Vt. floods Copenhagen summit

As 2010 begins, student environmental leaders returning from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen hope to spark federal action on climate change, while those involved in the Solar Decathlon project will work to provide Middlebury students with a tangible model for sustainability.

In December, Rhiya Trivedi ’12.5 and Ben Wessel ’11.5 attended the Copenhagen conference. During the conference, Wessel and Trivedi joined others from across the globe to encourage world leaders to agree on an international treaty on carbon reduction initiatives through protests, demonstrations, lobbying, and other forms of expression.

While these actions were not enough to push international leaders into reaching a consensus, the students “used every opportunity we could to make our voices heard,” wrote Trivedi in an e-mail.

Although many media outlets focused on protests and marches, Trivedi explained that a highlight of her experience was a sit-in that “managed to spur a serious conversation about civil disobedience in relation to climate justice and the climate movement.”

The sit-in, staged inside the conference center itself, risked arrest and ejection from the conference center for those involved.

Bill McKibben, scholar-in-residence in Environmental Studies and founder of the international environmental group 350.org, called the conference a “stunning couple of weeks.”

McKibben praised the students’ involvement in the conference, explaining that in Copenhagen, “there seemed to be Midd-kids and former Midd-kids everywhere you turned.”

Although McKibben was disappointed in the lack of progress made by political leaders, he believes the actions taken by environmentalists demonstrated that “the movement to fight climate change is now very young [and] led by, more than any college on the planet, colleagues here at Midd.”

Trivedi, one of many leaders in the Sunday Night Group, hopes to promote further activism now that she has returned to the United States.

“The time for campus organizing for sustainability has somewhat passed,” said Trivedi. In the coming year, Trivedi hopes to work with the student body to bring about action on the federal level. The failure of the conference was partly due to the lack of an established plan to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions within the United States, which created mistrust from other nations about the United States’ true commitment to the climate change movement, she said. Trivedi hopes that the College with its wide geographic ties, can work to contact politicians to “deliver the message of climate change as a moral challenge.”

At the College, Addison Godine ’11, along with Joe Baisch ’11, Alex Jopek ’11 and Astrid Schanz-Garbassi ’12, are leading a team of Middlebury students who will compete in the biennial Solar Decathlon design competition hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy in the fall of 2011.

The competition features student teams from colleges and universities across the world that design and construct a solar-powered home.

The Middlebury team was supposed to receive notification of its acceptance into the competition on Dec. 18, but the team notifications have been delayed for an indefinite period of time.

Even with their official acceptance uncertain, Godine emphasized the “significant interest in continuing with the project even if we don’t get in.”

Two Winter Term courses are currently working on the Solar Decathlon project. A course called Schematic Design is working to develop the architectural design of the house, while Engineering for a Solar Powered House works toward implementing solar technologies within the house in order to generate and provide energy.

Both courses will ultimately combine their plans and expertise in order to develop at least two designs for the home before the end of this term.

In an e-mail, Godine explained that “a lot of students here are very interested in sustainability but sometimes feel they don’t have any opportunity to ‘get their hands dirty.’ Working on the Solar Decathlon project will allow students to work with real, cutting-edge technologies and apply theory to practice.”

Godine recognized that the Decathlon represents a “big project” for a school like Middlebury, and noted that “the majority of the student body will likely know about it come construction time.”

Pending its acceptance, in October 2011, the Middlebury team will assemble its house on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

There, judges will determine the winners based on qualifications ranging from the architecture and engineering to the success of movie nights and dinner parties held within the home.