Activity 2.1 – Atmosphere: Reduce Northwest Vista College’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Climate change refers to the impact of the emission of greenhouse gasses that trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. Reducing the world’s largest activities of greenhouse gas emissions, such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, is a complex problem that is difficult but imperative to resolve due to its gradual destructive consequences on the environment.

According to environmental scientists, it is considered a super wicked, worldwide problem due to the following 4 factors:
-time is running out
-those who cause the problem also seek to provide a solution
-the central authority needed to address them is weak or non-existent
-irrational discounting occurs that pushes responses into the future. (K Levin et al. 2010)

Institutions of higher education produce approximately 3% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States which is 416738 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. But there are numerous ways in which we can start to reduce it, and if we all work together at NVC we can make a big reduction in our country’s total carbon footprint.

A long term method of reducing our GHG emission in schools is the installation of solar panels that transform sunlight into energy. We could also educate students and staff on having more environmentally friendly buildings on campus. This isn’t limited to building materials, it also includes effectively using natural lighting and ventilation designs in order to conserve energy. Just the installation of ceiling fans in classrooms alone would allow the temperature of the AC to be raised up to 5 degrees without being very noticeable.

There are many other immediate changes we can make today that would make a huge impact. For example, my 2017 Jeep wrangler that I drive to school/work alone gets 18 mpg. I drive an average of 300 miles per week and therefore 9600 per year. That is 533 gallons of gas annually. Because one gallon of gas produces around 20 lbs of carbon dioxide, that means that I, alone produce an average of 10,660 lbs of carbon dioxide per year just driving to school and not including other outings. This could easily be reduced by carpooling to school with 3 more people that can fit in my car and combining trips.

Food waste in institutions of higher education in the US is responsible for about 20% of carbon dioxide. Some easy ways that won't impact our life much are to use reusable bags for grocery shopping, consuming local products that support small businesses and don’t require additional packaging, turn off and unplug all equipment that isn’t being used in a classroom, using LED lighting, and reusing safe water from cooking in plants. At NVC we could encourage our staff members to buy less materials and instead reuse as much as possible before discarding.

Our time is running out. And one day future generations will be forced to face the terrifying truth we knew was coming all along.

I invite you to make the simple ethical choice to turn your ac 2 or 3 degrees up and turn on your ceiling fan today. I promise you won't even notice!




References:

Path dependency, progressive incrementalism, and the super wicker problem of climate change. Levin, Cashore, Bernstein, Auld. IOP Publishing (2012)

National Park Service.org Reduce greenhouse gas emissions through transportation choices (n. d.)

United States Environmental Protection Agency. US Greenhouse gas emissions and sinks 1990-2020 (2022)