Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxliv, no. 24 | Wednesday, February25, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Green initiatives gain steam
Activities fee going up by $6
dar w in so m e , yo u lose so m e
Budget crunch won’t stop plans to make the U. more sustainable
By Sophia Li Features Editor
By Brian Mastroianni Senior Staff Writer
Leaders of Climate Action Plan initiatives and officials from Facilities Management are continuing their goals to make Brown more sustainable, despite the University’s budget squeeze. Since the release of the 2007 Energy and Environmental Advisory Council report, Brown has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions footprint by 7.7 percent. The report showed that Brown’s total greenhouse gas footprint is 82,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, with 46,000 tons emitted from on-site burning of fossil fuels and 36,000 tons from electricity. “Those findings two years ago really jumpstarted a big student movement centered on carbon neutrality,” said Michael Glassman ’09, a member of Community Carbon Use Reduction at Brown. CCURB started as a pilot program in 2007 funded by a $350,000 pledge by the Office of President Ruth Simmons and the Sidney E. Frank Foundation, as well as an additional $50,000 from Wal-Mart. As a result of the various CCURB initiatives, Brown was able to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions footprint. The 7.7 percent reduction is the first step in reaching a total reduction of 42 percent by 2020, said Kurt Teichert, manager of environmental stewardship initiatives. Teichert said CCURB’s effort to make Brown a more energy-efficient university is a continuation of the environmentally friendly trends that have been a part of the campus culture for decades. “Since the early ’90s, Brown has had the Brown is Green initiative — as a result, we’ve always used less energy than our peer institutions,” Teichert said. “Throughout the years we had an Energy and Government Advisory Committee, an Energy Task Force — all of those early initiatives all led to the mindset of, ‘What can we do to establish longterm goals?’” CCURB engaged in several student-run projects, such as Project 20/20, where students and faculty installed high-efficiency lightbulbs in 5,000 low-income Providence homes, Teichert said.
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Professor of Biology Kenneth Miller ’70 P’02 moderated a panel on evolution and religion Tuesday.
Econ. profs discuss financial crisis By Colin Chazen Senior Staff Writer
Three economics professors sounded off on the economy and the federal stimulus bill Tuesday afternoon before a large audience in Salomon 001. Professors of Economics Peter Howitt, Ross Levine and David Weil ’82 each spoke for around 15 minutes, discussing their views on the stimulus package and sharing their overall outlooks for the economy. All three took part in a similar panel discussion in October following the passage of a $700 billion government bailout of the
financial sector. Howitt noted that last fall he called this financial crisis the worst since the Great Depression. “That was when the Dow Jones was still above 10,000,” he said. “Things are a lot worse now.” But he noted that economic crises like the current one have been regular occurrences since the late 19th century. “This fits the pattern of a big speculative run-up,” he said. “The core of the problem is simply that a lot of these assets should never have been purchased in the first place.” Howitt compared the current crisis to past ones and explained
what they tell us to expect in the years ahead. For example, similar crises preceded by speculative bubbles were followed by four to six years of stagnation before housing prices recovered, he said. He said he believed that government interventions, like the stimulus bill, are necessary responses to these large crises and that the government’s failure to act immediately exacerbated the downturn that led to the Great Depression. “Even Adam Smith realized there were limits to what he continued on page 2
The student activities fee will increase by $6 next year, part of a University budget the Corporation approved on Saturday. The small increase, which will bring the mandatory fee for all students up to $170, will generate an estimated $34,000 in additional annual funding, according to the University Resources Committee. Projected inflation and growth in the number of student groups account for the fee’s increase, said Ryan Lester ’11, student activities chair of the Undergraduate Council of Students. Last year, the fee increased $18. The student activities fee funds oncampus events run through the Student Activities Office, which includes everything from Spring Weekend to the Human Rights film festival, Lester said. Lester and his committee wrote a resolution in the middle of last semester to ask the URC to increase the fee. Though the original resolution requested an increase of $8, Lester said the URC decided to take into account overall student charges and limit the fee’s increase. Lester said UCS is trying to formalize the process of lobbying the URC to increase the student activities fee. “Over the past two years, we’ve really tried to be involved,” he said. Ideally, the fee “should adjust for inflation every year,” Lester said. UCS is currently working on an initiative with the University to endow the Student Activities Fund and to someday eliminate the fund.
Protest stalls NYU The group blocked the doors to the dining room with tables and chairs and pledged to stay inside Roughly 65 students from New until a list of 13 demands was met. York University and nearby col- The demands included public releges, all affiliated with a campaign lease of NYU’s budget and endowcalled “Take Back NYU,” barri- ment figures, student representacaded themselves in tion on the school’s the John Ben Snow board of trustees, HIGHER ED scholarships for dining room at the university’s Kimmel Center for Palestinian students, tuition staUniversity Life for about 40 hours blization, universal public access last week. to the school’s main library and The protest, which began last amnesty for those involved with Wednesday and ended Friday, has the protest. led to the suspension of eighteen “What really united the list of students, and none of the group’s continued on page 6 various demands were met.
By Ellen Cushing Senior Staff Writer
Courtesy of Alexis Johnson / Washington Square News
Protestors took over New York University’s Kimmel Center for University Life.
News, 3
Sports, 7
Opinions, 11
better odds Applications for Residential Peer Leader positions are down despite new perks.
Bad n.y. times The women’s basketball team dropped two games on the road in New York.
stay out of jail free Dan Davidson ’11 says a conviction should be required for any jail time.
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