SFU forgets climate change
Eric Doherty

More than ten years ago, a group of far-sighted university leaders recognized that human caused climate change, among other environmental problems, was so serious that it would "threaten the survival of humans and thousands of other species". Dr. William Saywell, then the president of Simon Fraser University, joined dozens of other university presidents in a group called University Leaders for a Sustainable Future and signed the Talloires Declaration, a pledge to take a strong leadership role in confronting the environmental crisis. Now, that pledge is all but forgotten - nobody in the university administration seem to even remember that it exists. In fact, rather than take a leadership role in dealing with climate change, SFU has no environmental policy at all.

The ULSF may have been thinking of universities like SFU when they wrote: "It is critical that some form of environmental sustainability task force or committee, preferably appointed by the president, begin to develop a campus plan to realise the general goals of the Talloires Declaration and to monitor sustainability initiatives on campus. Without a clear implementation plan in place, the signing may become a purely symbolic act."

SFU is an extreme example of how little is achieved by merely signing a declaration. And while president Michael Stevenson has only been in for one year, it is now crucial to start looking at the university's environmental policy.

Ten years ago there was a legitimate debate about the cause and seriousness of global warming. Now the cause (human-caused greenhouse gas pollution) and the seriousness of the threat are well documented.

Atmospheric concentrations of the most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, are now higher than at any other time in the last 420,000 years and are likely higher than any time in the last 20 million years. Climate experts are now almost certain that the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere has already led to rising temperatures, more severe storms, as well as droughts and floods. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that advises governments on climate change, recently published its third report in which it concludes that global warming has begun to accelerate and will increase faster than previously thought.

Energy consumption, and greenhouse gas pollution from SFU facilities has increased significantly over the last decade both as a total and per square meter. Surprisingly, some newer buildings consume more energy per square meter than the older buildings on campus. This mirrors the situation throughout our society where energy use and greenhouse gas pollution is increasing. For example, the average new vehicle now has worse fuel efficiency than those built ten years ago.

At SFU the only visible acknowledgement of the environmental crisis is a modest recycling program. This program exists because students at SFP!RG, with the help of some supportive staff and faculty members, campaigned to establish the program despite the foot-dragging of the administration as a whole.

Even more important than the direct environmental impact of SFU's unnecessarily high level of consumption and pollution is the lessons it teaches to students-if faced with a big problem bury your head in the sand and maybe it will go away. Even students specializing in environmental issues usually study distant problems that they have no obvious role in-while overlooking the very institution we study in.

Denial
Universities should take a leading role in finding solutions to the challenges our society faces. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced. Yet SFU, like many individuals and institutions, seems to be in a state of denial that prevents effective action.

The lack of action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution is explained by denial, according to George Marshall in his article "The Psychology of Denial" in the November 2001 issue of The Ecologist.

"We can expect to have widespread denial when the enormity and nature of the problem are so unprecedented that people have no cultural mechanism for accepting them," Marshall wrote. Committing collective suicide through greenhouse gas pollution is something we have few precedents for. More information is not the answer to denial. "There is plentiful historical evidence that increased information may even intensify the denial," according to Marshall. This may partially explain how it is possible for SFU professors to teach about the minute details of the ecological crisis and then drive home in single-occupant vehicles.

The way to overcome denial is to provide validation and social support for action. "People will not accept the reality of the problem unless they see that others are engaging in activities that reflect its seriousness," Marshall says.

This is where universities should be taking a leading role. Students and all members of society should be able to see serious action taking place on university campuses. The Talloires Declaration calls for universities to "set an example of environmental responsibility by establishing institutional ecology policies and practices of resource conservation, recycling, waste reduction, and environmentally sound operations".

The buildings on a university campus should be obvious examples of action on climate change. For example, the environmental studies center at Oberlin College in Ohio has an innovative heating and ventilation system that is open to view so students can learn about energy conservation from the building they study in.

"The curriculum embedded in any building instructs as fully and as effectively as any course taught in it," says David Orr of Oberlin College.

SFU has plans to build a Technology and Environment Centre to house Resource and Environmental Management and other programs but this center won't be designed as an environmental teaching tool unless planning starts now.

Courses that deal with the physical systems and institutional context of a university campus can be much more powerful learning experiences than courses that deal only with situations in distant locations. If the university is taking effective action, they should also be effective in overcoming the paralysis of denial.

At the University of Waterloo students gain experience working within the context of the systems which operate the university. In some ways courses that deal with campus sustainability issues are like field study programs, except instead of moving the classroom to the place to be studied the classroom and the entire campus become the place that is studied. It is this kind of first hand experience that may be able to give students the knowledge and motivation necessary to foster the transformation to a sustainable society as the University of Waterloo WATgreen program aims to do.

The Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future promotes the Talloires Declaration as a way for universities to acknowledge the seriousness of climate change and the role universities should play. However, they rely on a top-down approach whereby university administrators must initiate and support the mobilization of internal and external resources.

While the support of the top administration for an action program would be helpful, students may be better able to break through their denial and take effective action. University and high school students have often been at the forefront of social movements. In this case, students are also in a position to research, organize and implement effective tactics for overcoming denial.

In addition to overcoming denial, a key element in changing institutional and individual behaviour is to quantify the environmental impacts of different actions, and set priorities for change. The lack of such coherent strategies has been identified as a key reason that environmentalists' and government agencies' attempts to influence behaviour have largely failed, even as concern about environmental issues has increased.

One example of an attempt at such a coherent policy is the University of British Columbia's sustainable development policy. The policy calls for action plans "with clear indicators for targets, by all units, with the assistance of the ombudsperson for Sustainable Development. Plans will include evaluation guidelines, effective measures of progress, reporting mechanisms and appropriate educational support."

One example of UBC's targets for environmental performance is energy consumption. The target for 2003/2004 is a 22 per cent reduction per unit area from 1998/1999. UBC's target for greenhouse gas pollution reduction is 10 per cent by 2004. These are modest targets given that greenhouse gas reductions of at least 60 per cent are needed. However, at least the approach is coherent and people can see that some action is being taken. This kind of action may go some way towards overcoming climate change denial.

Everyone who cares about the future should demand that the president and administration of SFU firmly declare their support for the Talloires Declaration, and allocate sufficient staff time and financial resources to develop a coherent action plan for reducing greenhouse gas pollution.

The time for cautious and timid action is over. Students should take the initiative in pushing for dramatic changes, with or without support from the university administration and faculty.

THE TALLOIRES DECLARATION
10 Point Action Plan
(Signed in 1991 by Dr. William Saywell, then president of SFU)

We, the presidents, rectors, and vice chancellors of universities from all regions of the world are deeply concerned about the unprecedented scale and speed of environmental pollution and degradation, and the depletion of natural resources.

Local, regional, and global air and water pollution; accumulation and distribution of toxic wastes; destruction and depletion of forests, soil, and water; depletion of the ozone layer and emission of "green house" gases threaten the survival of humans and thousands of other living species, the integrity of the earth and its biodiversity, the security of nations, and the heritage of future generations. These environmental changes are caused by inequitable and unsustainable production and consumption patterns that aggravate poverty in many regions of the world.

We believe that urgent actions are needed to address these fundamental problems and reverse the trends. Stabilization of human population, adoption of environmentally sound industrial and agricultural technologies, reforestation, and ecological restoration are crucial elements in creating an equitable and sustainable future for all humankind in harmony with nature.

Universities have a major role in the education, research, policy formation, and information exchange necessary to make these goals possible. Thus, university leaders must initiate and support mobilization of internal and external resources so that their institutions respond to this urgent challenge.

We, therefore, agree to take the following actions:

1. Increase Awareness of Environmentally Sustainable Development
Use every opportunity to raise public, government, industry, foundation, and university awareness by openly addressing the urgent need to move toward an environmentally sustainable future.

2. Create an Institutional Culture of Sustainability
Encourage all universities to engage in education, research, policy formation, and information exchange on population, environment, and development to move toward global sustainability.

3. Educate for Environmentally Responsible Citizenship
Establish programs to produce expertise in environmental management, sustainable economic development, population, and related fields to ensure that all university graduates are environmentally literate and have the awareness and understanding to be ecologically responsible citizens.

4. Foster Environmental Literacy For All
Create programs to develop the capability of university faculty to teach environmental literacy to all undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.

5. Practice Institutional Ecology
Set an example of environmental responsibility by establishing institutional ecology policies and practices of resource conservation, recycling, waste reduction, and environmentally sound operations.

6. Involve All Stakeholders
Encourage involvement of government, foundations, and industry in supporting interdisciplinary research, education, policy formation, and information exchange in environmentally sustainable development. Expand work with community and nongovernmental organizations to assist in finding solutions to environmental problems.

7. Collaborate for Interdisciplinary Approaches
Convene university faculty and administrators with environmental practitioners to develop interdisciplinary approaches to curricula, research initiatives, operations, and outreach activities that support an environmentally sustainable future.

8. Enhance Capacity of Primary and Secondary Schools
Establish partnerships with primary and secondary schools to help develop the capacity for interdisciplinary teaching about population, environment, and sustainable development.

9. Broaden Service and Outreach Nationally and Internationally
Work with national and international organizations to promote a worldwide university effort toward a sustainable future.

10. Maintain the Movement
Establish a Secretariat and a steering committee to continue this momentum, and to inform and support each other's efforts in carrying out this declaration. (www.ulsf.org).

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