Toward a Green Campus

In an interview with The Crimson last week, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Michael D. Smith voiced his support for a new plan to reduce Harvard’s greenhouse gas emissions. This is an exciting step forward for Harvard, and we hope that University President Drew G. Faust—to whom the plan will go next—will not hesitate in voicing her support for it.

The plan, which commits Harvard to reducing its emissions to 11 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, is being proposed by a task force made up of students, faculty, and administrators. Admittedly, we have some reservations about the potential costs and other details for this plan, especially in the context of Harvard’s current expansionary tendencies. Nonetheless, the importance, both in symbol and in practice, of this plan should be under estimated.

Given the current public atmosphere toward climate change, both domestically and globally, it is imperative that Harvard throw its institutional weight behind such emission policies. Al Gore ’69 just won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, and currently, the United States is engaged in a global climate summit in Bali, which is looking past Kyoto to the next generation of climate regulations. There is no better time for Harvard to show publicly its support for these measures.

Besides demonstrating support symbolically, emissions standards will also have pragmatic effects here in Cambridge. For one, they extend Harvard’s recent commitment to building a green campus in Allston to the entire campus, ensuring an environmentally-friendly future for the school’s physical infrastructure. Furthermore, this plan will significantly reduce the 100,000 metric tons of carbon emissions that the Environmental Action Committee estimates FAS generates each year. Finally, Harvard will be able to best Yale yet again. Yale recently set out a similar set of standards, but it only reduces emissions by 10 percent.

Climate change is an urgent problem, and Harvard has no excuse not to support emissions regulations. We congratulate Dean Smith on showing his support for the plan, which already has significant student support. We hope that President Faust will follow suit and endorse the plan.