Rebooting the Future

Cornell Moves Beyond Coal

2010-02-20T22:13:41Z

I recently contributed this post to the Second Nature blog "Campus Green Builder":

Not all green buildings on campus come with lots of windows and sunlight. I recently attended the grand opening of Cornell University's new Combined Heat and Power Plant. Given the quality of the conversation about climate change in the U.S. these days, it’s easy to get discouraged and cynical. But I came away from this particular event feeling like Cornell had taken a real step forward. The new plant will allow Cornell to stop using coal in 18 months and will reduce the university’s carbon footprint by 28 percent. Getting off coal power and hooking up to an interstate natural gas pipeline that runs close by the campus will also save 100,000 gallons a year of diesel fuel used to deliver the coal by truck from West Virginia mines. Now that’s green by anyone’s standards.

Especially impressive was President David Skorton’s strong expression of support for the ACUPCC at the opening. "When I signed the President's Commitment," he said, "I did not know how we would get to climate neutrality, but I did have faith in our collective ability as a university to educate and discover our way through, and today is an example of finding a piece of the larger puzzle. Although we are celebrating today, we have a long hill yet to climb."

After the remarks and a press conference, I took a tour of the new 15,000-square-foot facility located next to the old coal-fired central heating plant. It was hard to miss the two giant turbines fired by natural gas that drive the electric generators. As was explained to us over the din of the turbines, very little goes to waste; heat from the turbines makes steam that runs another generator and that steam is piped throughout the campus for heating. In fact, so little energy is wasted that solar collectors had to be installed to provide heat and hot water for the new offices and locker rooms attached to the facility!

When thinking about Cornell's switch from coal to natural gas, here's something to keep in mind: only one-third of the energy in coal actually gets used to generate electricity. The rest goes up the smokestack along with much greater carbon emissions than natural gas. Thanks to mountaintop removal, more than 470 mountains in four Appalachian states (West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee) have been destroyed to date providing coal for power plants such as the one that Cornell is shutting down (see "How Do You Kill a Mountain?"). Given the inefficiency of coal, that means only about 156 of those mountains went into producing electricity. The other 314 mountains were not only destroyed, they were a complete waste. Cornell's new power plant will be running at something like 85% efficiency and natural gas emits far less carbon than coal. The obvious conclusion: natural gas may be "bad," but it's dramatically less bad than coal.

No wonder the Sierra Club will be holding Cornell up as a model as it seeks to get other universities and colleges to close down their coal-fired power plants (see Campuses Beyond Coal). One down and (about) fifty-nine to go!

The Big Idea

2009-11-27T19:50:00Z

With the Copenhagen talks approaching, it's hard not to wonder why more people aren't engaged in the effort to prevent runaway climate change. Even as President Obama pledges 17% emissions cuts going into these crucial negotiations, new polls show that as many as 30% of Americans don't believe in global warming. Obviously, something's not working here.

Unless we move from trying to scare people into action by apocalyptic predictions of the coming climate disaster and focus on the hope and opportunity that can be generated by moving to a new energy economy, we're not going to be able to move forward at the pace necessary to have a meaningful impact. Climate and Energy Truths: Our Common Future, a study issued earlier this year by EcoAmerica, underscores the importance of grasping this insight. Carrying out focus groups and online and phone surveys, the study tested a range of conceputal frameworks and messages for speaking with the American public about energy and climate change. It's worth reading in its entirety, but here's the report's bottom line: it's far easier to engage people "around the energy debate than the climate change debate."

There is a similar need to shift the framework in higher education when it comes to sustainability. As Andrea Putman and I note in our editorial "A New Era in Higher Education?" (in the October issue of Sustainability: The Journal of Record), the most forward looking corporations understand the need to make sustainability a strategic imperative and are gaining significant ground on their competitors during the current recession. As the recent Aberdeen Group report "The ROI of Sustainability" puts it, “Far from being a philanthropic ‘nice to have’ [sustainability is a] ‘must have’ strategy for long-term, business viability and success.”

What's the lesson here for higher education leaders? Too many of them are looking at sustainability in terms of what their institutions could do to promote it ("the right thing to do") and not enough are asking, how can sustainability help us become more strategic and perform more effectively ("the smart thing to do")? The big idea that they need to wrap their heads around is that sustainability as a driver can make their institutions smarter, more reslient, and less costly to operate. Perhaps reading the EcoAmerica report would help them better share this perspective with their institutions' stakeholders and move them forward to the new energy future that beckons.

Why "Boldly Sustainable"?

2009-10-15T15:26:00Z

For Blog Action Day - Climate Change, a brief excerpt from Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change (NACUBO, 2009), which I co-authored with Andrea Putman, my colleague at Second Nature:

Designing a sustainable world is not simply a technocratic exercise. It is as much a cultural and ethical project as a scientific and engineering endeavor. It requires imagination, versatility, and creativity, a willingness to live our lives differently. Only if we come to comprehend that, as the ecologist and theologian Thomas Berry observes, “the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects,” will we achieve a level of awareness sufficient to produce viable solutions. We must understand that we are woven inextricably into the fabric of life and do not stand apart from it, exercising dominion over the world around us. The “environment” is not something that exists separate from human beings but rather is what makes human life possible...

How do we want to be remembered: as leaders who understood the need to address upstream the pressing issues of our age and acted with courage and foresight, or as people whose primary goals were short-term advantage and gain and who cared for little else besides self advancement? The present moment is unlike any other in terms of what is at stake. As Berry writes, it is a moment that calls on us to transform our exploitation of the earth into a relationship that is “mutually beneficial.” And, as luck would have it, the moment is brief. Unless we act now to preserve and enhance the life, beauty, and diversity of the planet for future generations, we will become, in Berry’s words, “impoverished in all that makes us human.” The question is no longer why we should address climate destabilization, and in some cases, it is not even how. The question has become how fast and effectively we can move forward. In short, to what extent are we willing to be boldly sustainable? ...

Given global threats such as the growing disruption of the climate, staggering levels of poverty in the developing world, and the looming peak oil crisis, it is remarkable how insular much of the higher education establishment is. Amid the day-to-day tasks of measuring learning outcomes, recruiting students, cultivating donors, balancing the budget, applying for grants, and keeping controversy to a minimum, surprisingly little time or energy is spent on how to address the truly serious problems that promise to upend the lives of the next generations. “One could make the case that our universities are actually mired in the Stone Age,” notes Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University. “Our universities remain highly static, resistant to change, unwilling to evolve in pace with real time.” Just as our prehistoric ancestors went about busting up rocks, we view the world as something to break down and take apart rather than to understand holistically and live in harmony with. In Crow's words, we seek to “heat it, beat it, melt it, smash it, burn it and blow it up.”

It is time for a new set of priorities that move us from “the Stone Age to the Sustainability Age.” How can it make sense for universities and colleges to keep doing what they do when they have contributed in large part to the current predicament? In light of how we got where we are, shouldn’t higher education leaders rethink the way that teaching, research, and learning take place and how they operate their facilities? More people, both inside and outside academia, are asking these questions. Now, more than ever, we need to keep in mind Eric Hoffer’s acerbic observation that “in times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Although colleges and universities may be inherently conservative, they must respond to the dramatically altered circumstances or run the risk of becoming irrelevant. Sustainability, as Peter Senge puts it, is “the necessary revolution.”The high stakes involved in meeting the challenges of sustainability and climate change mean that effective leadership, strategic thinking, and implementation in higher education are more imperative than ever. They demand a shift from maintaining the status quo to bringing about transformation. “Boldly sustainable” is not just a battle cry. It is a powerful strategy for higher education to achieve renewal, reformation, and relevance in the 21st century. It is an opportunity for colleges and universities to avoid the fate of collapsing under the weight of their own self-absorption, isolation, and obtuseness,to avoid becoming the intellectual equivalent of Easter Island.

Crossing the Bar: Eulogy for My Father

2009-10-06T19:24:00Z

My Dad, perhaps more than anyone, taught me how to think long term and why it was important, and he passed on his lifelong love of the outdoors to my brothers and me. He also taught us the importance of family and, by example, what it meant to be entrepreneurial. I delivered this eulogy at his memorial service in Suffield, CT -- where we grew up -- on September 28, 2009:

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home!

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1889

My Dad loved life and he loved his family and friends. He was also independent, proud, and stubborn, and he was very, very smart. Anyone who underestimated Dad made a big mistake. He was naturally curious about the world, kept an open mind, and was always ready to embrace new experiences. He had an amazing amount of energy and once he set his mind on something, you could be sure he would accomplish it. And good luck if you couldn’t keep up with him.

Just six weeks ago, Dad drove up to Maine to celebrate my brother George’s birthday. George offered to come down and get him, and his business partner and close friend Phil Shuman offered to drive him up. Dad was not in good health, but he insisted that the only way he was going to Maine was if he could get there on his own. So he set off in his trusty BMW, with Chilli his loyal cocker spaniel at his side, heading north. It took him something like seven hours to get there, he said later, in part because he wasn’t feeling well and in part because Chilli had important business to conduct on the way.

The drive back to Suffield a few days later was altogether different. Perhaps revved up by the birthday celebration and time with his family, he set his cruise control at 78 mph and got home in four and a half hours. To this day we’re not really sure who was actually driving that car, and I’m not sure Dad ever really knew either.Two things we do know for sure, however: first, there were no bathroom breaks for poor old Chilli; and second, Dad had done it his way once again.

Just a few days later, Dad was in the hospital fighting for his life. He was in tremendous pain, suffering from an infection of his esophagus and unable to swallow any food. Even then he did not lose his sense of humor. For a few days he shared the room with an elderly gentleman who was suffering from dementia and would call out from time to time, reliving some incident from his past. At one point, suddenly sitting upright, he shouted, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Dad couldn’t resist and responded in as loud a voice as he could muster, "Giddy up, giddy up!" Even as I was trying hard to stifle my laughter, I thought what a perfect expression of my father’s personality this moment captured. Throughout his life, people had told him to slow down, trim his sails, don’t dream so big, and he would have none of it. Instead, with a "giddy up" or two, he would simply forge ahead.

One of the great truths is that we die the way we live. The courage and determination that Dad displayed in the last days of his life was simply an extension of how he had always lived. At 18 years old, he rescued a couple who had fallen through the ice. Afterwards he said nothing about the incident to his mother, who scolded him for coming home soaking wet on such a cold day.

Only when the husband and wife, grateful that Dad had saved their lives, went to the local newspaper did the story become public. "At no time during the proceedings did he show any indications of losing his head or becoming excited," the couple told the reporter. "‘Just hang on; don’t get flustered; I’ll get you out,’ he kept repeating reassuringly to them.’"

Dad was just as stoic and courageous during his last few years when he fought for his own life. Diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma just two days before my stepmother Ruth passed away, he never gave up. Although the loss of Ruth crushed him, he kept moving forward.

As his longtime friend Neil Smit told me in a recent phone conversation, "George was a hard plower." Neil was referring to Dad’s approach to skiing, which he gave up only a couple of years ago, but he was also talking about his approach to life. "Enduring the battle with his body as it began to fail, he continued to live his life," our son Jesse wrote after Dad died. "He did not throw the towel in and he fought for all his days."

One of my favorite quotes comes from John Shedd’s Salt from My Attic: "A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." If anybody ever embodied this spirit, my Dad did. Not that he went looking for trouble recklessly. After all, he was an accountant. But he was always eager to embark on a new adventure. That was why he loved sailing and why some of his happiest days were on his boat Freedom, cruising along the East Coast from Maine to Florida.

Dad’s love of adventure was not confined to the water. He had always wanted to go skydiving, so for his 75th birthday Ruth arranged for lessons and a jump at the Vero Beach airport in Florida, where he was stationed during with the Navy during World War II. I remember like it was yesterday the excitement in his voice when he called afterwards, still standing out on the airfield. "I did it!" he exclaimed. Included in Ruth’s birthday present was a video of the jump, capturing the exuberant expression on his face as he descended.To this day, whenever I watch the video, I laugh until I have tears running down my cheeks because the soundtrack is Steppenwolf’s "Born to be Wild." Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper had nothing on my Dad.

Some of my best days with my father were when I visited him and Ruth at their place on the ocean in Vero Beach, just south of Sebastian Inlet. It was a magical place on the narrowest part of the barrier island, and only a few hundred yards separated the Atlantic from the Indian River. I would go in the spring, just as baseball was getting underway, and we would head over to Dodgertown on the mainland to watch the exhibition games, eat a hot dog, and have a beer. Afterwards we would stop at a bait shop, pick up some live shrimp and go fishing off the dock back at the lagoon, watching the sun set across the water.

What I realized during this time with my father was that, late in his life, he had learned to live in the moment. This was not necessarily an easy achievement for him, because as Neil says, Dad was a "hard plower." Patience was not one of his greatest strengths and he was always looking ahead. But it was different in Florida. He and Ruth had discovered a place where the land, sea, and sky all came together in one glorious symphony, and it made their hearts sing. Both the past and future drifted away on the tide, leaving only the moment in which they lived.

Loss, although intense, brings great clarity. During the last five weeks as I spent each day with Dad, rooting for the Red Sox, doing crossword puzzles, talking, and sitting with him while he slept, I slowly came to grips with the reality that his life would soon end. In those moments, I realized what I most admired about my father: his integrity. By integrity, I don’t mean just strong ethics, important as they are, but also a consistency between inner core values and outer behavior that creates a sense of wholeness and resilience.

Although Dad kept up to date on a lot of things, he was old fashioned in his belief that hard work, family, and education were the keys to a good life. And you couldn’t spend a day with him without understanding that he lived these beliefs, they weren’t just empty words. As John Adams once observed, "There are two types of education. One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live." My father’s life was a testament to the wisdom of Adams’s insight.

So Dad has crossed the bar and put out to sea on his last great adventure. He will be sorely missed. But, as my father’s cousin Giorgio wrote from Italy when Ruth passed away, "We don’t ask you, Lord, why do you carry her away now, but we say thank you, Lord, because you gave her to us for many, special years." The same is true of Dad: he was a gift we will hold in our hearts forever. The flood may bear him far, but we rejoice knowing that he will finally meet his Pilot face to face. May he rest in peace.

Sustainability Means More Than Green

2009-07-28T05:07:00Z

Be sure to take a look at this recent article and video published by the Mc Kinsey Quarterly: "When Sustainability Means More than ‘Green’." The article is adapted from Adam Werback’s new book, Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto, in which he urges businesses to turn to sustainability in order to gain long-term profitability and transparency. Werback, of course, is the former president of the Sierra Club and current corporate consultant helping to guide Wal-Mart's wide-ranging sustainability initiative.

"To endure in a changeable world with more limits on resources and less credit," writes Werbach, "companies must develop and execute a strategy for sustainability." This is very similar to the argument that my co-author Andrea Putman and I make in our new book Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change regarding colleges and universities. In our case, we contend that the institutions that successfully implement sustainability measures across their campuses will make the necessary organizational and pedagogical changes that will allow them not only to survive but thrive in the 21st century.

In Werbach's words, "Every crisis is an opportunity. The crisis we face now is our chance—your chance—to build a strategy for sustainability into the core of your company and your life. Such a strategy is a necessity, not an idealistic illusion." Read his article and watch the interview with him here.

Sustainability as a Strategic Imperative

2009-07-11T20:37:00Z

Boldly Sustainable got a nice mention in Wednesday's issue of Inside Higher Ed. In "Getting to Green," the sustainability blog for IHE, G. Rendell writes that my co-author Andrea Putman and I "not only describe how colleges and universities can save money by reducing their environmental footprints, they explain how a profound commitment to sustainability is the basis for defining higher ed's 21st century market sector."

It's always a happy moment when a reader grasps the larger implications of one's work. As I've written in this space previously, sustainability is a strategic imperative for colleges and universities. In the words of Cornell President David Skorton, "sustainability is no longer an elective." (See New York Times, June 13, 2007). Those leaders who understand this new reality and act on it will be the ones whose institutions are most likely to survive the current upheaval in higher education.

Why do I say this? Some recent data, which came out after the book went to press, underscores the extent to which corporations that have made a deep commitment to sustainability are financially better off than those that have not. In a report released this past February, "Green Winners: The Performance of Sustainability," A.T. Kearney noted that in 16 out of 18 industries, companies with a strong sustainability commitment were “the clear leaders in the financial markets" and they outperformed industry averages by 15% in the second half of 2008. Among the common characteristics of these leading companies were the following:

Focus on long-term strategy, not just short-term gains
Strong corporate governance
Sound risk-management practices
History of investment in innovations

An even more recent study by the Aberdeen Group found that sustainability initiatives cut overall costs in over 200 companies by 6 to 10%; at the same time, customer retention rates increased 16%.

These are by any measure impressive results and deserve close consideration. Higher education, and the economy in general, are not just experiencing a conventional downturn right now; they are undergoing a major paradigm shift in which the old rules will no longer apply and the new way of doing business will have to take into account the previously overlooked value of ecoservices that are under unprecedented stress.

As Jhana Senxian and Cindy Jutras, the authors of the Aberdeen Group's "The ROI of Sustainability," contend, "far from being a philanthropic 'nice to have,’" sustainability is a "'must have' strategy for long-term, business viability and success."

TCCPI Goes to Work

2009-07-10T01:07:00Z

Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative – Working Together for a Brighter Future

433 N. Aurora Street
Ithaca, NY 14850

For Immediate Release Contact: Peter Bardaglio

July 10, 2009 (607) 229-6183

pbardaglio@secondnature.org

Climate Protection Initiative Joins in Summer Energy Efficiency Rollout

ITHACA, NY – The heat is on to improve residential energy efficiency this summer in Tompkins County.

The Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative (TCCPI), launched in June 2008, has joined with coalition partners Tompkins County Workforce Investment Board, Tompkins Community Action, Performance Systems Development, LLC, Park Foundation, and Cornell Cooperative Extension – Tompkins County to undertake a summer youth energy efficiency campaign focusing on rural communities in the county.

Thanks to federal economic stimulus funding channeled through the Tompkins County Workforce Investment Board, Tompkins Community Action (TCAction) has hired 100 youth ages 14 to 24 for the summer, 50 of whom will be involved in energy work. Ten will be learning about energy audit and energy efficiency repairs by working on crews; the other 40 will be going door-to-door, distributing educational materials on energy savings in the home and available state and federal incentives for energy efficiency upgrades.

In addition, the youth will seek to register each household visited with Green Energy COMPASS, a service developed by Performance Systems Development (PSD) to track and benchmark residential energy performance and carbon emissions. This service will provide residents with an analysis of their utility bills, measure their own progress on reducing usage, and gauge their progress against a cohort made up of their neighbors who have also signed up to participate. PSD, besides providing the usage of COMPASS, is also offering training on how to make the most of the service.

According to Stacey Murphy, TCAction’s director of energy services, the youth will focus on low-income households in about 16 neighborhoods in rural areas of Tompkins County. “We hope to meet people where they are, engage them in some basic steps they can make to save energy and money, and then move them in a more comprehensive direction,” says Murphy.

Funding from TCCPI and the Park Foundation has made it possible for the Cornell Cooperative Extension – Tompkins County (CCE) to hire 12 Cornell University and Ithaca College students to help produce materials for the door-to-door awareness campaign and to provide maps to help TCAction identify the neighborhoods to be canvassed.

As part of the effort to stimulate interest in energy efficiency, CCE is working with the college students to launch a leadership education program aimed at engaging community leaders to carry out energy efficiency improvements in their homes. In some cases, they are offering these leaders a utility bill analysis and abbreviated home energy assessment, including some initial predictions of potential savings. The students will then produce short videos in which these leaders talk about the improvements they have made and their impact on energy bills.

“We believe these videos will be a powerful tool for peer-to-peer marketing this summer and beyond, helping to persuade residents that it makes financial and environmental sense to upgrade their homes,” says Ken Schlather, executive director of CCE.

TCCPI seeks to leverage the climate action commitments made by Cornell University, Ithaca College, Tompkins Cortland Community College, Tompkins County, and the City of Ithaca to mobilize a countywide energy efficiency effort focused primarily on the retrofitting of buildings. The initiative has brought together a wide range of community partners from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Current partners include:

Alternatives Federal Credit Union

Catholic Charities – Tompkins and Tioga

Cayuga Medical Center
City of Ithaca

Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County

Cornell University
Downtown Ithaca Alliance

Ithaca Carshare
Ithaca College
Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Council

Paleontological Research Institute/Museum of the Earth

Park Foundation

Performance Systems Development, LLC

Sustainable Tompkins

Sustainable Transitions

Tompkins Community Action

Tompkins Tompkins Cortland Community College

Tompkins County Area DevelopmentTompkins County Chamber of Commerce

Tompkins County Council of Governments

Tompkins County Legislature

Tompkins County Planning Department

Tompkins County Workforce Investment Board

Town of Caroline

Town of Ithaca

Travis & Travis/Ithaca Rentals and Renovations

“We hope to establish a model of cross-sector collaboration for other communities around the country who are interested in energy efficiency and climate protection,” says Peter Bardaglio, coordinator of TCCPI and senior fellow at Second Nature, which oversees the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

Cornell University, Ithaca College, and Tompkins Cortland Community College are signatories to the ACUPCC, which seeks to achieve carbon neutrality at the participating higher education institutions “as soon as possible” and to promote the research and education needed to stabilize the earth’s climate.

Driving the climate protection effort locally is the target established by the Tompkins County Legislature in December 2008 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by the year 2050, cutting two percent of 2008 base year emissions per year for the next 40 years. The action steps necessary to achieve this goal are outlined in the Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Element, which was developed by the Tompkins County Planning Office under the direction of Ed Marx, Commissioner of Planning.

Learn more about the Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative at: www.tccpi.org.

###

Debating Mark Taylor's "End the University as We Know It"

2009-05-04T14:11:00Z

In this week's "Brainstorm," The Chronicle Review blog, Stan Katz offers a thoughtful critique of Mark Taylor's op-ed in the April 27th issue of the NY Times (see previous blog entry). His main criticism is that Taylor only offers a grocery list of suggested reforms, many of which are old ideas and don't hang together. Fair enough. From my perspective, though, one of the readers who writes in support of Taylor makes the most salient point:

"I think Taylor is spot-on in terms of restructuring the curriculum— particularly as it relates to more integration and less disciplinary 'silos.' As inter and multi disciplinary programs increase, colleges and universities are being stretched to meet the new demands (e.g. environmental sciences/studies).

With crises (like climate change) come opportunities to re-imagine teaching and learning in higher education. The current general education model is woefully inadequate and amounts to a “checkbox” caricature of the liberal arts.

Tomorrow’s students need to be systems-thinkers (and doers). From my seat, I worry that we are driving around in the higher education equivalent of a Chevy Nova. It’s time to imagine if things were otherwise."

New Ships for the Sustainability Voyage

2009-05-03T22:42:00Z

From Peter Senge's The Necessary Revolution: "Occasionally something different happens, a collective awakening to new possibilities that changes everything over time -- how people see the world, what they value, how society defines progress and organizes itself, and how institutions operate." In Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change, released last month, Andrea Putman and I explore the potential of the sustainability revolution to transform higher education.

I think a lot of us are ready for big changes in higher ed. See Mark Taylor's recent op-ed in the New York Times, "End the University as We Know It." Despite these calls for change, of course, there is always the chance that higher ed will end up becoming what Putman and I call "the intellectual equivalent of Easter Island": a place we pay a lot of money to visit and then leave -- in the end, the encounter doesn't have much impact except to remind us how isolated the place is from the rest of the world. The university either becomes the engine driving us into a sustainable future or it becomes a curiosity/exotic luxury. Nothing in between. The rest of us will move to the Web or create new learning communities. Of course, these are not mutually exclusive options; indeed, for some people, they are one and the same.

Is Culture Shift Possible?

2009-04-16T05:12:00Z

My Second Nature colleague and co-author Andrea Putman and I had an article adapted from Boldly Sustainable in the March 31 issue of ClimateEdu, the newsletter for the National Wildlife Federation's Campus Ecology Program:

Is Culture Shift Possible?

Peter Bardaglio and Andrea Putman

March 31, 2009


A student faces off with Oberlin College's energy orbs, which track electricity usage in the dorms. (Oberlin College)

Students and visitors walking into a residence hall at Oberlin College shouldn't be surprised to find glowing orbs mounted on walls, changing colors throughout the day. Sound like one of the DHARMA Initiative research stations on the television show "Lost"? These orbs are part of an ongoing experiment to better understand how to encourage reduced energy consumption. The color of the "energy orbs" tells building residents how they're doing in real time. Bright red means energy consumption is higher than average, yellow indicates things are running at about average, and green means consumption is below average.

As the Oberlin energy orbs suggest, at the heart of sustainability is the goal of moving from a culture of consumption to one of conservation. Simply greening campus operations is not enough. Moving toward sustainability hinges on our ability to inspire and maintain changes in behavior, expectations, and norms. Until people remember to turn off their computers, hop on the bus, or put their soda bottles in the recycling bin, it will be difficult to make much progress.

How one frames the message has a clear impact on how effectively it is communicated. "It's not about telling people, 'You have to do this, you have to do that,'" notes Oberlin College undergraduate Lucas Brown. "It's about fitting sustainability into our own lives." The energy orbs provide a quick, easy way to tell what the level of energy use is in the building without a lot of technical detail and in a way that motivates rather than alienates the residents. In fact, this kind of real-time feedback at Oberlin led to cuts of more than 50% in energy consumption during the experiment.

Simply put, inundating people with facts and figures can lead to paralysis. Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale University Project on Climate Change, contends that "you have to have an emotional response-bad or good-to put a high priority on doing something." But just scaring people with apocalyptic messages about the future won't work either. Instead, people have to be presented with concrete, positive actions; otherwise they can feel overwhelmed and powerless.

Environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr suggests that the most effective way to promote sustainable behavior is to adopt community-based social marketing in place of the usual information-based campaigns. In his words, community-based social marketing focuses on "initiatives delivered at the community level which focus on removing barriers to an activity while simultaneously enhancing the activities' benefits." Community-based social marketing involves four steps: (1) identifying the barriers to a particular activity; (2) developing a strategy based on these data; (3) piloting a strategy; and (4) assessing the strategy's success once it has been implemented across a community.

According to McKenzie-Mohr, among the most effective tools in community-based social marketing is commitment. Securing a small commitment at the outset leads to a successful larger request. Thus, asking someone to put a bumper sticker on his or her car about buying green products increases the possibility that the person will actually purchase these products.

Another important tool is the use of eye-catching prompts that remind people to turn off the lights, turn down the thermostat, or check the air pressure in their tires. In addition, norm-based messaging can be very persuasive. A 2007 study showed that giving households regular feedback on how much energy they were using relative to the rest of the group, along with a signal of social approval or disapproval (in the form of happy- or sad-face emoticons), led almost everyone to cut down on their energy consumption. "Keeping up with the Joneses," it turns out, works as a powerful motivator in arenas other than consumer goods.

Communicating messages that are easy to remember, clear, and specific, and establishing personal and community goals are also key to successful social marketing. As part of an energy savings campaign, for example, University of Buffalo, Tufts University and Williams College urged students to "do it in the dark," a message sure to resonate with this demographic group. Finally, the careful use of incentives that reward positive action rather than penalize negative behavior is a critical tool in moving people toward more sustainable behavior.

Clearly, attempts to change behavior and values raise a number of thorny issues. "Campuses will become sustainable only when they have universal buy-in and enthusiastic participation from all stakeholders," observes Derek Larson, director of the Environmental Studies Program at the College of St. Benedict/St. John's University. "This requires a cultural shift that leads people to ask themselves 'what is the most sustainable way to do this?' before making a decision, rather than asking 'what is the cheapest way to do this?' or 'how have we done this in the past?' as is common practice at most institutions."

The biggest question is whether a culture fueled by billions of advertising dollars and powered by decades of cheap oil and energy can change fast enough to avert disaster. Just as smoking habits have altered significantly over the last 20 years, more sustainable behaviors will probably take hold. But will they do so in time to make a difference? Although no one knows the answer to this question, the participation of colleges and universities in this effort can certainly improve our chances. What color is your campus's energy orb?

Rethinking Higher Ed Sustainability in Tough Times

2008-10-09T04:59:00Z

I was a guest blogger for the Chronicle of Higher Education last month. You can find my third and final post here:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/architecture/2480/guest-blogger-spending-endowment-money-to-benefit-all

Last week’s release of the College Sustainability Report Card 2009 raises an important question: What does it mean for higher education to adopt sustainability as a core financial strategy?

As Andrea Putman and I discuss in our forthcoming book, Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change, a commitment to sustainability can both maximize benefits and minimize risks. It can lead to a more efficient use of limited resources, higher productivity, and the development of distributed leadership on campus. It can create greater collaboration across organizational silos, strengthen trust with external stakeholders, and enhance a college’s brand value, making it easier to recruit outstanding students and faculty and staff members and retain them. All of this can produce a significant competitive advantage for the institution.

Just as important, adopting sustainability as a core financial strategy means taking a broader approach to investment. Higher education, if it intends to take its own long-term sustainability seriously, needs to focus on how increases in endowment spending can improve the well-being of society and the environment.

Why?

It’s pretty simple, actually. Colleges and universities can only thrive if society and the biosphere are healthy. Any college or university that is so shortsighted as to pursue its ends without taking into account the interests of the larger community or ecosystem will not thrive over the long haul. In the end, it will find itself forced, one way or the other, to deal with the fact that its future is inextricably linked to that of the larger web of social and ecological relations in which it is embedded. It is recognition of this interdependence, for example, that has driven Yale University to invest in the City of New Haven and Berea College to invest in the land and people of the South.

College and university endowments, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, could be a powerful force for social and environmental good even as these institutions pursue their own self interest. Yet only 35 percent of the institutions surveyed in the College Sustainability Report Card 2009 invest in renewable energy and only 10 percent in community-development funds.

If everyone is to have a chance at a healthy future, higher-education institutions must embrace a larger understanding of their mission and not confine themselves simply to growing their endowments while the communities around them come unraveled and the degradation of the environment continues unabated.

One of the best ways that a university can have a positive effect on the environment and local economy is to set aside a proportion of its endowment to use as a revolving loan fund for cities and towns to use in communitywide energy-efficiency retrofits. Such loans have the potential for returns on investment as good as anything in the financial markets today. (Of course, considering the state of Wall Street, that’s not saying much.)

In making such investments, a university can not only help reduce the carbon footprint of its communities, but also keep dollars from flowing out of the community and into the pockets of the utility companies. These dollars will recirculate in the community, increasing spending and indirectly contributing to the creation of new jobs. And, as Van Jones points out, investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy also directly create new green-collar jobs that can provide much-needed economic stability during even the toughest of recessions.

Given the latest economic forecasts, it’s an idea worth considering.

Code Green for Higher Education?

2008-09-26T05:56:00Z

I'm guest blogging for the Chronicle of Higher Education this month. You can find my second post from last week here:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/architecture/2451/guest-blogger-code-green-for-higher-education

Tom Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America, is an impassioned plea for what he calls “Code Green” — a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation that would address global climate change and sustainability while also renewing the spirit of innovation and idealism in the U.S.

So what would “Code Green” mean for higher education? As the National Wildlife Federation’s report on campus sustainability noted last month, the record for colleges and universities is mixed. The survey of 1,068 institutions found that real headway had been made in the areas of research, campus operations, and community outreach, but it revealed much less success in greening the classroom.

Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that most colleges and universities are treating sustainability either as a fad or as one more thing to stir into the mix, rather than as a transformative process. A good sign — perhaps the best one — that an institution is taking sustainability seriously is when it begins to integrate sustainability across the curriculum. That’s the heart of the matter, after all.

Frank Rhodes, former president of Cornell University, suggests that the concept of sustainability offers “a new foundation for the liberal arts and sciences.” It provides a new focus, sense of urgency, and curricular coherence at a time of drift, fragmentation, and insularity in higher education, what he calls “a new kind of global map.”

At the same time, though, Rhodes notes that the “broad range of questions that sustainability raises have no single set of answers.” Experimentation, discovery, and exploration, rather than dogma and indoctrination, are the keys to mining its value as a way to frame the crucial issues of our time.

“Code Green” can provide a vital source of hope and opportunity for facilitating institutional renewal and revitalizing higher education’s sense of mission. Growing out of a keen awareness that the economy, society, and environment are closely intertwined, sustainability fosters a culture of innovation, creativity, and holistic thinking. It provides a way to bring fresh thinking to bear on old problems and identifies new solutions that can move higher education forward even as it better prepares students to be engaged citizens, active leaders, and successful professionals.

Embracing Tom Friedman’s call for “Code Green” in higher education would mean adopting it as a core strategy. As Andrea Putman and I argue in our forthcoming book, Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change, it would mean not viewing sustainability as marginal to the real business of colleges and universities or as an “add on.” Instead, sustainability would be seen as the central organizing principle in an intellectual, social, and financial sense. And it would be recognized that these three strands cannot be unraveled and separated out, one from the other, without undermining the capacity of higher education to be an effective force in 21st-century democratic society.

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas,” John Maynard Keynes wrote, “but in escaping from the old ones.” By letting go of ideas that have outlived their usefulness, we clear the space for fresh perspectives to emerge. By reaching out to develop partnerships with business and government, colleges and universities — more than any other institutions in our society — can generate the intellectual, social, and financial capital necessary to escape the gravitational pull of the old, dysfunctional ideas and behaviors that have brought us to our current impasse. It is colleges and universities that can launch us toward a new world of hope and opportunity.

In the current age of climate change, the need for such transformational leadership has never been greater.

New Roots School is a Reality!

2008-09-17T19:00:00Z

Wow, after several weeks of meetings and interviews, the SUNY Board of Trustees approved our charter application for New Roots School yesterday. Here's the article from this morning's Ithaca Journal:

September 17, 2008

SUNY board approves New Roots school

By Liz Lawyer
Journal Staff

A new charter school is scheduled to open in Ithaca in fall of 2009.

The State University of New York Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved the application to open New Roots Charter School.

The next step for the application is review by the state Board of Regents, although their decision will not have bearing on whether the charter is granted, said Tina Nilsen-Hodges, primary applicant for New Roots. Nilsen-Hodges said she is confident the application for New Roots meets the Board of Regents' criteria, but even if they refuse their approval the charter will become effective after 30 days.

The SUNY board accepted seven applications for school charters from across the state, including five in the boroughs of New York City, one in Hempstead, and the one in Ithaca.

“We are very excited by the Trustees' vote of confidence in New Roots,” said Jason Hamilton, chairman of the proposed New Roots Board of Trustees. “Now the hard work to launch the school begins.”

The school will be officially incorporated no sooner than 90 days from now, and no later than early March, Nilsen-Hodges said.

Nilsen-Hodges said the New Roots Board of Trustees now will be able to enter into more serious discussions about finding a place to house the school, selecting a principal and hiring staff. The first thing they will do is organize focus groups with parents and prospective students and other members of the community, she said.

“We as a team are most interested in developing community engagement in the planning process,” she said. “We are building a school from the ground up. We want to meet the needs of the people we will be serving.”

Nilsen-Hodges said the information in the application will provide a framework for the discussions and planning within the board and with the community to build on.

Nilsen-Hodges intends to apply to be the principal and she is the only applicant, she said. She also has two sons, ages 11 and 13, who might apply for enrollment in the school, she said.

She also said that during the interview process the Charter Schools Institute asked the proposed board members whether they would be able to fire Nilsen-Hodges, even though she was instrumental in the creation of the school.

“The answer was, ‘Absolutely,' ” she said. But Nilsen-Hodges said she did not anticipate that would be necessary.

“My training gives me confidence this is something I can do and do well,” she said.

“Tina is uniquely qualified to take on the responsibilities associated with being the founding principal of New Roots,” said Peter Bardaglio, vice chairman of the proposed school board and former provost and vice president for academic affairs at Ithaca College. “She has 16 years of teaching experience, is a New York state certified teacher, and has received her New York State School Building Leader Initial Certificate. At the same time, it is important to remember that her work as founding principal will be subject to regular, ongoing performance evaluations. New Roots board members will expect Tina to meet the rigorous standards associated with the position of New Roots principal.”

The Board of Education of the Ithaca City School District has expressed concern that the charter school would be too much of a financial burden for the district. New Roots would be entitled to $12,476 per student, equaling about $1,559,549 in the 2009-10 school year, or 1.58 percent of the district's budget. In the fifth year, accounting for increased cost of tuition, higher enrollment in the charter school, and the district's growing budget, the school would get $14,042 per child, adding up to $3,159,515, or 2.85 percent of the budget.

The Charter Schools Institute said they conducted a “rigorous review” of the application, both from an educational and financial standpoint, and found the school to be viable.

In the first year, the school would enroll up to 125 ninth and 10th graders. At maximum enrollment the school would take 225 students in grades nine through 12.

Nilsen-Hodges said the board is considering a downtown campus, possibly with multiple buildings, to give students a chance to interact with the community more and have access to internships and community service projects.

Pond Scum and Other Miracles of Science

2008-09-15T16:16:00Z

I'm guest blogging for the Chronicle of Higher Education this month. You can find my first post from last week here:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/architecture/2425/guest-blogger-pond-scum-and-other-miracles-of-science

I don’t know about you, but thinking about climate change makes my head hurt. It’s just soooo complicated.

The whole carbon-footprint thing, for example. Is it better to eat a non-organic, local tomato than an organic one from Florida? Should I drive with the windows down and the a/c off above 50 mph? What about eating with a compostable fork and knife? Shouldn’t that corn be used to feed people instead?

You know the drill.

It’s bad enough that, thanks to global warming, all those beetles are chewing through trees in Alaska and the rest of western North America faster than Sarah Palin can mow down caribou with her AK-47. It turns out that the beetles are not only killing trees; they’re releasing tons of carbon at the same time. Something like 990 megatons in British Columbia alone over the next two decades.

Then we find out that methane is 20 times worse than carbon dioxide. Great. So let’s see: The permafrost holding up those trees in Alaska is thawing out, releasing enormous amounts of methane that’s been locked up for the past 11,000 years into the atmosphere, while thousands and thousands of dead trees are tipping over like guys at a Friday night kegger.

No wonder the governor wanted to get out of Wasilla and hit the campaign trail with McCain.

And then the good folks at Woods Hole tell us it’s nitrogen that we really have to worry about. Whose idea of a bad joke is this, anyways?

First it was carbon. Then it was methane. Now it’s nitrogen. Oh, and guess what? Tons and tons and tons of nitrogen are being released from … that’s right: the thawing permafrost.

As Gail Collins might put it, “There has been a lot of that going around this year, people.”

But not to worry. Just when it looks like all is lost, word comes from the University of Virginia that pond scum might be our salvation.

Pond scum. Algae. You know, the green stuff that floats on top when fertilizer runs off into the pond. The stuff that blooms like Mao’s hundred flowers when water has too much nitrogen. Which, of course, is the major ingredient in fertilizer.

According to the Charlottesville research team, algae can generate 15 times more oil per acre than other plants used for biofuel, such as corn or switchgrass. Take that, T. Boone Pickens. Who needs your wind plan? And I’m not making this up: Pond scum gobbles up carbon dioxide by the truckload at the same time. That’s called photosynthesis, remember?

So does that mean all we have to worry about is methane? Where’s Dave Barry when you need him?

Ithaca College Awarded Platinum for New B-School Building

2008-08-31T21:42:00Z

Terrific news from Ithaca College two days ago as the School of Business received official word from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) that its new facility has been certified LEED Platinum. That makes it the first Business School building anywhere to meet the Platinum standard, the highest of all the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) categories. LEED is a voluntary rating system for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. There are less than 100 buildings in the world that have received this designation, with fewer than a dozen of them situated on American college campuses.

This was a particularly gratifying moment for me because I helped launch the project as provost at IC from 2002 to 2007. Susan West Engelkemeyer, the B-School dean at IC, did an outstanding job overseeing the completion of the cutting edge facility, one of her many accomplishments since coming to Ithaca in 2005. As she points out, “This project allows the school to clearly demonstrate the triple bottom line of people, planet, and prosperity."

Dorothy D. Park, the president of the Park Foundation, contributed the lead gift of $10 million toward the $19 million effort. Robert A.M. Stern Architects designed the 38,800-square-foot facility, which opened in January, and Atelier Ten served as the environmental design consultant.

Among the features of the Park Center for Business and Sustainable Enterprise that reduce the building’s overall carbon footprint are:

A vegetated roof to help control wastewater runoff and provide a thermal cushion against significant temperature fluctuation.
Heat and light from a multistory, south-facing wall of glass to dramatically reduce energy consumption.
Extensive use of natural lighting throughout the building, minimizing energy needs.
A white roof to reduce heat load in the building.
Purchase of 50 percent of the electricity used for the building from renewable sources.
A storm water reclamation system for use with the building’s plumbing.
A physical environment intentionally created to encourage a sense of community, shared purpose and collaboration.

Even as the building was going up, Dean Engelkemeyer and the B-School faculty began discussions about how to revise the curriculum so that undergraduates and MBAs can acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to address the challenges of sustainability and corporate social responsibility that will face them after graduation. According to Engelkemeyer, the dynamic design of the new building "provided the energy, inspiration, and opportunity to push a very good curriculum to become truly great."

I'll never forget sitting with Mrs. Park and her daughter Adelaide Gomer at her home in Ithaca when she made the decision to make her generous gift, which came out of her own pocket rather than the foundation, one of the most progressive philanthropic endeavors in the country. She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and said, "This will put that little college on the map, won't it?" Well, Dottie, that's right and it wouldn't have happened without you. Congratulations to you and Ithaca College for a job well done!

Leadership, China, and the Clean Tech Revolution

2008-08-18T23:27:00Z

As a former long-time resident of Baltimore, it's been a real treat to watch Michael Phelps blow out the competition at the Beijing Olympics. Bawl-mere officials are planning a big hometown celebration for Phelps when he returns, as well they should.

This guy's performance has been phenomenal. Reporter Karen Crouse points out in yesterday's New York Times that, as of Sunday morning, "the Person’s Republic of Michael would have ranked fourth in gold medals and been ahead of all but 14 countries in the medal count."

The U.S. is five medals ahead of China at this point (67-52), thanks in no small part to Phelps's history-making aquatic victories. In another department, however, the U.S. is lagging behind China. And it involves an issue that is a heckuva lot more important than the Olympics: the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Rather than getting bogged down in futile efforts to maintain the old fossil-fuel regime, a report published earlier this month by The Climate Group shows, China is seizing the opportunity to create a new energy economy. Already the world's leading renewable energy producer in terms of installed capacity, China is planning to double the proportion of renewable energy to 15 percent by 2020. At present second only to Japan in the production of solar photovoltaic technology, by the end of next year it will be the world's leading manufacturer of wind turbines. According to the report, China is also emerging as a frontrunner in the export of solar water heaters, energy efficient home applicances, and rechargeable batteries.

Of course, China is now the world's leading producer of greenhouse gas, accounting for 24 percent of all global emissions. The good news is that its CO2 per capita is relatively low. The bad news is that should the Chinese ever reach the current per capita level of Americans, as The Climate Group observes, their "total emissions would be roughly equivalent to the entire planet today." Yikes.

All the more reason to cheer on China's move to a low carbon economy. And all the more reason to ask why Congress cannot find the political will to extend the investment tax credits for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines. Both of these are slated to end in December and, as a result of Congressional bickering that has gone on for more than a year, time is running out.

“Leadership is about ‘follow me’ not ‘after you,’” Thomas Friedman has written in another context. It's about time we took a page out of Michael Phelps's book and exercised some leadership, putting in place a strong, comprehensive renewable energy policy. Extending the federal tax credits, which have been a key component in stimulating the development of the U.S. solar and wind power industries, would be a good way to get started.

Pragmatism and Hope in the Age of Climate Change

2008-08-13T06:54:00Z

A friend of mine sent me a link the other day to an interesting piece by "No Impact Man" claiming that being optimistic "is the most radical political act there is." Although the entry was posted last August, it related directly to a conversation we'd been having a couple of days earlier and I was glad to read it because it got me thinking about how I see the world.

I prefer to think of myself as hopeful and pragmatic rather than optimistic and idealistic. I agree with "No Impact Man" that "realistic" is a term that shuts down conversation rather than keeps the discussion going. As an historian, however, it's hard for me to be "optimistic" in the narrow sense. The historical record is too full of stories about the awful things people have done to each other over the ages. I have difficulty believing in the unqualified "goodness of people," to use the language of "No Impact Man," and think that one of the problems of many left-leaning proposals for reform is that they fail to take into account the presence of evil in the world.

(I should mention at this point that I just got scammed on eBay to the tune of $1,200 in spite of being a relatively experienced operator in this venue. I also spent an hour this evening working with PayPal security on an investigation into an unauthorized payment of $245 out of my personal checking account. So I'm a little sensitive right now on the question of humankind's goodness.)

At the same time, it is too easy to avoid dealing with the struggle between good and evil that resides in each of us by externalizing it and portraying evil as something that only exists outside of us. One of the real dangers of a lot of rightwing thinking is the extent to which it portrays the world as a struggle between the forces of light and the forces of dark, setting up a simplistic dynamic that papers over the complex mix of motives that often drives human behavior.

In any event, I am a hopeful person (as opposed to being optimistic) in the sense that I believe human beings have the ability to wrestle with the struggle between good and evil that resides in each of us and find a way to do what is in the common good a lot of the time, if not most of it.

When it comes to the question of idealism vs. pragmatism, I definitely come down on the side of the latter. Not in the sense of readily sacrificing my core values to achieve a desired result, but rather as a way to move forward based on these values. Too often, at least in my experience, idealists get so caught up in trying to figure out how to maintain their moral purity that they fail to act and do more damage as a result of this paralysis than they would if they had the courage to make the best possible decision based on limited but sufficient knowledge.

I find Williams James’s understanding of pragmatism to be particularly compelling. Pragmatism, writes James, "appears less as a solution … than as a program for more work, and more particularly as an indication of the ways in which existing realities may be changed.” In his formulation, pragmatism does not adhere blindly to theory as an end in and of itself, but rather puts theory to work in the search for solutions. “Grant an idea or belief to be true,” he asks, “what concrete differences will its being true make in anyone’s actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false?” These questions seem especially pertinent to the conversation about sustainability. It seems far more important to me to see sustainability in terms of its practical consequences rather than getting bogged down in what course of action is most consistent with some abstract ideal. In light of the pressing challenges posed by peak oil and climate change, spending too much time and energy worrying about being absolutely correct or scoring points is a form of self-indulgence we cannot afford.

And, yes, I sure would like to get my money back ...

Pow! Bam! Zowie! MIT Breakthroughs in Clean Technology!

2008-08-02T03:42:00Z

Together two major breakthroughs announced recently at MIT hold out the promise of launching a solar revolution. I know, we've all heard that before. But this might just be the real deal.

The first development, made public about two weeks ago, involves turning windows into solar concentrators that can help power the buildings in which they are located. Light is collected from across the window and then gathered at the edges by solar cells. MIT engineers report that focusing the light in this way increases the electrical power generated by each cell "by a factor of over 40."

Wow. How do they do it? The research team, headed up by associate professor of electrical engineering Dr. Marc Baldo, has come up with an ingenious method of concentrating solar energy by applying a blend of two or more dyes to the pane of glass. The dyes combine to absorb light across many different wavelengths, sending it at a new wavelength across the window pane to solar cells at the edges.

And, as if that's not amazing enough, this system can be installed on existing solar panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50% at "minimal additional cost."

The MIT team is looking to bring this innovation to market within three years. If successful, it would obviously have a dramatic impact on the cost of solar electricity.

The second breakthrough made headlines today in the Boston Globe. The primary obstacle to solar power becoming mainstream has been finding a way to store it economically for the days when the sun doesn't show up for work. Until now, doing so has been both inefficient and costly.

Well, it looks like those days might be gone with the wind, so to speak. In the August 1st issue of Science, another MIT team describes a simple, inexpensive, and very efficient method for storing solar energy that uses natural materials and is inspired by the process of photosynthesis.

"Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution," observes Dr. Daniel Nocera, he Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of the paper. "Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Holy atomic pile, Batman! We might have a way to produce solar energy and store it cost effectively? And we might be able to use this same fuel cell to store wind energy more affordably? Whoa. Does this mean that Al Gore's call for all electricity in the U.S. to be produced by clean technology in ten years, so gleefully pilloried by the coal and oil industry and their supporters, might actually be achievable?

Nocera and his research collaborator, Dr. Matthew Kanan, have developed a low tech process to use the sun's (or wind's) energy for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. The oxygen and hydrogen can then be recombined inside a fuel cell, producing carbon-free electricity to power your house or electric car 24/7.

You can learn more about the details of this process on the MIT web site. Suffice it to say here that this new technique reproduces the water splitting reaction that takes place during photosynthesis, operating at room temperature and in neutral pH water in an easily assembled system.

According to Dr. James Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London, "This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind." If Nocera and Kanan can pull this off, it'll not only have the anti-Gore climate skeptics gnawing on their paws, it'll also drive the paleo-greens up a tree.

Here's to a bright green future where instead of wearing hair shirts and a crown of thorns, in Alex Steffen's words, we can build a world "in which technology, design, smart incentives, and wise policies make it possible to deliver a high quality of life at lower ecological cost."

Boldly Sustainable and the Power of Cows

2008-07-23T18:12:00Z

Andrea Putman, my colleague at Second Nature, and I are in the final stages of completing our book, Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change. Sustainability in higher ed is a hot topic right now and several good books have already been published on the topic. The primary focus so far, however, has been on what colleges and universities can contribute to sustainability.

What we're exploring, in contrast, is the impact that sustainability can have on how colleges and universities go about the business of teaching, learning, research, and managing their facilities and finances.

Without getting too deep in the weeds here -- the book will be out by the end of this year -- a number of interesting points become clear when the question is framed this way. I want to share one example from the book, in part because it relates to my earlier discussion of corporate greenwashing and raises some crucial issues about branding and the need for being both bold and authentic.

A lot of energy has been expended on the mysteries of branding in higher ed. When you clear out all of the underbrush, however, the three most important assets any college or university has to carve out a successful niche in an increasingly competitive market are place, academic program mix, and approach to teaching and learning.

Aside from the Ivy League institutions and others of that ilk which are gold-plated because of longstanding tradition, status, and prestige, the most effective brands in higher ed figure out how to generate synergies among the more common elements of place, program, and approach. Of course, carrying out this kind of dynamic integration is easier said than done.

One of the advantages of sustainability is that it offers a powerful vehicle for weaving together these three components in new ways, creating some serious brand equity along the way.

To pick just one example, Green Mountain College, a small college in Vermont, has made “Cow Power” the hallmark of its brand identity. In doing so, by using a dash of humor, GMC has taken one of its major weaknesses, its relatively isolated rural location, and turned it into a distinctive strength.

Clearly, far more than the use of manure to generate electricity is involved here. Not only does “Cow Power” resonate with the college’s location in the Green Mountains, it also highlights its very real commitment to reducing its environmental footprint, its innovative interdisciplinary program that blends the liberal arts and professional studies, and its emphasis on providing students with a living laboratory that connects learning inside the classroom with learning outside of it. "Cow Power," in short, is not just a humorous, somewhat self-deprecating slogan, it is a coherent, compelling strategy for sending a very effective message about what sets GMC apart from the hundreds of other small colleges in the U.S.

Leveraging the impressive synergies generated by this strategy, GMC has become of the great turn-around stories in higher education, achieving six consecutive budget surpluses, a 35% increase in student enrollment, the introduction of several very successful online master’s degree programs (including an M.B.A in Sustainable Business), and the completion of the largest capital campaign in the school’s history. Not a bad record!

As with so many things, the key variable is leadership. President John Brennan, who just retired after six years at the helm of GMC, understood the potential of sustainability to transform the college's in the marketplace and he led the charge, becoming the first Vermont president to sign the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. His insistence on getting GMC out front of the curve on this issue sent a persuasive message to the rest of the campus that he wanted everyone on board.

There is little doubt that an institution can make its mark if it commits to a genuine and comprehensive sustainability effort that involves curriculum and research, campus operations, and community outreach. But it needs to be bold, otherwise it won't matter. Half-hearted measure won't work. By taking on one of the greatest challenges of our time—sustainability—and coming up with pragmatic solutions, not only can a college or university dramatically increase its value proposition, it can also make a positive and enduring contribution to the betterment of all.

The lesson for corporations is clear: you need to be bold and authentic. The payoff, if you do, can be huge. If you try to cut corners in implementing a sustainability strategy, however, watch out. Manure can generate a lot of energy, but it can also put out a pretty powerful smell, attracting a lot of unwanted attention.

Amory Lovins on "The Charlie Rose Show"

2008-07-21T05:02:00Z

In case you missed it, Amory Lovins, cofounder and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, had a terrific conversation with Charlie Rose on the latter's PBS show a few days ago. With all the political posturing on energy policy and renewable energy these days in both political camps, it's refreshing to have someone as pragmatic, clearheaded, and knowledgeable as Lovins weighing in.

The interview ought to be required watching for both presidential candidates. One can only hope that whoever wins in November has enough sense to invite Lovins to the White House for a conversation.

Lovins made two key points: 1) the business case for nuclear power doesn't add up, posing a nearly prohibitive barrier to a revival of the industry; and 2) drilling for oil in the Arctic would be foolhardy strictly from a national security point of view, never mind the environmental issues it would raise.

On point #1, Lovins noted that the skyrocketing costs of building and operating nuclear plants means nuclear power is now three times more expensive than wind power. He also observed that constructing more nuclear plants will have a minimal impact on America's addiction to oil since it generates no more than 2 percent of all electricity in this country.

On point #2, Lovins cited the congressional testimony of former CIA director James Woolsey against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge due to the extreme vulnerability of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which is mostly above ground. Without a doubt, it would present a tempting target to terrorists seeking to disrupt American oil production and distribution. Of course, there's also the question of what happens to the stability of the pipeline as the permafrost continues to thaw. Could be a bit of a problem, yes?

What I'd like to better understand is how France, unlike the U.S., has managed to build a network of nuclear power plants that seem to be relatively efficient and secure. These plants are responsible for producing nearly 80% of that nation's electricity, a much larger percentage than any other country in the world. What is it that the French know that the rest of us don't? Why are the economics so different than in the U.S.? Is it the regulatory burden imposed on the U.S. nuclear industry, as so many pro-nuclear groups insist, or is there something else at work here?