HEASC Highlights Global Warming Prevention on Campus

In their spring 2006 newsletter, the Higher Education Associations’ Sustainability Consortium, HEASC, features an article titled “Campuses That Confront Global Warming Reap the Rewards” by Julian Keniry, Director of National Wildlife Federation’s Campus and Community Leadership Program.

The article summarizes the threat to our planet due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, highlights lead colleges and universities in the fight to stop global warming, and lists “next steps” to reduce carbon pollution. In addition to the benefit to the environment, campuses also benefit from climate action leadership. For example, investment in clean, renewable energy will create 240,000 new jobs by 2020, says the article, giving students a better chance at a good career. Climate leadership also demonstrates greater fiscal responsibility; the longer higher education institutions work to conserve energy, the more money they save taxpayers and parents. According to Keniry, the University of Buffalo has saved an excess of $9 million annually through 200 energy focused conservation projects since the early 1980s.

HEASC is an informal network of higher education associations with a commitment to advancing sustainability within their constituencies and within the system of higher education itself.