Fall Fever has hit Boston (and it's not because of the Red Sox). An abundance of students are strewn across the quad, lounging under the vibrant foliage. While hurricanes and tsunamis may devastate the rest of the world, Beantown, thus far, has not felt any real detriment from climate change.
However, this is not an excuse to ignore reality. Despite the sudden burst of concern following the environmental tragedies of the past year, and in the wake of Al Gore's hit movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," it appears that that we are still lagging behind in updating our technologies to be more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. The United States still has not ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which aims to limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions. Individual states, cities and communities (including Tufts) throughout the United States, however, have pledged to try to meet these standards.
In line with Tufts' 1999 pledge to meet or beat the standards set by Kyoto, the newest building on the Hill, Sophia Gordon Hall, is also environmentally friendly. While such attempts are praiseworthy, Tufts as a university, like the ambitious students which comprise it, can always strive higher.
The obstacle, it appears, which prevents an even more eco-friendly campus is money. Adding solar panels, installing more energy-efficient technology, and overall updates to the campus are expensive, and as our endowment is still lacking, the prospects of such campus-wide renovations do not look promising.
Transformations such as these that are needed across campus are small and hardly noticeable to a student body and administration with other, more pressing priorities. It appears as though we must wait for new buildings and bigger donations if we are to reach the Kyoto Protocol as pledged seven years ago.
Similarly, Boston has been lagging on its responsibilities. A recent partnership between Boston Cab Association and the city government to develop and distribute "clean cabs" across Boston has just released its first hybrid: a green-striped Toyota Camry. Such a move is laudable, yet the single car released is more of a publicity ploy than a real attempt to cut down on greenhouse gases.
Again, finances seem to be the obstacle, and it is arguably difficult to justify using taxpayer money to update an entire city's cab or municipal fleet when Boston schools still need financial assistance. Still, an investment in the children's environment is just as important as an investment in their education.
The city of Somerville's analogous purchase of solar-powered trash compactors will also have a minuscule impact on the town's overall energy use; the cost-inefficiency of these devices given the other imperative issues facing the town must also be questioned.
Still, if Massachusetts is really as liberal, "tree-hugging" and "granola-eating" as some stereotypes suggest, why are we lagging so far behind cities like San Francisco and New York? Why is California's Schwarzenegger leading the charge in the climate crisis? Even though the cost may be high, why isn't Massachusetts the principal initiator of change? Thus, one must wonder, if, as inhabitants of New England, we have ulterior motives in lazing about in our energy-efficiency upgrades. On a beautiful day, it's difficult not to remark, as one Jumbo commented upon feeling Wednesday's warmth, "Global warming ... that's awesome."
Could it be that, for New Englanders, we are selfish? Is warmer better? For any Jumbo that has braved the brutal blizzards in Boston (and that's everyone except for the first-years - just wait!), we often find ourselves cursing the slippery glaze beneath our feet, the biting wind that nips our exposed noses, and the bone-chilling frost which penetrates underneath our polar bear jackets. While we grow accustomed to it in late fall and early spring semesters and even run naked in it at NQR,-it is not unfathomable to attribute the high study abroad rate among Jumbos to the desire to avoid the rawness that will ultimately batter Boston. There is a reason we study in Spain, Chile, and China - and not in Canada.
But, also as Jumbos, we should still know better and push for change; it is difficult to predict how melting glaciers or warming oceans will influence our weather in the future.
