Tufts' Environmental Consciousness Outreach (ECO) and the Tufts Institute for the Environment (TIE) are co-sponsoring the second annual "Do It in the Dark" energy conservation contest this month. Each of the University's residence halls will compete for prizes awarded to residents of the building with the greatest reduction in energy consumption.
Each dorm's total wattage used this month will be compared with the figures from last October. Last year, South Hall won the competition and enjoyed an ECO-sponsored celebration in its lobby.
Some have questioned the program's effectiveness, since a handful of residence halls actually increased their energy usage last year. But ECO board member junior Rebecca Batchelder said those buildings would have used the extra energy regardless of the competition.
ECO uses several campaigning strategies to encourage students to reduce energy usage. Each dorm has a designated ECO-Rep, who gives students information about environmental issues, with a focus on energy conservation. This semester, ECO-Reps went door to door, offering students free low-energy light bulbs in exchange for standard incandescents. The bulbs, which burn for 10,000 hours, save users $50 in electricity costs and prevent an extra 1,000-2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released from power plants into the air.
Even small conservation measures can make a difference, according to Metcalf Hall ECO-Rep junior Megan DiBiase. If all Tufts students turned off their computers for six hours per day, 572 fewer tons of carbon dioxide would be released into the atmosphere. Computers account for 15 percent of energy consumption at Tufts.
When he served as president, John DiBiaggio committed the University to the goals of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which commits signatories to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Although the Bush administration has abandoned the Kyoto Protocol, Tufts is adhering to the deadlines, and has established the Tufts Climate Initiative (TCI) to help reach this goal. TCI runs education and conservation programs on campus.
Based on the University's projected growth rate, the conservation project will require a 30 percent decrease in energy consumption, according to TIE officials. "There is always room to conserve and improve in energy usage," said Betsy Isenstein, the University's energy manager.
The US represents five percent of the world's population, but releases 20 percent of global greenhouse gases. "Students who live in dorms aren't motivated to conserve energy, since they don't pay per watt," DiBiase said. "It's important that students do what they can to help the environment of their school."
