Sunday Night Group holds summit on carbon neutrality

Author: Tom Brant

On Sunday afternoon, a peculiar chant echoed throughout McCardell Bicentennial Hall. "It's too hot in here! Carbon action, lets get some satisfaction!"

The chant was the closing flourish of the Carbon Neutrality Summit, which ended Sunday, leaving its excited participants informed about the problems of global climate change.

The three-day summit, which attracted 80 student representatives from nearly 15 schools across the Northeast, was sponsored and organized by students in the college's Sunday Night Group (SNG). Events included panel discussions with climate change experts, small group sessions and the first steps toward drafting a "Climate Neutrality Statement."

"This was a historic event," said Jamie Henn '07, who helped organize the summit. "It shows that there's a growing movement on college campuses to do something about climate change, and I'm glad we were able to bring together so many people who are really wanting to make a difference."

On Saturday morning, the summit participants met with Dan Worth, from the National Environmental Law Society, and Mark Orlowsky, from the Sustainable Endowments Institute in an informal panel discussion.

"The goal of the talks was to give people resources," Henn explained. "We didn't want to have [the speakers] lecture."

The panel discussions with Worth, Orlowsky and other activists and experts gave participants advice on everything from reducing one's carbon footprint to investing in corporations that are socially and environmentally responsible.

A second panel discussion included representatives from Native Energy, which invests in alternative energy sources, and Bright Planet. A Middlebury start-up, Bright Planet plans to introduce a bank rewards program that will work much the same way an airline credit card does - except instead of the user getting airline miles, the bank will invest a small amount of every purchase in clean-energy projects.

On Saturday afternoon, students met in smaller groups to discuss specific efforts to combat carbon emissions and global warming.

Andrew Karp, a first-year at Bates College, attended a group that discussed green building techniques, including the widely accepted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system used by the United States Green Building council.

"It's interesting how important the green building movement is," said Karp. "One example is the attention that these buildings get just because they have a plaque on them saying that they are built to LEED standards. I've heard stories of students visiting colleges who see the plaque on a building, and are impressed so much that they decide to apply."

Hannah McHardy, a first-year student at tiny Sterling College in Craftsbury, Vt., attended a discussion on education.

"People from all walks of life are agreeing that [climate change] is a definitive issue," McHardy said. "In the education group, we talked about ways to implement climate issues into the classroom."

The climate summit brought together students who were all united in their efforts to promote climate change awareness, but who came from different colleges with different levels of environmental activism. This collaborative effort was one of the most beneficial aspects of the summit, said SNG member Sierra Murdoch '09.

To help students from colleges with less environmental activism, the summit included a one-hour session on Saturday evening that provided tips and advice on how to gain student support on college campuses.

On Sunday, the group made the first steps toward larger goals. It discussed ways to make the carbon neutrality issue important not only to college students, but to society in general. It also drafted a rough statement taking a stance on the climate neutrality issue, which SNG hopes to use as a way to expand the movement.

Asked what she considered the most beneficial part of the weekend, Gaia Oyarzun, a first-year at Smith College, said, "It made me see how we can actually come together and change things. There are honestly a lot of people who I met that are committed to raising awareness of the climate change problem."

Begun by student activists in January 2005, SNG promotes the awareness of environmental issues both on campus and in the Middlebury community. This weekend's summit was part of the group's current effort to make the College carbon neutral - essentially reducing the total amount of harmful carbon emissions to zero.