Top Climate Skeptic Reverses Course, Now Urges Bold Action
- Bjørn Lomborg may not be a household name around here, but that's through no fault of his. In November 2001, this Danish environmental author and economics professor was selected "Global Leader for Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum. Controversy may as well have been his middle name, especially after his book The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World came out in 2001. However, Lomborg has a new book entitled Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits in which he proposes an aggressive $100 billion annual fund specifically targeting global warming solutions...
How Cool is Your School?
- The Sierra Club has released the results of its fourth annual Coolest Schools survey, which compares the sustainability, conservation and energy-efficiency efforts of U.S. colleges and universities nationwide.
Students traditionally have evaluated colleges according to three criteria: academic quality, location, and what kind of social life they can expect. While those considerations are no less important today than they ever were, an increasing number of students have added a fourth criterion to the list: schools with outstanding green credentials.
In fact, two-thirds of university applicants now say that a school's environmental record would influence whether they would choose to enroll, according to a survey by the Princeton Review, a company that helps students prepare for exams.
In conducting the survey, the Sierra Club sent an 11-page questionnaire to 900 U.S. colleges and universities, with questions in 10 categories: Energy Supply, Efficiency, Food, Academics, Purchasing, Transportation, Waste Management, Administration, Financial Investments, and Other Initiatives.
Individual questions were weighted according to their relative importance, but each category was worth 10 points for a possible total score of 100. The Sierra Club received responses from 162 schools and ranked them according to their total scores.
The 10 top-ranked schools this year are:
Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont - 88.6 points
Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania - 86.1 points
Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington - 85.9 points
University of Washington in Seattle, Washington - 84.7 points
Stanford University in Stanford, California - 84.6 points
University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California - 84.4 points
Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin - 83.2 points
Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts - 82.8 points
College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine - 82.5 points
Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts - 82.4 points
Along with ranking the schools according to their Coolest Schools survey scores, the Sierra Club also provides information about a number of related topics, from what K-12 schools are doing to advance sustainability to how coal-country colleges are embracing clean energy to how things are improving in China.
According to participating schools, the annual Coolest Schools survey not only offers students and their parents an easy way to compare colleges on the basis of environmental credentials, it also encourages U.S. colleges and universities to improve.
In one survey response reported by the Sierra Club, David Prytherch, sustainability coordinator at Miami University in Ohio, wrote that the annual survey "reminds us of what we've accomplished and how much is yet to be done. It helps encourage continued innovation, knowing that others are watching."
Also Read:
Teach Your Children Well: Does U.S. Environmental Education Make the Grade?
California Approves New Environmental Curriculum for K-12 Students
School Lunches: How to Make Cafeteria Food Better for Kids and the Environment
How School Lunch Packaging Waste Adds Up
How Cool is Your School? originally appeared on About.com Environmental Issues on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 12:50:34. Permalink | Comment | Email this
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