Green Tip of the Week 3/17/10: Take the Path Less Traveled

Interview with Alexandra Gross on March 2, 2010:

Q:  How have Fairfield University students changed their position toward environmentalism, in the last few years?

Alex: The biggest change I’ve seen, from the time I was a freshman until now, is that there is way more activism and outreach today.   There’s a high success rate of students being active and following through in the environmentalism on campus.  That’s really encouraging.  When I was there, only a handful of kids seemed to care.  Now there’s a ton of students involved.  That’s amazing.  That’s putting Fairfield in the right direction.

Q:  What do you think has caused that?

Alex:  Maybe it’s the whole Green Movement becoming more relevant or prevalent in daily life.  Or maybe it’s cyclical, as when the 1960s and 70s saw various movements, and this is just our time.  I have the good fortune of having my younger brother go to Fairfield, so I learn through him what’s going on.  He says there are kids coming from different high schools who are interested in the environment.  They’ve had these interests in the past, and at Fairfield they want to practice what they preach.

Q:  Do you think high schools are teaching more environmentalism?

Alex:  It’s one of those things where you can’t go anywhere without hearing the word Green.  It can’t really be ignored, whether you choose to believe in some of the causes or not.  I was fortunate to get my foot in the right door with the right professors, who encouraged me to do what I could and get the word out through journalism, to spark interest in the environmental movement on campus.  There are lots of different forums for students to have their voices heard.

Q:  Would you suggest that students seek out certain professors?

Alex:  Yes.  The biggest thing for me personally . . . I was discouraged by how apathetic the student body was in my first two years at Fairfield.  I was seriously considering transferring.  Then a few of my professors whom I was close to led me to Dina Franceschi.  She encouraged me to go with my journalistic gut and follow my student activism inclinations, and that kept me at Fairfield.  With her support, I shifted my focuses to making a difference on campus. Dr. Franceschi told me about the “Program on the Environment” minor – I think it was “Environmental Studies” when I enrolled.  By getting involved in that minor program, you meet a lot of cool professors.

When I was at Fairfield . . . not that the environmental groups on campus weren’t active, but it seemed like there was a lot of disconnect.  They were doing some activities, and maybe there wasn’t enough publicity, but I didn’t really even know about the Student Environmental Association until my sophomore year, when they were just getting their feet off the ground.  So I don’t know what happened, but environmentalism on campus has  bloomed since then.

Q:  Now the Student Environmental Association and the Green Campus Initiative are working together.

Alex:  Yeah.  For me at Fairfield it was difficult, because I wanted to report on the environmental movement on campus, but I wasn’t allowed to be a member of those groups.  That was a part of the Mirror ethics code. I was on the outside looking in. I was doing a lot of stuff on my own, and I tried to participate when I could, but I had to bite my tongue and just watch them go for it.

That was because it would be a conflict of interests for me to be an officer or member of a club, and also to report on it.  I could write a lot of commentary.  I felt like there was more authority on my side if I talked about the different initiatives by the campus groups, and faculty members, from an outside, objective perspective.

Q:  So you did journalism on the one hand, and talked with faculty and students on the other hand?

Alex:  Yeah.  I was invited to go to the Sustainability Committee meeting.  I was there as a press member.   I wanted to make sure that I met all the right people, and that I knew who to contact for articles.  I was active in the movement, but from a journalistic aspect.

Q:  You’ve done so much environmental writing. How much time do you spend these days writing about the environment?

Alex:  I work now for E -The Environmental Magazine.  That was the internship I had my second semester senior year, and then they offered me a job.  I continue writing for them.  Since it’s a bi-monthly publication, I’m always working on a piece.  Right now, I’m working on two pieces.  It’s not a regular 9 to 5 job, but I have occasional interviews, and I’m doing research pretty much every day.   Then there’s my blog. That’s my space to editorialize and offer research for people who are interested in food and the local environmental movement. I try to post every day on that.

Q:  That’s amazing.

Alex:  It’s something I’m really passionate about.  As a freelance writer, I have more time to post.

Q:  For those students active in the environmental movement, who want to transition to an environmental field after they graduate, what would you recommend?

Alex:  Dr. Simon always taught us to “take the path less traveled.”   He meant that in terms of trying to find a perspective when you write.  But it’s also a good piece of advice for a job search.

When I graduated, it was the worst job market a Fairfield class has ever seen.  I expected not to have a job, so I had a back-up job working as a farm intern.  So the biggest piece of advice I have is this:  Try to find something you’re passionate about, not necessarily specific to your major.

Look locally for work.  I know some people want to have an internship or something with a major company, or move into the city right away—yet sometimes that’s not always in your best interests.  Because I work for E-The Environmental Magazine, my articles have gotten picked up by big environmental websites, and I’ve been cited in a lot of research papers, and I’ve met a lot of good people.  Meanwhile, I love my job at the farm.  So I’m able to do two things at once.  I didn’t go to school for farming, obviously, but I wasn’t afraid to branch out of my comfort zone and try something new.

Q:  It sounds like farming feeds your writing.  It’s a kind of synergy.

Alex:  Oh, yes, definitely.  I can’t imagine doing one without the other.  Initially I didn’t think those two were ever going to be related.  But I’ve found a balance of how to farm and learn about the local food movement, as well as finding out what’s right to editorialize and report on – organic food, and food movements that environmentalists use.

Q:  How would you recommend that students start looking locally for environmental work opportunities they really care about?

Alex:  The biggest thing is, do a lot of cold-calling.  Not in the traditional sense that you just call people up, but . . . go to a lot of town events they are always publicizing on the Fairfield Campus, in and around town.  It’s good to access the farmers’ markets on the weekends.  Go there and walk around to local businesses near the farmers’ markets.  You can meet a lot of interesting people, and there are often job prospects.

Q:  That’s a great idea.  What particular places?

Alex:  Right at the Fairfield Theatre Company (70 Sanford Street, Fairfield) there’s a farmers’ market on Saturdays, I believe – well, right now it’s the indoor farmers market – from 10 to 2.  I think in the summer it switches over to Sunday, in that same location. If students are interested in finding farmers’ markets in Fairfield County, they can go to www.buyctgrown.com and search for farmers markets.  And  they can consult the Fairfield Green Food Guide: http://fairfieldgreenfoodguide.com/

Also, http://www.localharvests.org is a great site for students specifically interested in local food and local economy movements.  Contacting non-profit groups in Connecticut, going to activity fairs, just checking local websites or local newspapers, seeing when certain events are – all these are good places to look.

Q:  That’s so much good specific advice. What about long-term jobs or graduate schools?

Alex:  There are tons of grad schools now with different programs.  Environmentalism is a broad term.  You can get your Master’s or Ph.D in Sustainable Development.     I’m looking at grad schools right now for Food Systems and Food Studies, which is very specific, but it covers a broad range of topics.  At most leading universities, you’ll find some field related to environmentalism.

Q:  I find that very heartening.

Alex:  It’s one of these things where, regardless of your political ideals, it’s kind of bigger than us.

Q:  I really appreciate your giving so much good advice to students, because I know that many of them don’t know where to start.  You’ve started, and you’ve continued, and you’ve gotten a long way.  You’re saying it’s a kind of free-form search.  Try everything, and see who you meet.

Alex.  Yeah.  I think as a generation, we’re used to . . . I guess there’s a term, “helicopter parents,” or parents who watch over us and do everything for us.  We have to shift away from that mentality and branch out and do things that are unexpected.  Don’t take the traditional route, I’d say.  You’ll find the most success that way.

Q:  There are other ways to learn besides a teacher.

Alex:  Oh, yeah.  And especially a lot of schools, and even schools like Fairfield, depend on Career Planning and their advisors to find them internships.  Those are great resources, but they can’t be the end-all.

If anyone wants to contact me, in case I might be a resource, they can contact me.

Q:  Really?  Can I give them your email address? At alexandra.g.gross@gmail.com?

Alex:  Oh, yeah!

Q:  That’s great.  I will be glad to do that. I think you are the pioneer of the student movement.  You got there a year or two before anybody else.  You knew what was out there for students.  I think people will remember you for that.

Alex: Well, thanks.

Green Tip of the Week: “Ask for a New Bike!”

March 3, 2010

Interview with Vice President James Fitzpatrick on February 16, 2010:

James:  If a student’s parents ask them what they would like for their birthday or Christmas or a special occasion, think about giving them a bike.  We’re trying to focus on making Fairfield not just a pedestrian campus, but also a bike campus.  We’ve made some good inroads with our pilot program in Dolan Hall by purchasing five bikes, and having the Area Coordinator and the Head Resident coordinate student use.  It’s proved very, very successful.  So here’s the concept: “If you ask for a gift, ask for a bike.” The bicycle store in Fairfield is offering some specials for students.  I think we will slowly see the number of bikes on campus increase.  The positive effects are tremendous.  The spin-offs are tremendous.  There’s a health benefit.  There’s an environmental benefit.  There’s an easing-of-parking benefit.

Q:  That sounds like a good tip.  Have you seen those new electric bikes, with a little motor that helps you go uphill?

James:  I haven’t seen those.  You see Winston Tellis going around with his mo-ped all the time, and there’s an increase in the sales of mo-peds, and more mo-peds on campus.  I guess I’m a traditionalist. Give me a good – I was going to say, three-speed bike, but they don’t make that many three-speed bikes, they’re all five- and ten-speed.  But I think we can continue to foster a bike culture on campus.

Q:  That would be good.  The Daily Green is always talking about the newest electric bikes, which cost less than mo-peds.  Sometimes they cost $1000 or $1500, but that’s still a lot less than a car.

James:  Absolutely.  As we look out the window now and see it snowing, we realize there are two months when you can’t use a bike, January and February.  January’s a short month because of the holiday break.  So you’re talking about 6 or 7 weeks when you can’t use a bike.  But from the beginning of March, we should have good weather.  For students in Dolan or the townhouses, getting around campus on a bike is so convenient that you wonder why more people don’t do it.  I ride my bike maybe two or three times a week, when it’s nice in the fall or in the spring.  It’s easy.

Q:  I hear students say that off campus it’s dangerous to bike on some roads.  What do you think?

James:  There are some challenges.  Starting from campus and going over the Post Road is challenging. But once you get over the Post Road and go down toward the Beach Road, it’s a great place to bike.  Often during the summer, we’ll bike down to Penfield, or Reef Road, or Fairfield Beach Road.  Those are just great biking areas.  The town has looked into the possibility of expanding bike trails.  But one of the many downsides of the economic downturn has been that important projects like bike paths are seen as non-essential in contrast to the education budget and the town services budget.  Unfortunately, green initiatives may seem non-essential when they’re actually the exact opposite.  Look at what we could be saving in terms of biking.  Some may think that people in China are crazy for using bikes as much as they do, but that’s how they get around.  So to answer your question, that one strip of Post Road is a challenge, but once you get on either side of that, biking is pretty good.

Q:  What do you think is the best thing we’ve done at Fairfield to fight climate change?

James:  I think our best actions are restricting the sophomore cars and doing away with the campus shuttle.  I know those are inconveniences to people, but those actions have drastically reduced our carbon footprint.  We’ve eliminated 18 bus trips a day on campus.  And that bus was a diesel.   Taking away 400-plus cars has both decreased our carbon footprint and eased the parking situation—which used to be a real mess but is now tolerable.  Now people can find somewhere to park, even if it isn’t right in front of their building or residence hall.  So to me, reducing the number of cars and buses on campus has been our biggest change.

There’s another big accomplishment – we were way ahead of the curve with the co-generation plant.  Rick Taylor has a lot of the credit.  When he was Assistant VP for Operations, he was instrumental in coordinating the development of that facility.  It’s a major thing to be producing over 90% of our own energy rather than buying it all from United Illuminating.

Q:  Everything you’ve mentioned is about decreasing carbon emissions.  The world needs to get its carbon dioxide equivalents in the atmosphere down to 350 parts per million.

James:  Yes, there’s no option on that.  Eliminating trays in the dining hall was significant, too, in terms of food waste and utilities.  We used to have that dishwasher run constantly just to clean and scrape off and sanitize 800 to 1000 trays for every two and a half hour meal cycle.  So a 2000-tray daily cycle has been eliminated.  We were probably one of the first schools to do that.

Q:  Were you!

James:  I think that decision was a result of Earth Day four years ago.  One of the small Ivy League schools decided they would just do away with cafeteria trays, and it was like a light went off.  Everyone said, gee, why don’t we try that?  I was surprised that the students themselves were so positive about it.  With next year’s freshman class, none of our classes will have ever had trays.  That in itself is a milestone.

Q:  That’s fantastic.  I’ve read that it takes a lot of electricity to heat things, like water or clothes dryers.   I’ve heard that students at other colleges dry their laundry on racks in their rooms or laundry rooms.

James:  Right.  Definitely we’d like to look at that laundry area, and see if there’s anything we can do from an energy-saving and dollar-saving standpoint, for both students and the university.

Q:  What other colleges don’t have sophomore parking?  That must be a popular measure.

James:  In all honesty, I don’t know of others.  Yet in many other schools, students park their cars in the perimeter area, not close to the center of campus.  Our second landscape phase will come in during the next two or three years.  We’ll enhance the walkways and paths for members of the university community.  They can transport themselves over campus by foot or bike or mo-ped—or even scooter.  Whatever you want.

When we have the freshmen living in the main center of the campus, and not up in Dolan, you’ll definitely see more walking.  There won’t be the need for a bus or some other means of transportation.

Q:  That reminds me of Yale, with all the freshmen in the center and the older students further out.

James:  I think the current sophomore class still would like to see a shuttle.  They said, well, you took away our cars, now you’re taking away the shuttle, and I think there were some negative feelings about that.  We all would probably agree that these environmental decisions are not easy decisions.  The reality is that for every class day, we’re saving dollars and we’re saving the environment by not allowing those cars and buses.

In the future, I think, we’re looking at whether we can do something to encourage our contracted food service, Sodexho, to purchase food from an eight-state area, the New England States plus New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, to try to make it local, to save money that way.  These small decisions seem insignificant by themselves, but when you add them up, you realize just how much impact they make.

Our installation of the recycling stations, where each bottle and can has a value of a nickel . . . one of the greatest pieces of legislation enacted [reimbursement for bottles and cans] was originally for cleaning up litter from the sides of the roads.  But it works for recycling, and it works very, very well.  We were all encouraged when last October that the recycling-station system was expanded to include water bottles.  We’d all like to see that practice expanded even further, to include sports drinks and flavored waters.

Q:  How many bottle and can recycling machines are there on campus?

James:  We just have two, both up in the townhouses and both working.  They are very, very successful.  We’d like to expand that process in the coming years.

Q:  I heard the “Food Revolution” panel at the Barone Campus Center last week.  One student on the panel, Margaret O’Donnell, was working with Sodhexo and probably with you?

James.  Yes, students are working closely with Chris Bose in the food service.  They’ve developed a nice relationship, a good partnership.

Q:  Ms. O’Donnell said they had made some salads from organic vegetables, and all the students kept coming back and wanting more, because the salads were so good.

James:  Yes, there’s a myth that students like to eat junk and junk only.  And we all at times need our sugar fix.  But they really want better fruits, better vegetables, and healthy produce.  So they might be a different generation, but they’re not a crazy generation.  They realize that what you put into your body makes a difference.  Their eating habits aren’t as wacky as people might think.

Q:  Yes, students pay attention.  And they care.  I’ve heard that more and more frequently, students come from environmentally conscious households.

James:  Absolutely.  We’re not training them to be rabbits and eat just lettuce.  I think they’re starting to develop some of these eating habits probably in their schools and obviously in their homes.

Q:  What else would you like to say about other bright developments in our future?

James:  Our environmental initiatives are constantly changing.  The challenge is to realize that we’re only at the tip of the iceberg.  Unfortunately, there are political groups who think our current emphasis on the environment is just a bad dream, something that isn’t true.  If we’ve learned anything over the past couple of years, it’s that for this movement to have any credibility and any effect, it has to be an ongoing process.

We can’t just say, well, we’ve succeeded in getting water added to the bottle bill.  That’s not good enough, until we get the other drinks added as well.  We’ve done a good job in cutting down on water uses and chemical uses in our dishwasher.  But that’s not enough.  Can we save electricity in our use of lighting, or in our use of cooking fuel?  Are there ways to batch-cook and still produce enough food each day to feed the students?  If we’ve learned anything, it’s that our environmental commitment is never-ending.

We can only hope that when we hand on our commitment to that next generation of green Fairfield Stags, that next generation is already a couple of light years ahead of us.  You want them to look back at us and say, Gee, is that all they did?  Because we look back and say, Gee, that generation did nothing.

Q:  That’s a good “sound bite.”  You could also want them to look back and say, Gee, I’m glad they did all that. But you make a good point that there’s always more to be done.

James:  Yes, this book doesn’t have an ending.  The story is still being written by a lot of very, very well-intentioned and very, very dedicated people.  It’s a shame that the environmental issue has been short-changed in terms of the health care issue, politically.  And it’s been hurt by the financial crisis.  It’s easy to say, well, what difference does it make if I save a mammal in a tree area on campus, or if a few birds lose their birdhouse, or they lose some woods for their location?  It’s a constant battle to show that these things do make a difference.

Green Tip of the Week: Stalking Internships

February 24, 2010

Here is the complete interview with David Downie, Director of the Environmental Studies Program, on February 11, 2010.

Q:  What is the best thing Fairfield University has done for the environment?

David:  Several things.  One is the University’s attempt, uneven still, to include sustainability and the environment in creating campus infrastructure and new buildings. The built environment is incredibly important. The co-generation power plant and environmental feature of the new Jesuit resident are two examples. A second is revamping the Environmental Studies Program, which occurred before I arrived in September of 2008.  The university made a financial commitment to a new faculty position, and existing faculty spent a lot of time updating the program.

A third important area includes mundane but important things like seeking to reduce energy use and recycling, especially recycling that we don’t see.  The university now recycles stuff that comes out of the dorms at the end of the year—carpet, office furniture and materials—instead of just dumping them.  It’s in their financial interest to do it.  And recycling is much better environmentally. Eliminating trays in the dining hall has also made a difference.

Q:  It’s in their financial interest to recycle?

David:  Yes, because they pay reduced “tipping fees.”  They can pay someone less to take something recyclable away, or they can give something away, or even get paid for some items.   Effective and profitable recycling requires educating people, and it’s a top-to-bottom process. But that’s improved a lot.

[Banning] sophomore cars is a huge thing, because in five years, you won’t think about it.  Sophomores will spend half their time here without a car, and that changes attitudes.  It forces infrastructure changes on campus.

Q:  Would you like to give specifics about the new Environmental Studies Program?

David:  Yes.  It is continuing to develop.  Over time we need to develop more curriculum around specific skill sets for students to be even more employable in sustainability. Also, the University could seek to build more sustainability-focused classes into the Business School at the undergraduate and graduate level, and the Engineering School.  As sustainability and efficiency become watchwords, green business, marketing, and engineering become more important.  ,

Q:  What else should we do in the future?

Another important initiative would be to retrofit the existing building stock, which is terribly energy inefficient.  While it would cost money to fix the heating and cooling systems, to put in accurate thermostats, to put in light switches where the lights go off automatically, to better insulate the buildings—all that will significantly reduce our resource use and save us money in the long run.  Another broad priority would be to work with the town and with other organizations to cooperate on issues of mutual importance.  For example, biking in Fairfield is difficult.  There are some school districts in Fairfield, and most school districts in Westport, where kids are not allowed to ride bikes to school, because of no sidewalks.  So biking is prohibited.   Our students who live at the beach always talk about how dangerous the town is for riding bikes.  We need more systematic positive relationships with environmental groups, smart-growth groups, open-space groups, people searching for a town farm, those who are working on energy efficiency town government—that would help us solve common problems.

Q:  Work with the town?

David:  Right.  Another thing we could do is to cooperate with other universities on programs of common interest.  We have resources that other schools don’t have, and other schools might have resources that we don’t have. There’s going to be a new magnet school opening in Bridgeport, near The Discovery Museum, focused on math and science, including environmental science.  How can we get our students involved with that?  How can we get our students involved with the environmentally-oriented parts of the town government, with Bridgeport, with the state level?

Q;  Is there anything specific that a student could do, in terms of bike riding, or getting in touch with you, or working with the town?

David.  For students, one of the most important things they can do is to actively look for internships, with companies, and local governments and organizations that are related to sustainability.  There are more ideas out there that are good for the environment and good business, either for private businesses or for corporations, or for the town, than there are person hours.  An example of this is that the Town of Fairfield recently received a more than million-dollar grant from the federal government to do energy efficiency stuff.  It took a long time to get that, in part because they didn’t have the person hours down there to put together the grant forms.  There are people in town who want to create a town farm, want to improve the community gardens, want to clean up the beaches more systematically, want to work on bicycling.

Q:  Could these be internships through your program?  Who would the contact be?

David:  Yes and No.  I am contact by some groups off campus looking for interns. But what I want the students to do is search for these on their own.  They can go out and start calling these people and government agencies, and say, “I’m a student, I want to get involved.”

Q:  What faculty member do they follow up with?  Because internships have to be given through a particular department?

David:  Only ones for credit.  Students can do whatever they want with their off hours.  If they want credit, then they have to come talk to someone.  But they don’t have to wait.  What I’m saying is this:  Don’t wait for professors to tell you about internship possibilities related to sustainability. Almost any government agency, local or regional, and many small and large corporations, have more projects than they can do, and there are so many opportunities for green marketing, for energy efficiency, for working on policy at the local level, that if you just have an idea, or if you just are curious, just contact these people and say, “Look, you’re a small business, I see something for you.”  Go out and do it.  I mean, the problem is, everyone’s waiting for someone to come along and say, here’s an internship. Students have to get their ideas and reach out and be proactive and not wait.

Q:  What can individual students do on campus?

David:  Get involved with SEA or GCI.  The student organizations are active and working on important issues. Also, take individual action. In terms of the students’ own life, it’s simply . . . the problem with this [kind of advice] is, it’s like preaching.  It’s like saying, “Don’t drive your car so much, and recycle your cans.”  For the average student, it’s energy and transportation.  Think about what you buy and what goes in your bodies and where it comes from.  Most green options for eating are healthier and, over time, less expensive.  Think about your resource use, and what you do with your waste.  And while it seems easy just to grab something and throw it away, someone ends up paying for the disposal.  The fact that it’s not recycled increases waste disposal prices.  The fact that you’re eating food with nasty chemicals makes green alternatives seem more expensive, but the more people that eat organic stuff, the lower prices will be.

Reflect a little bit on your everyday activities.  If you’re paying your own utilities, turning off the light, lowering the thermostat, driving less, puts real money in your pocket.  If you eat healthier and greener, you end up feeling better.  In my climate class, one group of students are writing a paper that includes coming up with seven things that the actual college student could do to impact climate change, then coming up with statistics. I’m really curious about what students see from their perspective.

Q:   If you find a good student paper, tell me, and I’ll interview them.

David:  I will.

Green Tip of the Week: Join Up, Reach Out, Power Off

February 10, 2010

Here’s my interview of February 1, 2010 with Dr. Dina Franceschi, Economics professor and Chair of the Environmenal Steering Committee:

Q:  What do you think is the best thing Fairfield University has done environmentally?

Dina: Hands down, what has changed the most in the last 2-3 years at Fairfield is the engagement, initiative, and action of the students.  The administration responds to the needs of students who are environmentally aware.  Students are getting more environmental education in elementary and high school, and we give them opportunity to show that activism and show that awareness.  Before they come to college, students live in households that are pretty environmentally friendly.  So when they get to college, I see more students interested, and I see them engaged in more things.  And that’s change.  Faculty will come and go, and faculty voices get old.  But when there are a lot of students and a lot of voices, that’s really exciting.  If we can keep student interest and a student engine of activism, it will stay on the forefront.

Q:  What do you think has changed in the last two years that has made this happen?

Dina:  I think empowerment.  Sometimes students feel that their voices don’t matter, that their voices are not heard.  But now some faculty and administrators who care have gotten together and provided students venues for their voice, avenues for action.

Q:  For example?

Dina:  For example.  Somebody in a class has an idea about biofuels and does a ten-week project, and doesn’t know what else to do beyond that.  So a couple of faculty get together, and we connect that student with Joe Bouchard, for fire-hazard-safety concerns, and Jim Fitzpatrick, for further implementation.  Students don’t necessarily know how to navigate the bureaucracy of Fairfield.  We partner with students to move projects forward.  Students have the energy and the interest and the drive, and we can show them how to be proactive.  When you’re a four-year student, often it’s not until the end of your senior year that you figure out the bureaucracy.  These organizations that the students have formed, for seniors with good leadership partnered with faculty who know the navigation system, and then underclassmen who have the energy to learn the system—all this makes a continuum instead of just the hunt-and-peck that we saw before.  So I think that’s it.  Just empowerment.

Q:  What organizations come to mind?

Dina:  Well, the Student Environmental Association existed for a while, but it wasn’t a real player on campus.  But now it is a real player.  They have peer-supported interest that comes from the students as horizontally-integrated, along with a vertical integration of people who can make things happen, like Joe Bouchard.  If you don’t know who to talk to, how can you ever get things done?

Q:  So the students have the energy, and you show them the ropes.

Dina:  Not just me. There’s Joe Bouchard, Kraig Steffen, a whole litany of people and administrators. Jim Fitzpatrick does a ton in his building, and he works with students. The “grownups,” who have been around longer, make connectivity for students.  Faculty often provide the interface with the students.  We make connections with them and launch them forward.  The Green Campus Initiative, the other student environmental group, started this way.  We begin with what students are passionate about and move it forward.  There are so many things to do, environmentally.  We don’t need to limit it to one path or another.

Q:  Do you think that environmentalism is more popular in the general culture today?

Dina:  My home, when I was a kid, wasn’t particularly environmentally friendly, and we didn’t necessarily talk about these things.

Q:  It seems to me environmental awareness is ascending.

Dina:  We would hope it’s ascending. What I think is probably very true, though, is that specifically environmental education is more prominent, at least in elementary schools, than it ever was.  I don’t know when that happened.  But I think that the students who are arriving at Fairfield today are more environmentally aware.  I expect my children, who are in kindergarten and third grade, to have twelve years of environmental education, so they’ll certainly be more aware than I was.

Q:  What do you think is the next thing to do here at Fairfield to help the environment??

Dina:  I think living in a way that matters is important.  In the United States, our consumer culture is a concern, and so if you care, notice things.  Everybody’s marginal impact counts—turning out lights, shutting off faucets, all those little things.  You don’t think your “vote” matters, but individual actions cumulatively matter.  You may or may not get involved in a student group or the environmental academic program, but living environmentally as an individual matters.

For Fairfield, we’re at a point of stepping back and putting together a master plan.  We’ve done energy.  We’ve tried to advance recycling.  Everyone should keep moving forward with what they’re individually passionate about.  But what will the next big impact piece be?

This landscaping project that’s multifaceted over the years needs to be done very carefully—how we’re moving building projects forward, the ways in which we’re changing the landscape.  This campus is getting smaller and smaller, with all the expansion that we’re doing.  That’s a big-ticket item, as energy was a big-ticket item, but the next big item will probably come from a broad-based assessment, where we’re either failing or doing well.  We should target those points where we’re failing.

Q:  When you talk about landscape, do you mean trees and grass, do you mean building projects, do you mean water table?

Dina:  All of that.  Executive Vice President Billy Weitzer put together a five-year landscaping plan to change light fixtures and benches and sidewalks and shrubs and the topography of the quad, including pavements and permeable surfaces.  It’s sort of a campus-wide face-lift, in five-year phases.  That is going forward in coordination with new buildings, the brick-and-mortar projects.  Those two plans will have a tremendous impact on waterways, wildlife corridors, and forest stands on this campus.  If we’re not careful, those natural places will go away pretty quickly.

Q:  Is the coordination between those two projects an environmentally-aware coordination?

Dina:  That remains to be seen.  The landscaping plan, the trees and shrubs, that is done by an environmentally certified landscape design architectural firm.  One would presume that their plans would be in tune with the environment.  I saw those plans.  They got input from environmental faculty about the key spots on the sites.  But of course, plans and implementation are two different things, with two different sets of people making decisions.  We have a Campus Sustainability Committee that is supposed to provide for that interface, and we’ve put up a few mechanisms by which we should have a clear interface between academics and outdoor classrooms, outdoor research facilities, conservation for the town, for the university.  But when people get rushed and busy, they need to meet a deadline, they need to make a decision, sometimes those things fall by the wayside.  Which is really not OK.

Q:  When priorities tend to slip, that’s really not OK?

Dina:  Yeah.  That’s right.  We need constant student interaction, involvement, awareness, and faculty involvement and discussion and awareness, and administrators need to keep their ears open.

Q:  Talk to each other, talk to faculty, talk to students?

Dina:  Keep communicating, even though it might mean a slower process.  What it’s all about is environmental economics. Perhaps the right thing to do for the long term – the cost-savings thing to do – isn’t always the cost-savings thing to do immediately. Static costs and benefits need to be weighed carefully with costs and benefits in the longer term. Savings that we make today might be cost-saving today, but 5 to 10 years we might have saved a lot of money had we chosen a different path. I always think about the parking issue.  I still think that building parking up is better than building parking out. Why are we continuing to pave new parking lots, when we can just park over one another [as in a parking garage]?  I know it’s way more costly.  But we can’t get a forest back, we can’t get a pond back, we can’t get a tree stand back after we’ve paved over it.  You can break up the asphalt and put down topsoil, but it’s not going to be that same wild-growth tree stand.  If you have a parking lot, put up a couple of pillars and pave over it.

[A parking garage] is way more costly, but in order to reclaim a parking lot back to forest, it’s wildly more costly.  I think we really need to step back before blazing forward.  I’m in support of a lot of the building projects. Renovating existing building footprints is great.  Giving the old Ignatian House.a facelift, putting some students in there, is perfect. Getting Dolan house re-formatted in a more efficient way is awesome.  Putting up a new building is OK.  But are we going to put up a new building and a parking lot where there’s a parking lot right now?  And take away natural space to get a parking lot?  People should have asked about the value of that property, that natural space.  Apparently they asked the town but didn’t ask the university.  They didn’t ask the faculty and students who use that property for educational purposes.  What is the value of that property for them? Maybe the marginal student won’t come here and pay the tuition because the environmental science class here will not be quite as rich and as deep and as meaty as on another campus that has outdoor classroom space.  Maybe the administration needs to hear that.

Q:  So that’s asking how new projects will play out over time, too.

Dina:  Exactly.

Green Tip of the Week: Shrink That Foot

February 3, 2010

Here’s my interview from 1/28/10 with David Frassinelli, head of the Campus Sustainability Committee and Director of Facilities Management:

Q:  What do you think is the best thing we’ve done environmentally since you’ve been here?

David:  One of the best achievements on campus is getting up to speed and operating the COGEN facility.  That has single largest environmental impact, compared to buying our electricity off the grid.  Unlike United Illuminating, at Fairfield University we capture and re-use our waste heat.  We run our own turbine—4.6 megawatts turbine—and we use a good portion of the waste heat to heat and air condition our buildings.  Right now we’re looking into adding another 400-ton absorption chiller for air conditioning.  We could run it for free, using the extra waste heat that is now going up the stacks.   A lot of what we’ve done at Fairfield has been motivated by being efficient and saving money, but it has played itself out to be quite green technology.  Like COGEN.

Q:  You mean that when you save electricity, you save money, but you also save . . .

David:  Carbon.  As part of the President’s Climate Commitment, at Fairfield University we have, for the first time, measured our carbon footprint.  We did it for the period from 2005 to 2008.  During that period the numbers have basically remained flat, which is very good considering that we’ve added square footage, we’ve added faculty, and we’ve added full-time equivalents.  So to remain flat is a very positive thing.  We’ve just measured and I’m about to distribute our 2009 footprint, which for the fiscal year means July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009 – and we have actually reduced our carbon significantly.

Q:  That’s wonderful.  Is that because of COGEN?

David:  Primarily.  Also, we’re running more buildings, and when we run buildings that are not on COGEN, we use natural gas as opposed to oil.  It has been a challenge in measuring our carbon footprint to capture air travel, which we’ve done for the first time in 2009.   If you look at our numbers, it appears that the total carbon has gone up – but it’s gone up compared to not tracking air travel.  So if we’ve gone up 4,000 tons, and the air travel accounts for 6,000 tons, we’ve actually had a net reduction of 2,000 tons.  That’s all very encouraging.

In fiscal year ’10, we’re going to make another significant improvement by eliminating 380 cars, not allowing parking for sophomores.  That rule is new just this year.  That ban will reduce our Scope 3 emissions significantly.  For sustainability, it’s very important to take action, but also you need to have a certain consciousness and awareness so that you don’t miss the opportunities for action as they present themselves.  Here’s a case in point.  We’ve data tested some shower heads in one of the Townhouse blocks, reducing the water volume from two and a half gallons per minute to one gallon per minute.  Now we’re going to look at the cost and the benefit and the payback. We hope to make this reduction a campus standard.

Q:  What do you think is the next step?  What can we do to get the carbon numbers down further?  The showerheads?

David:  Showerheads would be a good step for water conservation.  For reduction of the carbon footprint, being able to justify and install another 400-ton absorption chiller would allow us to take some of our other centrifugal, conventional electric chillers off line.  In the Central Utilities Facility we now have one 400-ton absorption chiller, plus three Carrier centrifuge chillers, which we run in order to air condition the buildings.  Installing nother absorption chiller would allow us to take a conventional chiller off line completely.

We’re still looking at the costs of another 400-ton absorption chiller. It’s a challenge to decide where to physically locate it.  In the ideal world, we’d put it at the Central Utilities Facility building, but that’s a little jam-packed.  When we expanded that building for COGEN, we gave the Town of Fairfield some significant conservation easements to get the approvals, so we would have a tough time fitting a new chiller at the CUF.  We’re looking at other locations that would be unobtrusive.  We don’t want to make the place look like an industrial plant.

Q:  Can you think of anything the university community can do to help Fairfield move forward?

David:  If we’re not careful, we could fall into a false sense of not having to conserve energy if we are too impressed by our COGEN plant.  Yes, it’s efficient – we produce electricity at 7 cents per kilowatt as compared to 22 cents per kilowatt if we buy it.  But let’s don’t imagine that we don’t have to worry about conserving energy. That would be a terrible fallacy, a trap to fall into.

One of the biggest power users are flat-screen TVs.  They’re huge power drains.  People can simply make sure to shut them off when they’re not in their rooms.  And if you go away for an extended period, unplug them – a prudent action to take anyway, in there are electrical spikes.  If you’re not going to be here, unplug them.  Unplug computers as well.  Just because TVs and computers are not on, that doesn’t mean they’re not drawing power.

I’ve also noticed some smaller issues, like the handicap paddles on the doors.  If you’re handicapped, absolutely, you should use them.  But if you’re not handicapped, you shouldn’t use them, for a couple of reasons.  First, it takes electricity to open these doors.  Second, the paddles open both doors at the same time, where there’s an airlock, and they stay open for a certain period to let people pass through.  A lot of heat and air conditioning will escape then. I just see people being very casual about using the handicap paddles.  Maybe we can put little stickers on the doors:  “If You’re Not Handicapped, Don’t Use It.”  We can also just remind people to turn lights off.

Q:  Teachers could turn lights off when they leave the classroom.

David:  Absolutely.  Also, we’re starting construction projects with these new dorms, and we’ll be installing building dashboards in the front lobby, so that when you walk in you can see how much electricity you’re using, how much hot water or thermal heat you’re using.  I’m hoping to get a dashboard installed in Kostka Hall this spring, because that will be the new living and learning community focused on the environment, and I’ll be advising that group.  With dashboards in the dorms, we could do some very creative things like having competitions.  Mostly we should just be aware of what we’re doing.  Just be aware that when we open our eyes each morning, we’re contributing carbon.

Q:  Like you were saying before, unless you look for the action to take, you can’t take the action.

David:  Yes.  So we should be aware of it, and capitalize on opportunities.  So many things are expensive to do after the fact. In other words, to put these dashboards in after the building is built, and re-wire the building – that’s expensive.  But if you’re going into construction, it’s a lot more cost-effective to wire the building for dashboards then.

Green Tip of the Week: Green Christmas

December 7, 2009

Question:  Are there any “green” holiday presents online?

Answer:  There are many.

There is a forest of green presents online this year.  Many are very inventive.

Many people want to avoid giving “stuff.”  As we know from The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard, when we purchase and give objects, they often add to the amount of non-biodegradable material on our planet.  They make their way to our landfills, where they slowly leach more toxic elements into the environment.  If they are put into coal-burning incinerators, they leave toxic coal ash, and we’re running out of ways to dispose of that.

What can we give, if not objects?  The Daily Green says we can give “outside the box”:

We can adopt an octopus or a rainforest acre or an apple tree in the giftee’s name

We can give, through the giftee, clean water to families in developing nations.

We can give an experience—a night at a “green” bed and breakfast, a year-long pass to all national parks, an organic   winery tour, a “green” spa treatment.

We can give time on an organic farm from WWOOF – World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.

If we still need to give some object, The Daily Green offers “light-spirited gifts to nudge your loved ones down the GreenPath, as for example:

Skimpy underwear with a picture of the planet.

Reusable porcelain coffee cups (that look like Styrofoam but aren’t).

An Al Gore mouse pad.

A home recycling center (for $300 plus).

Several step-by-step  guides to green living (printed on paper!).

A biodegradable T-shirt.

A solar-powered golf cart (for the very rich).

Reusables from shopping bags to sporks (spoon-forks).

This final Daily Green web site  claims to have 100-plus green gift ideas.  Safe green toys, charitable gifts, solar-powered watches, gifts from recycled materials, artisanal food gifts.  Many of these are inexpensive, and they’re fun to look through.

More gifts for animal lovers:

The Ideal Bite offers “Gifts That Bite” in its daily tips for November 30.

Make a symbolic animal adoption in your giftee’s name.  Donations go to preserving habitats and keeping shelters open, for example.  See this Humane Society website.

Give a donation to Conservation International for a specific purpose.   The specifics will depend on your giftee.  For $20 you can save a lemur.  For $50 you can help save the Philippine eagle.

If you adopt a sea creature for your giftee, you can help preserve the world’s oceans through Oceana’s activism.   With this gift you receive a cookie cutter or a stuffed animal for the person gifted.

Happy Green Holidays.  Good luck on exams, everyone!

Green Tip of the Week: Multicolored Points of Light

November 23, 2009

Question:  Even though using electricity adds more CO2es to the atmosphere, I still don’t want to give up my holiday lights!

Answer:  Me either.  Here’s a great way to “green” your holiday lights:

Background and Information:

LED (light-emitting diode) holiday lights use 90% less energy than ordinary (incandescent) holiday lights.  90% less!   Very big deal!

See www.idealbite.com for more info on LEDs as well as hundreds of classy green-living tips.  Maybe you’d like to subscribe to their free, fact-packed daily email  – it helps inspire me.

This year, holiday LED lights are offered at the best price ever by three online companies.  My impression is that LEDs shine even more brightly than traditional lights, and they come in more colors.  Good prices, too.

You can get LED holiday lights at a good discount by mailing your old traditional lights to these companies.  Your old lights will be responsibly recycled into components like glass and copper.

Note:  LED lights for regular home use—like 60 or 100 watts—still seem too expensive, at least for my budget.  Their cost will probably drop before too long.  LED desk lamps are already becoming fairly reasonable to buy.

What to Do:

To try some new LED holiday lights, choose from these three online vendors:

1) Environmental Lights has a recycling program. Click on the link for their recycling address, to get 15% off their new holiday lights.  A Programmable String of 70 lights sells for the pre-discount price of $21 to $30, depending on how many you buy.  They will blink, chase, sparkle, fade, or whatever you set them to do.

2) Christmas Lights has a recycling program also, and a 10% discount on their LED lights.  These holiday lights are the least expensive I’ve found, at 35 for $8.00.

3) Holiday LEDs will give you a 15% discount for recycling your old light sets.  They’ll be recycling through next February.  Their Christmas mini-light assortment includes 70 lights for $18.99.

One bright idea:

A group of friends could contribute all their old holiday light strings, mail them all together to one of these companies, buy a bunch of new LED light strings—and be rewarded with an even larger discount.  These companies welcome big recycle shipments, and they lower their prices if you buy in bulk.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Green Tip of the Week: One-Stop Learning

November 16, 2009

Question:  All this environmental information is hard to process.  Is there any way to learn about the big picture without years of study?

Answer: Yes. Here’s a new book, at a reasonable price, that supplies the knowledge we all need.

Wouldn’t you know it!  Al Gore is leading the way again.  His sequel to An Inconvenient Truth has just come out.  It’s entitled Our Choice.

I’m going to buy this book for an intelligent overview of knowledge and smart environmental actions, to supplement my week-by-week piecemeal blog.  Perhaps I can persuade Mr. Reluctant to read it also?

Praise and Information about Our Choice:

Bill McKibben, head of the worldwide 350 organization to influence the Copenhagen talks in December (referenced in the last few green tips!) gives Our Choice his highest praise.

McKibben says in part:  “Gore has been engaged in that truth-telling for more than two decades, and one mark of his greatness is that he’s kept up with the science.. . . . Gore’s new volume is the indispensable one-stop shop for the cutting edge thinking about how we’re going to solve this problem.”

Click here to read McKibben’s entire review.  McKibben’s opinions reinforce this product description on amazon.com:  “Our Choice gathers in one place all of the most effective solutions that are available now and that, together, will solve this crisis. It is meant to depoliticize the issue as much as possible and inspire readers to take action—not only on an individual basis but as participants in the political processes by which every country, and the world as a whole, makes the choice that now confronts us.”

One-stop shopping for environmental knowledge.  I like that.

The Daily Green says that profits from Our Choice go to the Allance for Climate Protection, founded by Gore, which works to influence global warming legislation in Congress.

Easiest and Cheapest Ways to Buy This Book:

Gore’s new book is on sale all over the place, good for a holiday gift if you’re shopping early.  It’s in CD, audiobook, and hard copy versions.  Here are the lowest prices I’ve found so far, from $29.99 down to less than $16.00.

Our Choice is on compact disk (6 CDs) from Simon & Schuster for $29.99.  Click here. It’s read by Cynthia Nixon, John Slattery, and Al Gore.  Sample the sound here.

Our Choice is available on audiobook, read by Linda Edmond, for $20.98.  Click here.

The book form of Our Choice has great pictures and graphs.  I’m a visual learner, so it’s tempting to buy the book on amazon.com for less than $16.00.   Here.

Enjoy reading.

Green Tip of the Week: Signing IS the Action

November 9, 2009

Question:  I’m sympathetic with the 350 movement to reduce carbon emissions, but I’m too busy with schoolwork now to help.

Answer:  If you have 5 minutes and a computer, you can take a meaningful action to reduce our atmosphere’s CO2 equivalents.

Here are two 5-minute tasks we can each do–either or both–to help reduce greenhouse gases.  Free.

Task One: We can sign the Sierra Club’s petition to support the Environmental Protection Association and the Department of Transportation—to require our nation’s cars and light trucks will average 35.5 miles per gallon.

This will save 950 metric tons of CO2e from reaching the atmosphere for vehicles sold in 2012-2016.

Worthy?  Here’s the link.  They just want our names, email, zip, and so forth.  Every signature makes a difference.

Task Two: We can go to the 350 action site itself and petition the Obama administration to stop the blasting at Coal River Mountain, West Virginia, in Appalachia, where they practice mountaintop removal coal mining.

The blasting puts more CO2e in the atmosphere, contaminates the residents’ drinking water with toxic coal slurry, and could even breach the impoundment and flood 1,000 residents with a 50-foot wall of coal slurry.  If they weren’t busy blasting, they have the potential to create a big wind farm.

Worthy of 5 minutes of our time?    Here’s our link.  Signing matters.

Once we have the links, signing an internet petition takes only a few minutes more than worrying, “I should really do something about this.”

Internet petitions create national support and do good.  The more petitions we sign, the more we are emailed to sign.  That’s a plus.  For the small price of a signature, we become part of the solution.

Who wants to become part of my “tell a friend” list for the environmental petitions I sign?  Just send me your email, to msregan@fairfield.edu

Green Tip of the Week: Keep Tons More on Earth

November 1, 2009

Question:  What else can I do, just by myself, to bring worldwide carbon emissions down to that 350 parts per million number?

Answer:  Spend 10 additional minutes after washing your clothes.

Background and Explanation:

Remember last week, we discovered each kilowatt of electric energy puts 1.5 pounds of CO2e (carbond dioxide equivalents) into the atmosphere?

Well, each time we run a clothes dryer, we send 5.3 pounds of CO2e upwards. Those emissions are the environmental cost of electric energy for dryers.

If 400 of us hang-dry a load clothes, one time, we spare the atmosphere a ton of CO2e (to be exact, that’s more than a metric ton, which is .91 of a ton).

Why did we think up clothes dryers in the first place?  People outsmarted themselves, looking for convenience.  Remember (or not) the old slogan “live better electrically”?  This 5-minute video, “Drying for Freedom,” gives some good info about what we’ve learned since the old days.

Clothes dryers use the second most electric energy of any appliance.

What to Do?

Last week, the New York Times published a great blog debate, called “Rethinking Laundry in the 21st century.”
Check it out for fascinating bits.  Like our right to hang clothes outside–states are now prohibiting anti-clothesline rules (snobs think clotheslines are tacky).  Like how not using dryers will save 10 to 20% of a household’s electricity.  Like how other countries aren’t addicted to clothes dryers like we are (only 4% of Italian households own a dryer).  Like how good your clothes smell when you dry them outside.

Colleges are starting to catch on.  Chelsea Hodge ’09 of Pomona College got her alma mater to put drying racks in all residence hall laundry rooms, as she writes in “Rethinking Laundry.”  She also persuaded the college to loan racks to students each semester. (Note: they cost as little as $12.99 on Amazon.com.)

Give yourself the treat of watching the Allegheny College students performing and talking about their Action Day 350 clothes-hanging on this “Underwear Project” video.

They rigged up an outdoor clothesline, in the snow, and hung out 350 pieces of their underwear for Action Day, October 24th.  Since they assumed spectators would walk up and inspect the underwear, they taped informational notes about carbon emissions to the bras and thongs and shorts and socks.  An educational day.

As for me, I’m planning to buy an inside laundry rack for the winter.  They say rack-drying puts good moisture in the air.  Then next summer, maybe Mr. Reluctant Environmentalist and I will find a clothesline contraption for the porch.

Anyone have ideas for student residence halls at Fairfield?