Reducing our carbon footprint

WVU students and faculty are pushing the school to become more green in its energy use.

To give you more info on the effort, here's an excerpt from a message sent by Cheyenna Weber, a WVU graduate and one of the organizers of the WVU Green Fund to fellow alumni.

As you consider your own carbon footprint, have you ever considered the impact of our fine alma mater? Perhaps you have heard that West Virginia University is becoming a cleaner, greener, more sustainable institution. Perhaps you were excited by this, and even wondered to yourself, "Hey, I sure wish I could play a role in saving the planet, and I sure wish I could tie it to West Virginia." Well, this is your lucky climate-change averting day.

The WVU chapter of the Sierra Student Coalition has proposed a substantial program to boost energy efficiency, cut emissions and promote a greener institution. The new WVU President, Mike Garrison, already met with them once, made encouraging noises and agreed to more meetings. Faculty and staff are signing on in support, and the time has come for alumni support. (How? Hang on.)

We all know making buildings more energy efficient and creating renewable energy infrastructure is expensive. In fact, although it saves money, (and the planet), in the long-term it is often so cost-prohibitive schools can't make the changes. WVU already has presented this argument, but luckily there is a simple solution: the WVU Green Fund.

Here's how it works: WVU establishes an endowed fund that is invested in environmentally sound companies. The returns from those investments then are earmarked for green campus projects. The more money donated to the fund, the more is invested, the greater the returns. The principal is never touched-which means green projects won't be dependent on an annual fund-raising campaign or the whims of the WVU Foundation. So simple, right? Right.

Except, of course, we have to convince WVU to do it. To do that we have to show there is support for a WVU Green Fund. Now, we all could cut checks and send them to WVU, but there's nothing to keep the school from refusing to set up the endowed Green Fund and using up all the money on a single project. So instead, I'm asking people to sign the petition, located here

A similar campaign is being started up by student groups at Marshall University as we speak and we'll probably be hearing a lot about it in Huntington soon.