Past the Tipping Point
Students are working hard to reduce the impact of our oil addiction. Get involved on Fossil Fools Day.
By Mike Hudema, JumpstartFord Organizer with Global Exchange and 2005 graduate of the University of Alberta Law School & Liz Veazey, a 2004 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill with Energy Action and the Southern Energy Network
Monday March 27, 2006
July 2005, a heat wave in Arizona kills 34; August, September, October 2005, three of the strongest hurricanes in history, Hurricane Katrina, Rita and Wilma, destroy thousands of lives and cost billions in damages; January 2006, President Bush admits America’s addiction to oil is a serious problem.
The combination of recent death and destruction caused by extreme weather, whose intensity is the result of global warming from fossil fuel burning and rising prices at the pump have forced Americans to acknowledge that our addiction to oil is something real that we can no longer ignore. But to reverse these environmental and social effects, we must break our destructive and dangerous dependence on fossil fuels.
While we are already experiencing results of global warming from human activity today, our collective failure to act is going to ruin the environment for future generations. Young people are some of the most legitimate voices to speak on global warming because it is our future being compromised. Or, as 400 young people chanted at the UN Climate Negotiations in Montreal , “Stop asking how much it is costing you, and start asking how much it is costing us."
Young people on campuses and high schools across the country are taking up the challenge and are forcing their officials into action. The California State University system, the largest university system in the country; the University of California system; and the Los Angeles Community College system, which together account for 42 campuses and over 740,000 students, are all implementing comprehensive energy efficiency and renewable energy policies including both creating on-site renewable energy and purchasing off-site renewable energy. Over 100 campuses in the US and Canada are purchasing clean energy including at least seven schools powered by 100% renewable energy. Students have voted (overwhelmingly in most cases) to tax themselves to fund many of these projects. While the youth’s tactics for addressing global warming vary, many choose to focus their efforts on the transportation sector, where there is much room for improvement. If these efforts are successful, it could change the dynamic of our “oil-society” forever.
Although the US comprises only 4.6% of the world’s population, it accounts for 25% of the world’s total oil consumption (2004), using 20.8 million barrels of oil per day. Fifty-nine percent of what we consume is imported: and 43% from OPEC nations (Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela ) including the 19% we import from the Persian Gulf. Sixty-seven percent of US oil consumption is for transportation, and American motorists use one-seventh of the world’s total annual oil production. There are three cars for every 4 people in the US and the US Department of Energy has projected that US oil demand will increase 37% between 2004 and 2025. Currently the transportation sector accounts for 33% of the US greenhouse gas emissions, but this is expected to rise to 36% by 2020.
Campuses are a microcosm of this larger picture and as such provide opportunities for modeling a cleaner, more efficient, and thus more sustainable, means of transportation. Campuses across the country are implementing innovative strategies to reduce the environmental impact of campus automobile fleets and transportation to and from campus. Students are passing campus ‘Greenfleets’ policies such as those at Duke and SUNY-Buffalo calling for cleaner, more efficient campus fleets, and some students are even making their own biodiesel from waste vegetable oil as students at Furman University in South Carolina are doing. The University of Minnesota is using an 85% ethanol/15% gasoline (E85) blend to refuel their campus fleet. Campuses are offering free and reduced public transportation, encouraging biking and carpooling, and the University of Miami even offers a 50% discount on parking permits for hybrid cars. These campuses are lessening their impact on our planet and leading the way to a more sustainable future.
This April 1st, youth from around the world will be mobilizing on campuses, in front of businesses, and at government offices, to demand an end to our addiction to oil for ‘Fossil Fools Day’,’ an international event to push governments, administrators and companies into action. Young people will hold “interventions,” and highlight alternatives.
We’ve reached a tipping point. We’ve begun to wake up the public and forced the government into admitting that, at least, there is a problem. But what about solutions? We are more than just words. Technology exists today that would allow us to produce much cleaner, more efficient vehicles that can reduce our oil addiction. The speed at which we do this will determine our fate and the fate of generations to come.
Sign up to take action this Fossil Fools Day and find out more about how young people are mobilizing at http://www.energyaction.net.
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The bloodletting has slipped past the tipping point. There is no way to undo what has been done. We can stand in the middle but, unfortunately, we can’t make the situation any better. And there is an excellent chance we are making it much worse.
— Scott Brison - Dec 6, 07:04 AM - #