Global Warming and Lewis & Clark College

Lewis & Clark College has become the first campus in the nation to comply with the greenhouse gas emissions targets called for in the Kyoto Protocol. The effort was student-driven, and will cost approximately $10 per student.

This year, the effort is led by Laura Matson, a junior economics major, and Brian Erickson, a sophomore biology major. Brian wrote an editorial that appeared online for the Oregonian newspaper. An excerpt:

On global warming, students take action and senators should, too

by Brian Erickson '06

"Students at Lewis & Clark College have acted. The private liberal arts college is the only Kyoto compliant school in the nation. The Kyoto protocol, an international treaty on global warming, stipulates a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels for the United States. Although signed in 1997, the U.S. has since failed to ratify it.

"Achieving Kyoto compliance is the result of a three-year student campaign involving greenhouse gas inventories, student polls demonstrating overwhelming support, emissions reductions on campus, and the use of student fees to purchase "offsets" from the Climate Trust, a Portland nonprofit. In stark contrast to those claiming emissions reductions as too costly, at the price of roughly $10 per student, Lewis & Clark has shown that actions to reduce emissions are economically feasible."

Read the full editorial at OregonLive.com.