Students attend environmental conference

By: Naomi Parikh

Posted: 3/6/09

Drexel University's Sierra Club took 35 undergraduate and graduate students to the Power Shift 2009 Conference in Washington, D.C., from which they brought back recommendations on making Drexel a more environmentally friendly campus.

According to Catherine Burtness-Adams, sophomore hospitality management major and president of the Sierra Club, the four-day conference included a green job career fair along with workshops, panels and lectures on a variety of topics.

"My third workshop explored the common challenges of motivating a school to sign a written commitment and implement changes," Burtness-Adams said. "I went to a workshop about beginning a revolving fund on our campus and then a panel discussing the importance of strong climate legislation before Copenhagen in December 2009, which is the location of the next U.N. Climate Change Conference."

Jennifer Cusick, freshman environmental studies major, also brought back ideas for the University.

"Personally, I hope that Drexel can become more open to local produce and partake more in more sustainable ways of getting food, waste management and energy," Cusick said. "One main thing I learned is that becoming more sustainable does not have to mean spending more money. Drexel must come together and brainstorm to help bring our school into a new and green future."

Burtness-Adams said two workshops from the conference directly related to Drexel: "From Climate Pledge to Implementation: Best Practices for Helping your Campus to Meet Climate Targets" and "Beginning a Revolving Fund on Your Campus and Greening Your School's Endowment."

"The climate targets workshop discussed the challenges not only in getting a written commitment from a campus, but also how to get them to continue working to meet those targets," Burtness-Adams said. "The challenge we face with Drexel is that they have refused multiple times to sign the President's Climate Commitment, yet we would just like them to sign a written document attesting to what they already plan to do."

According to Burtness-Adams, the next step would be to get an inventory of the University's carbon footprint and energy use, which Drexel has already commissioned to be ready the summer of 2009.

"We look forward to have the inventory as a starting point in order to work towards reducing our energy use through reduction and efficiency projects," Burtness-Adams said.

In the second workshop, Drexel received a "B-" on the Green Report Card and a "C" for endowment transparency, according to Burtness-Adams. A panel then discussed how to encourage schools to use their endowments to support a green economy.

"Specifically looking at a revolving loan, it was suggested that Drexel use a very small portion of their large endowment to begin a revolving loan to encourage efficiency projects," Burtness-Adams said. "A revolving loan would provide the up front capital needed to begin a project, such as more low flow showerheads. The savings from the installation would then pay back the loan with interest in order to grow the fund so that larger projects could be implemented."

Nathan Taylor, a junior mechanical engineering major, attended the conference as part of the Sierra Club and said there were workshops on activism and campaigning.

According to Taylor, the last day of the conference was Lobby Day, where students had the opportunity to meet state legislators and learn to lobby for green legislation.

"We had the chance to meet with Sen. [Robert] Casey and Representative [Robert] Brady's aides, and push the idea of supporting a greener economy and aggressive environmental action," Taylor said.

Lobby Day also included a rally in front of the Capitol Building, where students asked legislators to commit to four main ideas: reducing carbon emissions, investing in a green economy, advocating clean energy rather than dirty energy and being a leader at the Climate Conference with existing climate legislation.

"The conference allowed us to learn about a wide range of topics, meet and discuss with other students with similar concerns and challenges as well as take productive action by fulfilling our responsibility as citizens," Burtness-Adams said.

Cusick said learning how to lobby the senators and representatives, as well as seeing how many other students were involved, made the conference worth it.

"We got to speak to representatives of both Pennsylvania senators and two Pennsylvania congressmen who all found it shocking and moving to see how focused our generation is on a clean future," Cusick said.