Two Presidents Address Climate Change

This year, a number of Wesleyan freshmen were recruited to model for the New York Times fashion section - although they were wearing $1,000 outfits rather than their own clothes. The article just came out and is featured on the homepage of our university - but everyone looks so sad in the photographs. Not exactly a bright and welcoming advertisement for Wesleyan - more like, "come here so that you can dress in ugly, overly expensive clothing while looking like your best friend just got run over by a truck." Or something like that.

Anyways, climate change is all over the news these days, even the very local news at Wesleyan. Our President, Micheal Roth blogged yesterday in response to a graffiti message outside of his office, "Micheal Roth, what are you doing about climate change?" He made a thoughtful reply which put the question out to students - what should Wesleyan as a community do about climate change? Students have concrete ideas - including having Roth sign the President's Climate Commitment, buying more energy from renewable resources and cutting down on waste. One student even wants us to stop serving bananas on campus because they come from tropical locations.

Check out the blog at:
http://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2007/09/28/michael-roth-what-are-you-doing-about-global-warming-or-politics-at-wesleyan/#comments


The President's Climate Commitment





Just as our campus is struggling with this issue, politicians all over the world are thinking about the very same problem, how to address climate change. Most notably, this Friday President Bush attended a Washington Summit meeting of the 16 largest polluters in the world. After the meeting, he conceded that nations needed to set targets for lowering carbon emissions, but remained convinced that mandatory cuts in carbon emissions would harm the United States economy. He did say that the United States would participate in negotiations about climate change overseen by the UN. President Bush also mentioned a clean technology fund which would help developing countries reduce their carbon emissions.(1)

The initial world reaction has been skeptical - Bush is still refusing mandatory cuts (ie the Kyoto protocol or anything similar) and he did not outline his Clean Tech Fund idea very clearly. However, to be fair there is convincing economic research that shows that although a plan like Kyoto would benefit the world as a whole, it would negatively harm the US because of damages to the economy. At the same time, the US clearly needs to take a leadership role in preventing harm from increases in global mean temperature.




(1) Broder, J. "At Climate Meeting, Bush Does Not Specify Goals." The New York Times. September 29th, 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/washington/29climate.html?ref=science