Last Friday, Groundhog's Day, Punxsutawney Phil, the infamous weather-forecasting woodchuck, climbed with ceremonial astuteness out of his burrow and offered his prediction about the coming winter. His judgment? Spring is just around the corner. Though few Americans pay much attention to the superstitious tradition, environmentalists like myself derive greater significance from the legendary groundhog's latest warning. In fact, Phil's prediction about the advent of an early spring is right in line with predictions voiced by climate change scientists in a U.N. report released on the same day. Though the report was scientifically grounded, whereas Phil's prediction was more instinctual, I'd like to think that the coinciding prophecies are not incidental. No matter which assessment you tend to assign more credibility to — superstition or scientific fact — both reports point to one conclusion: the world is heating up and quickly.
Spurred on, perhaps, by both gut instinct and sound science, Sustainable Ivies, a coalition of environmental leaders from Ivy League schools, released a joint resolution on climate change last Friday. The resolution calls for climate neutrality on all Ivy League campuses in the near future. This translates to a commitment to zero net carbon emissions, through a combination of increased energy efficiency, renewable energy purchases and a number of other strategies. The resolution also mandates reducing carbon emissions on our respective campuses to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
The idea behind the resolution is to instill both a spirit of competition and a sentiment of shared burden in the Ivy League to develop effective solutions to global warming. For example, the resolution urges universities to consider the effect that climate change will have in developing nations like the Pacific Island nations which currently face severe flooding due to rising sea levels, and in poor communities in the United States, like those affected by Hurricane Katrina. With individual endowments larger than many developing nations' GDPs, Ivy League schools have the capacity to help stop the progression of climate change through research, labor or financing low-carbon technology. With the resources at their disposal, Ivy League universities can and must respond to climate change in a swift and deliberate manner. When the futures of its students are at stake, it is a wonder that Ivy League schools are not jumping to ensure that their investments are safeguarded.
Students are playing their role to mitigate climate change nationwide. In conjunction with Energy Action's "Week of Climate Action," students on over 500 campuses in the country staged actions last week to encourage their universities and local governments to treat climate change with the utmost urgency. Riding on that momentum, on Feb. 5, Penn's president, Amy Gutmann, became the first in the Ivy League to sign the President's Climate Commitment, which requires the university to develop a comprehensive global warming policy in the next two years. Last week Yale announced plans to become the greenest university in the country and implemented to a plan to reduce its emissions by 2020.
The sum total of these actions equals only snail-paced progress compared to the need to reduce carbon emissions according to U.N. scientists. Due in part to policy stagnation among the highest ranking U.S. officials, it will take grassroots movements, led by states, cities and students, to make real changes in the way of climate policy. Of late, the federal government has proven insipid, preferring to wage resource wars for scarce oil and imperil millions of lives in the process rather than develop alternative and just solutions to the energy problem. And the majority of our country isn't exactly jumping into action either. It's as if citizens of the United States are ensnared in what environmentalist author James Kunstler has termed a consensual trance, or a comatose state of inaction in which we Americans assure ourselves that all is well. In essence, the world may be spiraling towards a cataclysmic implosion, but so long as we all agree to ignore the symptoms, we continue to find refuge in our mutual delusion.
As students we must envision a better future for ourselves; we must act now to stop climate change, and we can start by making sure our universities, the bastions of resources that they are, are the vanguard of change. Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenge of our generation, but it is also one that we can meet by making some deliberate changes starting now. Let's all heed Punxsutawney Phil's warning that warming is just around the corner and take action against climate change now. Aritetsoma Ukueberuwa GS is the co-chair of Students United for a Responsible Global Environment. She is a graduate student in the Wilson School and may be reached at aukueber@princeton.edu.
Read More
Charlie Kirk is not the martyr conservatives want him to be
Christofer RoblesIn his piece, Editorial Board Chair Christofer Robles ’26 argues that as members of the campus right misrepresent the status of free speech on campus and Charlie Kirk’s legacy, they legitimize the federal government’s punishment of left-wing students for their political expression.
In his piece, Editorial Board Chair Christofer Robles ’26 argues that as members of the campus right misrepresent the status of free speech on campus and Charlie Kirk’s legacy, they legitimize the federal government’s punishment of left-wing students for their political expression.
BP is out. Here’s what’s next for the climate movement at Princeton
Charlie Yale and Isaac BarsoumFossil fuel companies have abandoned their deceptive climate pledges, and the Trump administration is cracking down on climate research. As governments and corporations abandon climate action, Princeton must step up as a leader on the issue.
Fossil fuel companies have abandoned their deceptive climate pledges, and the Trump administration is cracking down on climate research. As governments and corporations abandon climate action, Princeton must step up as a leader on the issue.
Public service still serves the public
Guest ContributorsIt is sometimes difficult to see the value of service in times of instability, disinvestment in public services, eroding public trust in government, and an uncertain job market. But even in times of massive turmoil, public service is still able to drive initiatives that aren’t sufficiently politicized to make newspaper headlines.
As academia and the federal workforce have adapted to rapid policy changes, the SINSI program and the students it supports have had to adapt. We are the first generation of SINSI Scholars, the SINSI program’s graduate fellows, to contend with this new era of uncertainty.