Our intellectual challenge

When Kermit sings “It’s not that easy being green,” we can commiserate.

I asked Bill Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment, about feelings of environmental burnout. Although he flat-out admitted to having little real sense of the mood on campus, he noted that burnout is a problem in general. “It’s definitely true that the public has a hard time keeping their attention on a given issue for a significant amount of time, and I worry about that a lot,” he said.

Not only do we face burnout, but Chameides also explained that a contradiction exists between our intellectual commitment to being green and the way we act. Even the most intellectually committed environmentalists grapple with these contradictions.

A Feb. 13 Wall Street Journal article titled “Even Boulder finds it isn’t easy going green” painted a picture of this tricky challenge. I mentioned the self-professed environmentally progressive town in my last column, noting that the city provides curbside composting.

Turns out, they might just be a good indicator of the quantifiably uphill battle proponents of environmental sustainability face. According to the article, Boulder has a Climate Action Plan and citizens voted to levy the country’s first carbon tax in 2006. Residents bike to work in large numbers and many voluntarily pay a premium on energy to support wind power.

Between 2006 and 2008, however, the city’s carbon emissions decreased by about 1 percent. Not exactly an impressive statistic for a town bent on being a role model.

“I believe that part of the problem that we’re having is that we are typically talking to people about the environment as an intellectual, rational issue, and people are reacting to things much more emotionally,” Chameides told me. “I think that to some extent, what needs to happen is people need to be getting a message that’s on a more emotional level about the world.”

The people in Boulder may have that world-friendly message, but they’re still buying 65-inch flat screen televisions, along with a power strip to make sure the TV doesn’t sip power while it’s off, according to the Journal. Whether those two decisions equate is perhaps less obvious.

Chameides drives a hybrid, turns the heat way down and wishes he could be a vegetarian, but doesn’t see giving up air travel any time soon, as he said travel is part of his job.

Trask has always been interested in historic renovation, and he’s moved to a renovated warehouse downtown to cut down his commute, but he still drives to campus because there is no bus. After a pause, he said he also recycles, but he mentions it skeptically, as if it should be obvious.

It would seem that on the one hand, individuals can make meaningful and obvious choices, while on the other hand, the same individuals accept as inevitable another decision or lost opportunity.

From this, we can conclude that Duke must be poised through its individual leaders to fight environmental burnout and tackle the contradictions.

“One of the things that attracted me to Duke is knowledge in the service of society,” Chameides told me. “That means a variety of things, but it also means that we need to walk the talk about serving society. And I think that issues of the environment, issues of global warming, issues of sustainability, even energy security, are issues that are really important for society, and we need to step up to the plate.”

It’s an intellectual argument. It’s also a tall order if the experiences of the city of Boulder, Colo. are anything to go by. But if we can agree to it, that’s at least a start, and a challenge to our intellectual community.

Liz Bloomhardt is a third-year graduate student in mechanical engineering. Her column runs every other Thursday.