How were these lakes able to do this? Well, it wasn’t through some magic. It was through a drought—not just any drought, but “the most severe single-year drought on record,” such that “there literally is no point of comparison,” according to a quote from Professor John Nielsen-Gammon in the article. Because of an unprecedented rain shortage, many lakes in Texas experienced an unprecedented drop in their water levels by as many as 23 feet. Some dried up completely.

We all know that drought is a serious problem regardless of how much archaeological value it brings. Although I am glad for Oliver’s relatives, who felt blessed and happy to tie up the loose end of her mysterious disappearance, the numerous studies showing the current drying trend concern me. These studies project that half of the entire world’s population will be living in areas of high-level water scarcity by 2030, and their implications deserve more serious attention.

We’ve seen what drought did to lakes in Texas. Imagine what damage a drought of that magnitude might inflict on people elsewhere. The Southwest, where the population growth rate is one of the fastest in the nation, is projected to be under a permanent drought by 2050. California, along with Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada, is to take the biggest water shortage hit, which would significantly hinder its agriculture. Considering that California produces more than half of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables, this is another rather ominous story.

If we agree that drought is a big problem, can we do anything about it? First and foremost, we must make sure we save water ourselves, whether others are watching or not. Though some of us may not live in areas under high water stress, that doesn’t matter. A save here is a save there. We can do our best to save water ourselves, but we can also increase awareness among others and encourage them to do their best to save water for collective conservation.

Be frustrated at anyone who is blinded from reason to save water, either by negligence or some archeological fascination with the recently discovered vestiges in Texas. We should let them see the other side of things. Remember, though, that we desire to save water—to have the actual faucets turned off—not mere flooding of the empty words.

If we hold drought as a serious issue, we must save water with our own conservation practices, regardless of what others do. This is the only direct contribution anyone can make, and the action ultimately needed. If we don’t do that, then what we tell others to do would be mere regurgitations of what we heard, and what admittedly makes rational sense, but never became a part of us. Only after taking action ourselves can we justly demand others to do the same, and say that we have done something good.

One sure lesson to take from the Texas lakes boils down to a simple idea, using our own hands to physically turn those faucets off—something to keep in mind during your restful winter break, as you enjoy the luxury of long, hot showers. Whether you like it or not, I don’t fancy seeing a car rising in the middle of a lake, the repercussion of another misguided lake turned archeologist in the Texas draught.

Ameren Missouri has spent years pursuing plans to construct a coal ash landfill on the floodplain of the Missouri River. And despite continued efforts by a non-profit group with numerous student members to fight the plans, Ameren’s project is moving forward.

At the end of October, Franklin County commissioners passed an amendment allowing Ameren to advance its plans to construct the facility.

Members of the anti-construction Labadie Environmental Organization (LEO) said that despite the setback, they are continuing to fight the construction, which they say could bring significant environmental and economic risks to their community.

“It’s just a high risk area, building a coal ash landfill on a floodplain,” junior Zach Blustein, one of the students helping LEO through the School of Law’s Environmental Clinic, said. “There’s the potential for groundwater contamination. Also, the site chosen is actually under standing water during certain points in the year.”

The Franklin Country Presiding Commissioner, John Griesheimer, declined to comment on the decision to pass the amendment.

It was the first of many permits that the company needs to acquire in order to build the landfill. It still needs construction, operating and floodplain permits from the state, as well as a wetlands permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.

The clinic has been working with LEO since 2009 to provide legal support and representation for the group.

“We’ll take scientific jargon and put it into simpler terms so that others can understand,” Blustein said. “We can also help explain legal matters.”

Coal ash contains harmful chemicals like arsenic and mercury that have been linked to cancer and other serious health problems. When not stored properly, these chemicals can leach into groundwater and drinking water sources, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Blustein also said that because the facility is located above a confluence, much of the drinking water in St. Louis could be affected if the site became flooded.

Ameren has said it needs a new ash pond because the power plant’s old landfills are almost full. The company has assured the public that the facility will meet federal standards and that the material will be protected by multiple liners and a berm, or a raised shelf, three feet higher than the level that floodwater reached in 1993. They also have stated that the coal ash will be stored dry, a safer method than storing it wet.

Many LEO members doubt Ameren’s claims, pointing out flaws with the company’s current Labadie waste facilities. These include two leaks in the ash ponds that began seeping in 1992, one of which has recently been filled. Two more leaks were discovered by the Department of Natural Resources in September.

No tests have been carried out in the area to detect contamination of groundwater or drinking water by the state or by Ameren, a reflection of Missouri’s loose testing restrictions—some of the lowest in the country according in an Earthjustice study published in August.

LEO has gained over 2,000 signatures for its petition against the facility and filled auditoriums with over 500 people at public hearings to discuss Ameren’s proposal.

“In the course of two years, I think we’ve changed a lot of minds,” said Patricia Schuba, president of the organization. “We’ve opened up the discussion about toxins in the environment and mobilized the community.”

Schuba said that there are various reasons that people oppose the landfill, but two major concerns are health and economic risks.

“The heavy metals and carcinogens in the drinking water concern us, because this is right over the groundwater for the region, and also the local impact of reduced property values and reduced development in the area,” she said.

The clinic works with several other grassroots organizations, almost all of them non-profits.

“The clinic’s been an amazing resource for a small, grassroots, non-profit group fighting a very large issue that impacts us all,” Schuba said.

Despite the passing of the land amendment allowing Ameren to advance its plans to construct the facility, the LEO plans to continue fighting.

“We’re exhausting every possibility. There are many more steps and layers, and we’ll be there, present and fighting the decision,” Schuba said.

Ameren hopes to begin construction of the facility in 2012 and have it operating by the fall of 2013 or 2014.

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

Student Union treasurers cast their votes to fund the College Democrat’s appeal to bring Vice President Al Gore to campus in the spring. The total cost of the appeal was $92,350.

Student reactions to the decision are mixed.

The vote in favor of funding Gore for that amount was 12-1 with two abstaining due to conflicts of interest. All voting members were in favor of bringing Gore to campus, but one member was in favor of allocating more money.

Pending final contracts being signed, Gore is expected to come to campus this spring.

Sophomore Elizabeth Peters said that while she’d be happy to attend Gore’s speech, she doubts the College Democrats will be able to coordinate the event to fit his schedule.

“I’d definitely go because I like his government policy talks, [but] I’ll be incredibly impressed if it actually goes through,” Peters said.

Of the 263 people SU surveyed in the DUC Monday, 162 students voted in favor of bringing Gore to campus.

Some students said that they are happy that a well-known speaker is coming to campus, but not necessarily happy that it is Gore.

“I’m kind of a skeptic of global warming and his agenda for different reasons. But he’s a big name and I think that’s good for the University,” freshman Michael Kruse said.

Others said they’re excited to hear Gore speak, as long as his lecture isn’t just a rehashing of “An Inconvenient Truth”—his Academy Award-winning film from 2006.

“I’m really excited about it,” sophomore Andrew Ridker said. “I’m excited for both the political and environmental perspectives he can bring—it’s kind of getting an all-in-one.”

Leaders of the College Democrats said that the former Vice President, Academy Award Winner and Nobel Peace Prize recipient would be an ideal speaker, appealing to a diverse audience by splitting his discussion between government and sustainability.

Students at the SU Treasury meeting generally spoke in favor of funding his speech, even while some disagreed with his political views.

“I also support this—even though I’m not the biggest fan of the guy,” said junior Joel Yambert, president of the College Republicans. “I think that this will bring a big social and political group of people…and I feel like it’s a great effort.”

The event, originally costing $149,850, was presented to SU Treasury at a reduced cost by negotiating the cost of Gore’s honorarium and obtaining funding from the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, the Gephardt Institute, CS40 and the Department of Political Science.

The final cost of Gore’s honorarium was $110,000, which covers both his flights and his speech.

College Democrats ultimately appealed for $94,350, all of which was funded except for the $2,000 reception planned to follow his speech.

At the meeting, SU Treasury also allocated money to bring four small-cost speakers to the University.

Gore was the only “big speaker” on the docket. Asian Multicultural Council dropped its appeal to bring author and journalist Fareed Zakaria to the University earlier this week.

“After writing the presentation [for SU], our group realized Fareed Zakaria wasn’t exactly what the Asian Multicultural Council wanted to push for this year,” speaker for the group, David Yang, said. “It was a very sudden drop; we spent pretty much three to five hours writing the appeal, and then we were like—wait, this doesn’t make sense.”

The group joined the Korean Students Association in presenting its appeal to fund a speech by Daphne Kwok, an advisor to President Barack Obama.

SU Treasury funded their appeal for $2,021. Treasury also allocated funds to GlobeMed for Dr. Joia Mukherjee, Engineers Without Borders for TV personality Deanne Bell and Reflections for motivational speaker Jess Weiner.

Those groups were allocated $10,721, $8,150 and $6,727, respectively. Alpha Epsilon Delta, the pre-medical honorary society, was allocated $100 to hold a student discussion with Dr. Arthur Kleinman, who is coming as part of the University’s Assembly Series.

The Washington University Law School’s Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic is representing the Labadie Environmental Organization (LEO) in its fight against construction of the landfill by Ameren, the primary electricity supplier in the region.

Students are also involved through groups like Green Action and have been lobbying, turning out to public hearings, petitioning and giving testimony against the landfill.

The landfill would collect coal ash from Ameren’s Labadie plant. Experts fear that the coal ash could enter the water supply if there is heavy flooding, since the landfill is slated to be built on a flood plain.

A 2010 report by Earth and Planetary Sciences professor Robert Criss found that there have been frequent heavy floods in the lower portion of the Missouri River, where the landfill has been proposed, since 1929.

“They are concerned that it is not a safe site to place this waste and that it would have a detrimental effect on their community,” said Maxine Lipiles, co-director of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic and Senior Lecturer in the law school.

Ameren has plans to prevent this water contamination and argues that the coal ash landfill would not cause any environmental damage.

The company plans to build a wall around the landfill to prevent flood water—up to three feet more than resulted from the 1993 floods—from coming in contact with the coal ash.

Mike Menne, Ameren’s Vice President of Environmental Services, said that using the landfill would actually be better than the current system of wet storage, in which the company dumps coal residue into ash ponds where the coal ash sinks to the bottom.

“We consider the design of the new facility to be state of the art,” Menne said. “This facility is far more protective of public health and the environment. It is an improvement.”

According to Menne, wet storage poses a greater risk than the coal ash landfill, in which the coal ash would be compressed into a concrete-like material, difficult for floodwater to wash away.

“We don’t think there is the potential for this to get downstream, but even if there is, there would be no risk to the drinking water supplies,” Menne said.

He says that the new landfill will meet Environmental Protection Agency requirements.

Senior and former Green Action President Peter Murrey said he was impressed by the involvement of the student body and the law school in this issue.

“I think it’s a really good thing that members of the law school are getting involved [in] this. It also speaks measures of the integrity of the student body that we’re concerned with the health of the region and that we’re not just concerned with what is cheapest or what is easiest for Wash. U.,” said Murrey.

According to Murrey, the landfill controversy should be a sign that the University should change its energy habits.

“As a university that is dependent on coal, we are in many ways responsible for this landfill being put in, so Wash. U. needs to seriously evaluate our energy choices because if we continue to rely on coal, things like Labadie will only continue to happen,” he said.

Franklin County, where the landfill would be located, does not currently permit landfills. Before Ameren can build the landfill, it will need the county to change its zoning requirements.

If such an ordinance is passed, Ameren hopes to open the landfill in 2014.

Ameren is a major gas and electricity provider for Missouri and Illinois.

The conference is organized by the Washington University Students for International Collaboration on the Environment (WUSICE). This organization was founded by Summer Jiakun Zhao, the current president, after her discussion with professor James Wertsch on the disappointing results achieved at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009.

Realizing the importance of the roles that China and United States play in the world, Zhao founded WUSICE with one primary mission: to establish the first student collaboration between American and Chinese undergraduates on environmental issues.

“The purpose of this conference is to create a bridge between students from America and China, with a focus on issues pertaining to Climate Change,” states the conference’s website.

The conference’s topics will include the energy histories of both the United States and China, current environmental policies, coal and renewable energy, individual environmental responsibility, corporate environmental responsibility, government environmental responsibility and international policy options leading up to the United Nations 2016 Conference on Climate Change (COP 16).

The conference will culminate in a mock COP 16 in early December in Cancun, Mexico. The students will represent either the U.S. or China, and will debate topics relating to climate change.

“By doing so, they can step into the shoes of the policy makers of the other country, thus fostering deeper mutual understanding of the two countries’ culture and perspectives,” said Anne Chen, WUSICE’s public relations representative.

Professor Wertsch, the sponsor of WUSICE, suggested Fudan as a good starting point of the conference because of the long and sound relationship that Wash. U. has maintained with Fudan University in China. The eleven Fudan student delegates have already been chosen.

“If any agreement were to be made on how to provide for a safe, healthy and sustainable environment for everyone to live in, cultural differences must be respected, and divisions must be resolved,” Chen said. “That is why we want to work with Fudan University students­—who are just as eager and excited to collaborate with us—on beginning to build this international student organization.”

Meanwhile, the eleven Wash. U. delegates have not yet been selected. The application process ends at 11 p.m. on Sept. 30. Interested students can find the application materials at wusice.wordpress.com

“We hope this program will create a broad student network, spark life-long relationships and collaboration and produce the international leaders that will lead to a sustainable future,” Chen said.

But how is the University actually faring on its quest toward sustainability? A recent ranking list released by the Sierra Club’s Sierra Magazine on Aug. 16 shows that the University ranks 43rd among other colleges and universities in the nation. Green Mountain College in Vermont, the University of Washington and Stanford University all rank higher.

The sustainability rankings are determined by 10 calculated factors, such as energy supply, efficiency, food and transportation. The University does well on the majority of these categories. The University received an eight out of the possible 10 in the “academics” for recent readjustments in the environmental studies program. The University also received a nine out of 10 for its commitment to improving transportation, specifically the bus and light-rail train systems through the promotion of the sales tax measure Proposition A, as well as improved bike lanes.

“I think the rankings demonstrate that we are very strong in some areas particularly food and transportation,” said junior Arielle Klagsbrun, president of Green Action. “It’s been really great to see Wash. U. improve over the past few years on those aspects, but the rankings also demonstrate that we have a lot to do on the part of our energy source.”

Indeed, the University’s energy source is its Achilles’ heel in the rankings. The University gets 76 percent of its energy from carbon-rich coal, only a slight improvement from the 83 percent that Missouri uses as a state. While 19 percent of the University’s energy is nuclear, that number pales in comparison to the numbers at the more nuclear-dependent colleges of the Northeast and the highly hydroelectric West Coast, which reflects in the Sierra Club rankings.

Klagsbrun also noted the University’s lack of transparency in its investments, worrying that the University is sinking money into coal companies like Peabody and Arch Coal. She was also concerned that CEOs from Ameren serve on the board of trustees.

“I think the next big barrier is making sure that we are not using a violent energy form,” Klagbrun said. “I think we have the potential as a leading research university and one of the best universities in the U.S. to be leaders in where we get out energy from and make sure that we are looking to renewables first.”

Senior Peter Murrey, another member of Green Action, encourages students to call on the University to make some “real change.” Murrey would like Wash. U. to become more of a voice in the St. Louis community for sustainability by making what he called necessary investments in renewable-energy research and initiatives. Murrey admits that while he is proud of the advances Wash. U. has made in many areas, he simply “cannot consider our school sustainable as long as we use coal,” calling the administration’s current energy plan “short-sighted.”

“While it’s great to save money and be clean at the same time, if we want to be morally right in this environmental crisis we will have to shell out more money, because the cheapest energy around sometimes isn’t morally right,” Murrey said. “If it emits carbon, it’s not right for the future.”

Neighborhood relations.

Last year, conflicts evolved between students living north of campus and their University City neighbors over a “zero tolerance” noise policy under which the University City Police Department issues a summons every time a police officer received a noise complaint. This summer, students have worked to make peace with their neighbors and reduce the number of citations and arrests, but the quarrel is by no means over. The role that the University will play in its resolution remains to be seen.

The environment.

Even as new LEED-certified buildings continue to be constructed, Wash. U.’s Board of Trustees contains leading executives from Peabody and Arch Coal, two major St. Louis-based players in coal production. This affiliation has proved to be a controversy among students, reaching a head last year when Student Union passed a resolution decrying the University’s leadership role in the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization. As a leading research university, Wash. U.’s stance on the environment has the power to affect not only the University itself, but St. Louis, our nation and our world.

Student and faculty diversity on campus.

Last year, Student Union brought to bear several initiatives that aim to promote increased student and faculty diversity. U/FUSED, a new multi-campus group, aims to promote socioeconomic diversity. The Diversity Affairs Council (DAC) aspires to allow the student body better to react to issues of prejudice. These initiatives are still in developing stages, and their assessment of and impact on campus diversity will continue to evolve next year.

The undergraduate experience at Wash. U.

Though it is by nature and definition a research university, Wash. U. devotes vast quantities of resources to improving the four-year experience for its undergraduates. With the construction of College Hall, the Residential College system may become a more fundamental aspect of campus life—and the ways in which the undergraduate community relates to the intellectual community of our faculty will continue to evolve.

Washington University in St. Louis?

This spring, a tobacco ban will take effect for both St. Louis City and St. Louis County, following already-enacted bans on Wash. U.’s campus and in the nearby suburb of Clayton. The ways in which students react to the campus tobacco ban will continue to develop, but perhaps more interestingly, Wash. U.’s influence on the community tobacco ban was large, representing a public health initiative driven by our medical school. Other agendas such as public transportation have been heavily promoted by the administration, and we have no doubt that Wash. U. will continue to interact politically with the St. Louis community next year.

Since its inception, global warming fanaticism has had nothing to offer the world but lower economic growth, guilt trips, alarmism, regulations and infringements on personal liberties. It is now clear that the carbon-regulated world desired by green advocates will never be a reality, and that their efforts to force their carbon-friendly environmental practices down the throats of the Washington University community are an utter waste of time and resources.

The real wake-up call for most Americans was the release of the Climategate e-mails. These e-mails, obtained by enterprising young hackers, showed scientists lamenting their inability to account for periods which lacked warming and conspiring to keep data out of the hands of skeptics. This sort of conniving is bad enough for the PR of the global warming movement, but things get worse when it has been shown that supporters of the movement have been propagating outright falsities.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s panel on climate change, has recently been caught verifying several wild exaggerations. First, the IPCC made the claim that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035, causing major ecological crises in the region. Next, the panel stated that up to 40 percent of the rainforests were in jeopardy due to increasing temperatures. Neither of these claims ended up being the product of peer-reviewed science research, but rather, of off-hand comments made in environmentalist magazines. Nonetheless, these propaganda pieces were allowed to have major effects on the public policy debate.

Furthermore, a series of inconvenient conflicts of interest have been revealed throughout the global warming alarmist community. Recent allegations have arisen that Dr. Rejendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, has held paid positions on various committees of financial institutions. While he claims that he donates all proceeds to his personal charity foundation, the lack of a conflict-of-interest policy for the IPCC panel leaves many wondering whose interests Dr. Pachauri is representing. Meanwhile, our friend Al Gore, owner of a private jet and one of the largest energy consumers in the state of Tennessee, has made millions from his global warming activism and from his personal carbon-credit company which he pushes as a solution to climate change. Right here in Missouri, the recipient of very lucrative tax credits to promote wind energy is none other than Tom Carnahan, brother of Congressman Russ and Secretary of State Robin. Major global warming and alternative energy advocates have been consistently proven to be interested in more than “cleaner” energy.

Whatever faith people had in climate change activists has long since evaporated. Yet, the goals of the fervent environmentalists never really had a chance of becoming law to begin with. As the Kyoto and Copenhagen climate summits demonstrate, it turns out that China and India are uninterested in sacrificing the sort of economic growth we have enjoyed in the United States in exchange for a vague promise of a potentially cooler climate in the distant future of generations not yet conceived. We can learn from the utter failure of the Cap and Tax Scheme in Congress that most Americans, already struggling with high energy costs, are unmoved by arguments stating that we need to be the first to sacrifice our lifestyle in an effort to reduce the world’s temperatures.

The possibility for global climate change legislation, if there ever was such a possibility, should be considered an idea as dead as the phlogistic theory of fire. So you can give us back our bottled water, cut out the local food fetish, take the propaganda off the garbage cans and let me wash my hands without being lectured about sustainability. These small changes come only from a desire to annoy and control other individuals, not from any sincere belief that they will have the slightest effect on the future of our global climate. I have no desire to partake in the religious conviction that we all must do a little part to change the climate regardless of the realities of global politics. Yet, I do understand others’ desire to participate in what they consider to be a moral obligation. Might I recommend you start by recycling the Obama stickers you all have on your cars? You probably won’t be needing those again anyways.

Phil is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at pchristofanelli@hotmail.com.

“I think it’s really exciting,” said senior Will Fischer, Student Union’s executive adviser for sustainability, leader of the Green Events Commission, and co-chair of the Special Executive Task Force for Sustainable Events. “It mirrors a nationwide increase in awareness of the idea of sustainability. I think it’s wonderful because I think universities need to pioneer the development of a more sustainable world. We are training the next generation of thinkers, scientists and engineers. It only makes sense that we follow what will be the big problems in our world.”

Many students nationwide are enthusiastic about the opportunity to engage academically in environmental issues.

“I don’t think there’s a significantly larger number of students who are interested in this here than at comparable universities,” Fischer said. “I feel like we’re pretty average in that concern. I think we’re feeling the interest a lot of universities are feeling right now.”

Student interest in “green” academic fields is rising due to the increased awareness of the importance of sustainability, according to Green Action President Peter Murrey.

“It’s really just an interest in the environment, realizing that we as a generation are at a crossroads,” said Murrey, a junior. “We are going to determine the future of how we interact with our planet. We need to be knowledgeable about how the planet works, how businesses work and how we, in general, impact our surroundings, and how the surroundings impact us as well.”

Additionally, the applicability of sustainability issues to a wide variety of fields makes it an appealing subject to study.

“[Environmental programs are] highly applicable to so many other disciplines: environmental economics, business, chemistry, philosophy,” Murrey said. “Students who traditionally had an interest in these fields and were interested in the environment before now couldn’t exercise that interest in the environment. But now they can broaden their horizons and incorporate the environment into these fields.”

At Washington University, there has been a marked increase in interest in environmentally focused classes over the past decade. The number of students enrolled in the environmental studies major, for example, has doubled over the past 10 years.

Many other departments are offering classes that incorporate environmental perspectives into other fields as well. For instance, in the political science department, students can take a course titled Environmental and Energy Issues. The engineering school offers courses on “Green Engineering.”

“Just about any class you can take is going to apply in some way to the environment,” Murrey said. “You can make your coursework fit a

Another reason students are choosing environmentally focused majors more than ever before is the demand in the workforce for employees with those skills. According to the AASHE, the Obama administration predicts that “green” jobs will grow by 52 percent from 2000 to 2016.

“I hope that in the next couple of years we will see growth in what we want to call the ‘green economy,’ and the idea of ‘green collar’ jobs,” Fischer said. “Hopefully, that ideal will start to really show itself, and jobs and positions all around the world will start to open up to people of all sorts of fields in developing renewable technologies, implementing renewable technologies [and] driving policy decisions. While it seems like a trend right now, it seems like a fad, I’m confident that it’s here to stay.”

“I think overall, it is a good plan—but not outstanding,” said junior Peter Murrey, president of Green Action.

Students approved of the University’s plan to use more plants native to Missouri in its landscaping.

“I think that’s one of the most ridiculous things on this campus, the degree to which we force some image upon the earth when we really should be letting native plants grow and contribute to Missouri pride and atmosphere,” Murrey said.

Students also lauded the University’s goal to reduce single-occupant vehicles coming to campus by 10 percent by the year 2012, as well as its commitment to public transportation. The reduction in landfill waste was another goal that was praised.

One major point of student criticism lay in the University’s energy policies.

“I’m disappointed on the lack of emphasis on renewable [energy],” Murrey said. “I think it has been misconstrued on how adequate solar [energy] can operate in our region and there hasn’t been enough examination of geothermal possibilities. I think we are bounded by how cheap our electricity here is and we need to ask ourselves, ‘Are we taking into account the true costs of the energy we are being provided?’ because most of this energy is from coal.”

Currently, the University’s electricity provider, Ameren, provides electricity for 4 cents per kilowatt-hour. Because the cost of electricity is so inexpensive, it makes it difficult find a solution that is economically sustainable for the University. Murrey pointed out that there are external costs associated with using coal. But since the University uses a standard traditional capitalist model, external costs are not taken into account, he said.

But the biggest problem for many students was in the goals for greenhouse gas emissions. The University plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 27 percent from 2009 levels.

“That is not adequate in the face of climate change, which the University has acknowledged as a very serious problem,” Murrey said.

Senior Melissa Legge, who facilitates the meetings for Student Green Council, said that she was worried that these goals were too conservative.

“This is our chance to reach for something, and if all of the goals that we’ve set are 100 percent achievable and we know that right now, then where is the room for innovation?” Legge said. “Where is the dream?”

Executive Vice Chancellor for Administration Henry Webber addressed this concern by saying that the University’s strategy is “incremental.”

“We asked ourselves, ‘What’s the most impressive thing that we know we can do if we pushed really hard, didn’t buy carbon offsets and didn’t rely on technology that doesn’t exist?’” Webber said.

Webber said that the current plan is only a draft and that it is a living document that can be changed with input.

“This is the community’s plan,” he said. “I think that the community needs to be comfortable that we’re setting the right goals. Also, there are a set of very important actions that the community has to engage in.”

According to Webber, they have already received several hundred comments, which have been “overwhelmingly supportive” of the plan.

Those who wish to offer input on the plan should attend one of the forums that are taking place through next week or e-mail sustainability@wustl.edu.