Creating a College Climate Change Agenda
Highlights of Middlebury College's climate change action over the last four years begin with developing a community understanding of the urgency of our global challenge. Key climate change experts, including those listed below, were invited to campus by numerous departments and programs ranging from economics, physics, chemistry, and environmental studies to political science and international studies to encourage a campus dialogue.
Ross Gelbspan, the leading journalist in this field, and author of The Heat is On
Bill Moomaw, Professor of International Environmental Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and the chair an international working group of scientists for the IPCC
Jonathan Lash, the Director of the World Resources Institute
Steven Percy, former CEO of BP America and a member of President Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development In addition, influential faculty offered regular campus-wide talks, and a successful new course on global climate change was developed through the Physic department. Multiple forums including the campus newspaper, environmental organizations, and student research have taught the entire community about why and how we must act.
Based on a recommendation from the Environmental Peak Report (a five-year strategic plan for advancing environmental education and campus sustainability at Middlebury), the Environmental Council established a Carbon Neutral (CN) Subcommittee to research and assess the possibilities for carbon neutrality at Middlebury in 2001. Doug Dagan '03 was hired to complete an extensive emissions inventory, adapting a toolkit distributed by Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP). The emissions inventory process was used to compile campus data from 1990-2000 (focusing specifically on energy use, transportation and solid waste). A calculator (first prototyped by staff at the University of New Hampshire) that is part of the CA-CP emissions inventory toolkit then produces an estimate of the College's contribution of CO2 into the atmosphere over that period of time.
Funded by Environmental Affairs and Student Travel Funds budget administered by College Secretary Eric Davis, six members of the College's CN Subcommittee attended the College Climate Response organizational meeting at Lewis and Clark College outside Portland (OR) along with 25 other colleges to address actions institutions could and should take to curb global warming. After the conference, and in consultation with other members of the subcommittee, Professors Lori DelNegro (Chemistry) and Jonathan Isham (Economics and Environmental Studies) developed an intensive Winter Term course for January 2003. At a follow-up East Coast College Climate Response conference at Skidmore College in September 2002, Middlebury learned of the challenge to colleges by the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers to develop Climate Change Action Plans with a short-term goal of reducing GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and by 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Invigorated by the growing campus wide momentum and the NE Governors' challenge, the Environmental Council brought a Carbon Reduction Initiative (CRI) proposal before the College's Community Council in October 2002, requesting the establishment of a Working Group comprised of faculty, staff, students and key members of the administration including the Treasurer of the College and the Director of Environmental Affairs, to set a specific carbon reduction goal and a carbon reduction plan to outline the steps necessary to achieve that goal. The proposal received unanimous approval and appointments to the Working Group were made by key committees of the College including the Community Council, Student Government Association, Faculty Council and Staff Council.
In synchrony with the launching of the CRI Working Group, the above-mentioned winter term class "Scientific and Institutional Challenges of Becoming Carbon Neutral" began January 6, 2003. Students quickly became consultants to the Working Group, assessing available and emerging technologies and economic instruments that could create reductions in campus Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (CDE) emissions or enhance the rate of CDE sequestration, thereby offsetting some fraction of the college's emissions. Several times during their month-long class, members of the Working Group attended class meetings and presentations to learn more about specific strategies and the students' entire recommendation. Their 200-page report, Carbon Neutrality at Middlebury College, provides a portfolio of strategies deemed most likely to:
a. be feasible within the constraints of Middlebury College operations,
b. produce the greatest net reduction in campus CDE emissions, or
c. have the greatest long-term potential for significant mitigation of campus climate impact.
The students concluded that various combinations of the strategies outlined in their report could bring Middlebury to a net CDE emission of zero (carbon neutrality). This report, coupled with the emissions inventory completed by Doug Dagan '03, was used extensively by the CRI Working Group to begin to develop Middlebury College's Climate Change Action Plan. The CRI Working Group began its mission in January 2003 meeting bi-weekly during the spring semester. Several students from the winter term class continued on with the process as members of the Working Group. Initially, the diverse campus representation on the Working Group required a basic grounding of why the College was placing such an emphasis on the global warming issue. Resident expert Professor Rich Wolfson from the Physics Department, as well as Professors Lori DelNegro (Chemistry) and Jon Isham (Economics & Environmental Studies) established this foundation which was further supported throughout the spring term work by students who had taken either the winter term class or the course Global Climate Change offered by Professor Wolfson in the fall.
The CRI Working Group, using the recommendations from the J Term class, developed preliminary goals and then evaluated individuals strategies using a well established economic model. In preparation for developing a plan for implementing such strategies, the Working Group invited the Vice President of College Advancement and the Director of Grants to a meeting to discuss fundraising potential. Ultimately, the Working Group was able to generate a draft portfolio of strategies that would enable the College to meet its initial carbon reduction goal.
The CRI Working Group provided an Executive Summary of their Progress Report to the Executive Council as well as the Environmental and Community Councils in May 2003. In the report, the Working Group recommends a preliminary goal of reducing carbon emissions by 8% below 1990 levels by 2012. In addition to a quantitative goal, the Working Group defined numerous sub goals including the desire to make the process used at Middlebury transferable to other institutions; to invest in local projects, particularly when considering offsets and carbon sequestration measures; to avoid strategies that transfer the impact to another environmental realm; and to maximize the employment of strategies that effectively reduce emissions on campus before resorting to the purchase of offsets or carbon sequestration endeavors external to campus operations. Research on several carbon reducing strategies are underway for the summer and the CRI Working Group will reconvene in the fall to define an implementation plan for consideration by the College community.
During the academic year '03-'04, research was concentrated on heating and cooling which is responsible for three quarters of the College's documented carbon emissions. Biomass Energy Resource Center of Montpelier, Vermont assisted by conducting a preliminary assessment of the "Potential for a Biomass CHP Plant at Middlebury College". The assessment explores several scenarios ranging from a single wood-chip boiler to advanced biomass gasification with electricity generation. Coupled with this analysis, the CRI Working Group hired Vermont Family Forests to conduct a "Biomass Fuel Assessment for Middlebury College", exploring the sustainability of a locally-derived biomass fuel source, the potential for positive economic development, and academic opportunities that might be linked to developing this system. In May 2004, the Trustees endorsed Middlebury College's Commitment to Carbon Reduction, a resolution establishing an initial target goal of reducing College greenhouse gas emissions by 8% below 1990 levels by 2012, adjusted on a student (per capita) basis.