The Skyline Newspaper

View of campus and Alpine from Hancock Hill. 
Photo by MaryAshley P. Gredell

Higher Ed. and Climate Change

By MaryAshley P. Gredell
Skyline Reporter

If the attendees of a conference held last November get their wish, the Sul Ross campus should be looked up to by the community for more than its lofty perch up on the mountainside.

The National Council for Science and the Environment held a summit meeting entitled “Higher Education in Texas Confronts the Climate Change Challenge,” in Houston. Sul Ross was represented by Dr. Kevin Urbanczyk of the Earth and Physical Sciences Department and the Rio Grande Research Center.

More than half of Texas universities participated in the interest of answering a few broad-scale questions, examining impacts in the community, statewide, and on a global level. How should Texas universities respond to the increasingly prevalent question of climate change?  What should institutions be teaching about “global warming,” pro or con? And should a university or college extend its efforts to face global climate change to the surrounding cities and towns?

“A general idea that emerged, and one that I strongly agree with, was that higher education institutions should be models for the local community in terms of general green practices, like recycling, energy use reduction and water conservation,” said Urbanczyk after his experience at the conference.

“These are basic activities that we as inhabitants of the earth should be concerned with anyway, regardless of our belief - or lack thereof - in climate change.”

Such modeling behaviors could be extremely impactful for small communities dominated by campus life and activity (i.e. Alpine). Though perched at the very end of the middle-of-nowhere, figuratively, and far away from the smog or crowded streets usually associated with a climate crisis, the Big Bend region owes its notoriety and enjoyability to its beautiful and uncivilized-feeling landscape.

Campus organizations such as the Society for Conservation Biology and the Range and Wildlife Club help fuel the efforts of students with concern for the natural world, but a campus-wide initiative has yet to emerge. Attendees of the Houston conference aim to change that by finding ways to alter how educational institutions are run, serving as a practicing model of environmental efficiency for the businesses and people surrounding and supporting the campus.

“There was a general agreement that regardless of one’s opinion about the reality of climate change, we needed to promote awareness about the issues and the data supporting or refuting it,” said Urbanczyk.  “It should not be considered a bipartisan issue; instead, everyone should be informed and be able to make his or her their own decision.”

The movement to a “green” campus is here in small pockets, but often quiet enough to be ignored by the average student. What will it take to get a university of around 2,000 students to show a town of 5,000 residents how to most efficiently thrive in congruence with the planet?

“You’ve got to create a shared vision,” said Rawles Williams, a research facilitator at the Rio Grande Research Center. “What does the future look like? What can we do? Then you bring that home to the campus. How much rainwater runs off the roof of Sul Ross? What about rainwater collection for our flush toilets and landscaping? What are the things we  can do; what does it cost, what does it mean?”

Thanks to environmentally-minded individuals in high places on the academic ladder, campuses in Texas may put a little more thought and time into the questions raised by climate change. By doing that, they could set the standard for the rest of Texas itself.