The College Environment

One question that keeps coming up in my mind as to my studies with this Africa Mosaic,is my own involvement in contributing to the GHG emissions of the world. While having the privilege to study international climate negotiations in-depth is not possible for a majority of the public with jobs and other full-time commitments, I realize that I am extremely priveged and fortunate in this sphere. I go to a good liberal arts college which affords me the opportunity and focus to do such a thing. However, merely studying the impacts of carbon emissions outside my privileged “scholarly bubble” feels, well, unfulfilling.

So the question I wish to discuss is how and why this “bubble” shapes some of the environmental choices I am able to make in my four years at Dickinson. As an Environmental Studies major, these behaviors should continue past my graduation from the school, but I feel these decisions will be increasingly more difficult to fulfill. The student of this school should realize that they have been blessed with an above average infrastructure for implementing many of the behaviors we do and, I fell, take for granted.

For example, Dickinson has an outstanding and well-recognized Center for Sustainability Education right on our own campus which has pushed forward “green” initiatives such as, but not limited to, our extensive recycling and compost program, the Dickinson College farm (certified organic), the building of LEED-certified building, the prevalent biking culture on our campus, ALLARM, and one of our largest majors on campus: Environmental Studies and Science.

I am always stuck by the breadth of this infrastructure, when I return home from school, and find the nearest compost pile more than an apple core’s throw away, or whenI bring up the number of people than drive half a milk to pick up a gallon of milk, rather than the presence of bikers on my streets. While, I obviously make the same attempts at home (walking whenever possible, composting, buying certain goods used, etc.) as I do at school, the culture in which I find myself doing these things is DEFINETELY not as accepting or contributing in a similar fashion!

But really can one blame them? In our modern American society, there is clearly no overarching infrastructure similar to Dickinson’s which makes easy and convient such things as cycling places or composting food scrapes—the individual must seek these out themselves, most of the time countering what everyone else is doing.

I didn’t really think of structures for “green behavior” until I realized that the social culture at Dickinson is such that NOT participating can often times get you looks of judgement from other students. You didn’t compost that banana peel? Your showers are HOW long??? The list of similar actions goes on.

So, ultimately, my question is one of environment: Am I making less of an impact on while studying in my “collegiate bubble” than out in the “real world” devoid of a “green infrastructure?” Well, the answer is a resounding “I’m not sure.”

Of course I take the quintessential three minute military shower, compost my fruit peels, recycle my papers, walk every on campus, and participate in many environmental actions on campus, but I also have been blessed with most of this culture being already set-up and provided for me! When compared to the actions of individuals outside this system, YES I am practicing more sustainable actions—but how REAL is it, when I’ve been placed in this alternate culture, where that is the acceptable thing.

I guess what I’m trying to emphasize is that each individual must assess the culture they find themselves in at any given time and question how their actions measure compared to other cultures. This provides a broader perspective about the world around them. so question, how are my actions related to those of an individual in another country with historically lower emissions What am I doing differently than that individual? What can I do to change that? How can I gain an even larger global perspective about my place in the world? It is these questions that push change forward!