I consider myself a pretty eco-friendly person who loves to preach about conservation, sustainability and all that good stuff. So when I stumbled back to my room a couple nights ago to find it deserted and lit up like the Fourth of July, I was ready to give my roommate a long tirade about how he was destroying our precious planet. But then it dawned on me that I had been the last one to leave the room. Oops.
In my defense, it was an isolated incident that hopefully will never happen again. It raises a larger question, however, about how truly committed we are towards combating environmental issues. Overall, everyone seems to talk the talk. It is extremely difficult to find someone on this campus who doesn't agree that global warming is becoming a serious problem, that there should be alternatives to burning fossil fuels or that we should recycle and conserve our resources. But how many people are actually committed to walking the walk?
When I first came to Dartmouth, I was really impressed with people's dedication to saving the environment. From the whole "if it's yellow let it mellow" thing going on at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge to all the sustainability blitzes that make it seem like there are more "eco" events happening than there are fraternity parties, the College does seem to live up to its nickname of the Big Green. Striving to spread this greenness are myriad student groups, including the Council on Climate Change, the Big Green Bus and the Sustainable Living Center, where the toilets are indeed yellow. The administration even has an office devoted to the Dartmouth Sustainability Initiative, and former College President James Wright last year committed to a greenhouse gas reduction timetable.
Yet, despite all these efforts, the Sustainable Endowments Institute recently downgraded the school's sustainability rating from an A- to a B+ ("College Sustainability Rating Declines to B+," Oct. 22). While the decline primarily had to do with administrative factors like green building and endowment transparency, students are not without fault when it comes to the challenges that the College faces in becoming more sustainable. Hidden beneath the shadow of intrepid green-group members willing to live with smelly bathrooms for the good of the planet are the students who are not as enthusiastic to make such a commitment.
As eco-friendly as Dartmouth seems on the surface, it appears that the general mass of the student body myself included falls into this latter category. Although we care deeply about the future of our planet, and were inspired to do everything that the credits of "An Inconvenient Truth" told us to do, we simply cannot resist the comfort of using the dryer, having a mini-fridge in our rooms, taking long, hot showers, eating at Food Court instead of Home Plate and turning our thermostats to a nice 75 degrees in the winter. Every time we go to the McLaughlin Cluster and watch the polar bears drown from our energy use, we feel bad, but we just can't seem to change our wasteful habits.
Contributing to sustainability, however, does not have to mean imposing a dramatic change on our lifestyles. In the ideal world, it would be possible to convince people to reevaluate every aspect of their lives and change those that are wasteful or harmful to the environment. But humans are creatures of habit, and such lofty goals are simply unrealistic. The key is to find and commit to doing the small things that are not difficult to achieve. There are still far too many people who don't turn their lights off when they leave their rooms (yes, I'm not the only one), who throw away things that could easily be recycled and who use plastic utensils and cups when reusable ones are just a short reach away. None of these actions requires any significant effort, and yet, if everyone committed to them, it would be a long stride towards greater sustainability. Granted, accomplishing these small measures will come nowhere close to solving all our environmental issues, but as the old proverb goes, a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. While some are already far along on their paths towards living sustainably, the rest of us need to start somewhere. That somewhere is taking these small steps and reminding others to do the same. And yes, that can mean yelling at your roommate as long as he's the one at fault.
