Setting slaves free v. decrying slavery

A couple of weeks ago Brown University released a report detailing the historical relationship of that institution to the transatlantic slave trade. The 100-page report, three years in the making, is a moral and factual accounting of how Brown's growth was nourished by the forced labor of African slaves. Eloquently written, rigorously argued and driven by a noble conception of the ethical duties of the modern university, it is a model of institutional self-criticism.

The authors of the Brown report noted the special responsibilities of universities to engage difficult questions of institutional justice. They wrote that, "If an institution [like Brown] cannot squarely face its own history, it is hard to imagine how any other institution, let alone our nation, might do so." Of course, the university's responsibility to justice is not just retrospective, and we can just as easily rephrase this sentence in terms of the present. If institutions like Brown and Princeton cannot squarely face the reality of their current actions, it is hard to imagine how any other institution, let alone our nation, might do so.

Brown took a hard look at the skeletons in its closet, and Princeton should do the same. As we repent for the sins of those who came before us, we as an institution are called even more urgently to engage the fundamental moral issue of today: global climate change.

What that means is that we should be first in line to rip off the moral blinders worn by most citizens of this country and to expose our profligate emission of carbon dioxide for what it really is — another round of assault by the United States on Africa and the world's poor. Whereas we once disrupted African societies through our participation in the slave trade, we now recklessly pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further marginalizing the agricultural potential of great swaths of Africa's midsection and inviting drought and famine into the lives of millions. We are once again making a mistake of epochal significance at the expense of Africans, only this time hundreds of millions of other poor people straddling the border between starvation and subsistence are along for the ride.

President Tilghman recently devoted her regular column space in the Princeton Alumni Weekly to a description of ongoing climate change research at Princeton. She is rightly proud of the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI), which is helping the world understand just how severe the consequences of climate change will be. To name but one important contribution of Princeton faculty to climate change research, PEI faculty associate Michael Oppenheimer is the lead author of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC gathers the work of the world's top scientists and policymakers and defines the international consensus on the state of climate change. Their reports represent mankind's best guess of what consequences climate change will bring.

Now more than ever, the work of Oppenheimer and PEI deserve attention, but something about Tilghman's praise of Princeton's climate change efforts rings false in the absence of a firm commitment by the University to significantly reduce, in absolute terms, its own carbon emissions over the next few years. The world urgently needs the kind and quality of research that the University does on global climate change, but it also needs societally important institutions like Princeton to reduce, even at significant cost, their own carbon emissions. This is the difference between decrying slavery and actually setting your slaves free.

The good news is that there are many people at Princeton who want to do the right thing. Director of Engineering Tom Nyquist, within the narrow cost constraints allowed him by the administration, squeezes miraculous energy efficiency improvements out of Princeton's existing buildings. Executive Vice President Mark Burstein and Vice President for Facilities Mike McKay are committed environmentalists and set the sustainability bar high for new construction on campus. The minds and tools are in place at Princeton to halt and eventually reverse the upward creep of our carbon emissions. But without the will and the funds from the top, we won't come close to taking full advantage of the talents and instincts of these people.

We can believe that the University is serious about the greatest issue facing the world when President Tilghman commits to across-the-board reductions in its carbon emissions. If she doesn't, we might as well start planning for a truth commission during which we will catalog and apologize for Princeton's negligence on climate change in the first decade of the 21st century. Thomas Bohnett is a Wilson School major from Princeton Junction, NJ. He can be reached at tbohnett@princeton.edu.