A Changing Climate on College Campuses

Since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, virtually every indicator in the fight against climate change has continued to head the wrong way. The planet’s temperature continues to rise. Industrial activity is increasing, and with it greenhouse gases. Vehicle miles travelled, a key indicator of the public’s concern, has risen steadily before taking a slight dip in the most recent quarter, due to higher fuel prices.

Do-little politicians have earned the ire and distrust of the public for placing electoral self-interest ahead of sound policies and a guiding hand, but clearly they do so with a certain comfort that any public backlash will be muted. Even the newly re-minted Warner-Lieberman bill, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2050, appears destined to fail.

Nowhere has the absence of forward-looking environmental stewardship been more evident this year than in the debate over new Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards (CAFÉ). The U.S. automakers argued to congress that Americans don’t want the kinds of cars that are needed to dramatically reduce the one-third of total emissions that come from the transportation sector. In the end, the American automakers were given a pass by the country’s elected officials to continue placing heft and horsepower ahead of what is right for the country and the planet.

Many have chosen to believe that with a change in administration will usher in an “environmental spring” in this country. A fairer appraisal is that while President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have earned the jeers of those concerned about climate change, they have also been convenient lightning rods while Congress has quietly gone about its business of not doing enough.

Senator Barack Obama’s messages of hope and commitment have clearly struck a chord with many voters who seem to want change. Senator John McCain’s environmental platform is perhaps the most complete of all of the candidates and could also be a strong first step in the right direction. But while one should never underestimate the rhetorical power of the presidency, one must remember that the vested interests in Washington for the status quo can wear down even the most energetic leader.

This is where you, the Harvard community comes in.

By all measures, you are gifted. You were endowed with the intelligence, drive and energy to get here and you have been endowed with the tools to make a difference in the world.

“When you consider what those of us here have been given in talent, privilege and opportunity, there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us,” Microsoft founder Bill Gates said at last year’s commencement ceremonies, urging graduates to fight against inequities in the world. The expectation that the greatest hardships from climate change will befall the world’s poorest countries only heightens the need for action.

“In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue—a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it…For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.”

Gates is someone who understands the power of those who can harness the Internet. One need look no farther than the anti-globalization movement of the last decade to see how a concerned public can be mobilized over the Internet. A grassroots campaign that brought together a myriad of small groups first undermined political support for the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and then effectively derailed any hopes of advancement of liberalized trade in the Doha round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization.

Whether one believes those setbacks to the pro-trade agenda were good things is irrelevant. What’s important is that they were effective in seizing the attention of politicians who faced electoral defeat, and business owners who faced boycotts of their products. And what made the campaign effective was that it got people talking and made them think about the kind of world they wanted.

Many of these same conditions exist today in the climate change debate. It’s not that people haven’t been talking before this, it’s that now, people seem ready to listen and to try to understand. It’s a crowded field and cutting through the din and disinformation will take considerable effort to make climate change a ballot issue in every local, state, and federal race.

Campuses have long been the source of the energy and intelligence needed to bring about change, and never has it been more needed than now.

James Baxter is the Martin Wise Goodman Canadian Nieman Fellow.