It’s Getting Hot In Here

Originally posted at LeadEnergy.org

This week, the youth energy and climate movement achieved a victory when Johns Hopkins University — one of the largest research universities in the world — announced a major new climate and energy plan, resulting in large part from student activism and leadership.

Announced by JHU President Ron Daniels, the plan includes (1) a $73 million energy investment to cut university carbon pollution over 50% below projected levels by 2025, (2) a new Environment, Sustainability, and Health Institute to promote new research and education in climate, energy, and sustainability, (3) a new Master’s Degree in Energy Policy and Climate, and more.

“Global climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges,” declared President Daniels in his statement. “Facing this challenge head-on is our shared responsibility, especially as residents of the developed world. But universities have a special role in our society and a special responsibility. We are institutions that discover, that educate and that, often, set an example. When it comes to global climate change, Johns Hopkins will be a leader in all three.”

The plan results from recommendations by the JHU President’s Task Force on Climate Change, formed by former President Brody largely in response to student activism by the Hopkins Energy Action Team (HEAT) in 2007.  HEAT began as a handful of energy activists, and over the course of a year, it grew to represent over 20 student groups, 2500 students, and dozens of faculty, constituting one of the largest concerted student movements in Hopkins history. As a former JHU student and class president, I had the honor of co-founding and directing HEAT with my colleague Blake Hough, and I served on the Task Force to help develop its recommendations, which included the former JHU Provost and current U.S. Under Secretary of Energy at the Department of Energy, Dr. Kristina Johnson.

After the completion of the Task Force recommendations in March 2009, students responded with a large sign-on letter to express their support to President Daniels. “We are writing to urge you to drastically accelerate Johns Hopkins’ movement toward sustainability and expand our efforts to mitigate global climate change and build a clean energy economy,” they wrote. “Leading society to live sustainably and reverse global climate change is a task that fits squarely into the university’s educational, research, and public service missions. Hopkins cannot remain a leading world university in the 21st century without addressing this defining global challenge—and we stand only to gain by acting now.”

These efforts, and the overall Johns Hopkins climate and energy plan, can serve as a model for other universities and colleges around the country. Higher education has critical role to play in accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy. Universities perform 56 percent of the nation’s basic research, a fundamental building block of the technological innovation necessary to make clean energy cheap.   They are the training ground for the next generation of scientists, engineers, teachers, and leaders in government and industry. And universities and colleges are the launching ground for numerous entrepreneurial ventures to bring those innovations to the marketplace.

Today, faced with the defining challenges of climate change and the global clean energy race, students must work with their college administrators to secure greater educational resources related to clean energy technology and policy, including better curriculum, professors, classroom and laboratory resources, career development opportunities, support for student entrepreneurship, and research. Every significant institution of higher education in the country should have an energy-related institute that incubates cutting-edge education, research, and innovation. Students are flocking to schools with the best clean-tech programs, and university administrations are increasingly paying attention.

The federal government must also implement a higher education strategy for clean energy innovation and education, including an effort on par with the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which invested billions in education to help regain U.S. leadership in science and technology after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik.  That is why an alliance of student and youth-led groups has launched the ReEnergyse Campaign to mobilize and empower young people to advance the Obama administration’s RE-ENERGYSE education proposal through Congress in 2010. RE-ENERGYSE needs a strong base of support to pass Congress, and as the primary stakeholders in the program, young people can be particularly influential in organizing a coalition of supporters and directly voicing their concerns to members of Congress.

As American students, we can change the course of our institutions and communities.  We can change the course of our nation.  And at this moment of challenge, we can achieve the energy revolution our world needs.