To the Editor:
I've been disappointed in the vocal and narrow-minded responses to Dartmouth's decision to hire a sustainability director that have been published lately.
Susan Noel ("Sustainability Director a Joke," May 3) and Randall McFarlane ("Maybe a Budget Director, Instead...," May 4) both assume that Dartmouth is throwing its money away by hiring Jim Merkel. On the contrary, Yale, Brown, Middlebury, University of North Carolina and the University of Michigan have all found that their sustainability staff are actually profitable, saving more than their salaries by reducing waste and boosting efficiency.
In 2002, Dartmouth spent $3.96 million on oil to burn for heating, $2.3 million on purchased electricity and $365,000 on trash removal. A five percent reduction in any one of these areas would more than pay for an entry-level administrator's salary. Simply for economic reasons, Dartmouth should have hired someone to improve its efficiency long ago.
Further, as an institution that prides itself on community, Dartmouth pays shamefully small consideration to the impact our lifestyle has on the global community. It is absolutely painful to hear students (and parents) complaining about being waitlisted for an economics course as they dine on pesticide-laden, out-of-season food trucked across the country with fossil fuels and served on bleached paper and petroleum products.
Students have no incentive from the administration to save water, gas or electricity or to reduce our solid waste. Recycling in the dorms is done by student volunteers because administration refuses to negotiate with custodial unions to have it removed with the garbage after it is sorted. Meanwhile, the Office of Residential Life pays for custodial service in private bathrooms. Don't even get me started on the pristine valleys and canyons that have been dammed so that aluminum smelters can sit next to hydropower plants, churning out the beer cans that pass fleetingly through Hanover on their way to a landfill.
From what I understand, the preschoolers at Dartmouth Day Care can separate and compost their own food waste. Dartmouth students had our composting bins taken away last year after being consistently unable to separate plastic from paper and food. If the trash and toxic emissions that result from our daily lives were trapped in our Dartmouth bubble with us, perhaps Dartmouth wouldn't need a sustainability coordinator to help us see and remedy the damage we are doing.
But our current system is imbalanced, unsustainable and inefficient. Noel is right that the economics department needs to add to its course listings. May I suggest that all of Dartmouth take a class in True Cost Economics?
