an

incredible selection of resumes, will be working for the program this year on project designed to engage both the campus and community. Though their activities are cer-tainly fun, the opportunity comes with real responsibility and accountability for their actions on the campus and in the community regarding sustainability. The group will

work closely with Marvin Pate, the lead stakeholder, and director of the Office of Sus-tainability here at Sewanee, as well as with members of other green organizations.

Marvin Pate, Grace Saunders, Jonathan Salazar, Joanna Parkman, and Jordan Long



37383October/November 2011 2

Students to College:

“We demand Sustainability”Sewanee joined hundreds of other communities around the world on Saturday, Sept. 24, in a project called “Moving Planet,” which sought to promote alternate forms of transportation in an effort to ”move beyond fossil fuels.” A bike rally, led by the Sewanee Outing Program and University students, left at 11 a.m. from the Bishop’s Common to celebrate bicycling on the Domain. A march for a sustainable Sewanee walked down University Avenue to join a street festival on Geor-gia Avenue. Organizers encouraged participants to used their feet, bikes, skateboards and even pogo sticks to get to to the street fair.Georgia Avenue was closed to car traffic Saturday afternoon to host the tables of local businesses and organizations, which included Shenani-gans, Aramark, Julia’s Fine Foods, Full Circle Candles, BigA Designs and Printing, the Lemon Fair, Woody’s Bi-cy-

cles, The Sewanee Business Association, the Cumberland Center for Justice and Peace, the Mountain Goat Trail Association, the Green House, the Community Engagement House, and the Sewanee Outreach Office. The event was sponsored by Sustain Sewanee, The Office of Sustainability and Student Activities. The street festival was made possible thanks to the support of The Sewanee Police Department and Franklin County Roads Commission for making the event pos-sible. “Moving Planet” was an event organized by 350.org, an international climate campaign that concentrates the efforts of 188 countries in combating climate change. 350.org was founded by Bill McKibbben, the Schumann Distin-guished Scholar at Middlebury College and author of a dozen books about the environment. The event was a worldwide success, with thousands of participants in over 2000 events in more than 175 countries, though Sewanee’s gathering pales in

Replace you incandescent lightbulbs with flourescents or LEDS

Use Energy Star Appliances!! Consolidate usage!

Limit the time you spend in the shower.

Wash your clothes in cold water, and use a drying rack instead of a dryer.

Turn off the AC or heat when you’re not in the room.

Use power strips, shut them off when they’re not in direct

Turn your computer OFF when not in use. Use a lower setting for your backlight.

Make sure doors and windows are properly sealed.

Use a lamp instead of an overhead light.

Turn off the lights when you leave a room



37383October/November 2011 3

Sewanee Unplugged :Eco-Cup Revamped Between dorms, frater-

nities, academic, and recra-tional buildings college cam-puses are black holes of energy usage. Yes, we use a lot of energy, and yes, for all intents and purposes our usage will remain high, however, the necessity of using energy does not mean our usage has to be irresponsible, or that it cannot be reduced. On this campus we have an opportunity to committ to the environment (Sewanee’s electricty comes from coal, after all) and to save

money as well. Green Campus Network, Sustain Sewanee, and the environmental residents are setting out this year to do exactly that: reduce energy consumption in residence halls and in doing so show how easy it is to make small changes that result in big impacts. The competition will begin in November and last through th end of the month. GCN interns will be spearheading th e project, working closely with Duck River Electric to insure that mea-surements are accurate. The project in past years has not acheived the desired level of suc-cess. This year is going to be different. “You have to give people a reason to change, once the change is made, who cares why they did it., ” says a GCN intern. “The fact of the matter is, if we can motivate students with a foosball table or a cash reward, then that’s what we’re going to do. The changes we are asking people to make are small enough that once they’re incorpo-rated into a person’s daily habit they become almost second nature,” noted a second intern. In hopes of making signficant progress, the interns are not holding back of the prize, allowing the dorm which wins to select whatever prize they choose for their dorm. Currently, given the results of our baseline diagnostics we know that many students don’t seem to be aware of their absurdly highly energy consumption-- or at the least optimism would have us hope that this level of consumption is a product of ignorance to be remedied with education

Dormitory No. of Residents

Average Hall Kwh

KWh/ Resident

Cost($)/Resident

lbsCO2/Resident

Benedict 89 14666.67 164.80 16.15 222.47 Cannon 50 4522.67 90.45 8.86 122.11

Cleveland 58 7620.00 131.38 12.88 177.36 Courts 79 14146.67 179.07 17.55 241.75 Elliott 55 10860.00 197.45 19.35 266.56

Gorgas 89 12373.33 139.03 13.62 187.67 Hodgson/Emery 67 166447.33 245.48 24.05 331.40

Hoffman/St.Lukes 140 28966.67 206.90 20.28 279.32 Humphreys 115 26816.67 233.19 22.85 314.80

Hunter 41 4546.67 110.89 10.87 149.71 Johnson 56 5440.00 97.14 9.52 131.14 McCrady 90 34233.33 380.37 37.28 513.5 Phillips 22 6160.00 280.00 27.44 378.00

Quintard 114 29980.00 262.98 25.77 355.03 Trez 89 13306.67 149.51 14.65 201.84

Tuckaway 58 10146.67 174.94 17.14 236.17 Total Average 24389.58 190.23 18.64 256

Baseline Statistics: A long way to go.



37383October/November 2011

Upcoming Events:

November 5: Tar Sands Oil Protest

November 16: The Last Mountain Documentary Showing

November 30: End of the Energy Competition

More information?Contact a GCN intern:

Jonathan Salazar: [email protected]

Jordan Long: [email protected]

Joanna Parkman: [email protected]

Grace Saunder: [email protected]

Check out these sites:

www.epa.org

www.treehugger.com

www.ashe.com

www.enn.com

www. conservation.org

www.sewaneegreenaction.wordpress.com

October/November Newsletter

Documents

Transcript of October/November Newsletter