C

limate 
activists 
can 
usually 
remember the moment they real-
ized the magnitude of the ecologi-
cal problem humanity faces.
Ten years ago, Noah Weaverdyck, cur-
rently a doctoral student in physics at the 
University of Michigan and a member of 
Climate Action Movement, an environmen-
tal policy organization on campus, attended 
an environmental advocacy event at Goshen 
College. He had heard about climate change 
and its supposed dangers, but didn’t know 
much else. He decided to attend the event 
and listen to the featured speaker’s presen-
tation with an open mind.
The speaker was Bill McKibben, a 
renowned author and perhaps the most 
influential environmentalist in the coun-
try. McKibben recounted his experiences 
suffering through dengue fever, a painful 
and potentially fatal disease spread by mos-
quitoes whose habitats have expanded due 
to global warming. McKibben used this to 
underscore the global nature of the threat 
posed by climate change. Weaverdyck was 
struck by the certainty of this threat and the 
supreme importance of fighting it.
“That was what queued me into the real-
ity that this is the biggest thing that’s hap-
pening and has ever happened in terms of 
challenges facing humanity,” Weaverdyck 
said.
This is a perspective shared by scientists 
and activists around the world. There is a 
strong consensus in the scientific communi-
ty that the significant global warming of the 
last 150 years is both caused by human activ-
ity and preventable through the efforts of 
governments and individuals. This warming 
is caused by an overage of greenhouse gases 

in Earth’s atmosphere. These gases trap the 
sun’s energy in the atmosphere and warm 
the earth, an effect which normally keeps 
the planet habitable for life, but now threat-
ens to overheat it and irreparably harm the 
ecosystems on its surface.
A major goal in combating climate change 
is thus the reduction of greenhouse gas 
emissions into the atmosphere. American 
universities have made pledges in the last 
two decades to reduce their emissions and 
build permanent sustainable systems that 
will both reduce their impact on the envi-
ronment and provide resources to other 
communities and organizations to follow 
their lead.
The University of Michigan, however, 
has faced some criticism from students 
and faculty for lagging behind institutions 
with similar resources and academic stand-
ing. While the University has improved its 
environmental stature and made laudable 
efforts to build a more sustainable school, 
other Big Ten universities and elite research 
institutions have set more ambitious goals 
and made further progress in fighting cli-
mate change than the University.
Stanford University, for example, has 
been remarkably proactive when it comes to 
climate policy. The institution has commit-
ted to using 100 percent renewable energy 
by 2021 and is currently building its second 
solar power plant in order to meet that goal. 
Additionally, Ohio State University, histori-
cally Michigan’s biggest rival, has some of 
the most ambitious environmental policies 
of any school in the Big Ten. Its administra-
tion has pledged to cut its emissions by 50 
percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050 as 
well as achieve a zero waste system by 2025.

When asked how the University compares 
to such other schools, Andrew Berki, the 
director of the Office of Campus Sustain-
ability, said environmental policy should be 
evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
“Each school has a different approach 
to reducing its impact on the environment 
because each has different circumstances,” 
Berki wrote in an email interview with The 
Daily. “U-M involves a broad range of stake-
holders in the goal-setting and decision-
making process, which is important at our 
institution.”
It should be noted that the University 
does face several unavoidable challenges 
that make climate progress more difficult 
than at other schools. For example, the Uni-
versity administration has noted that Ann 
Arbor exists in a more extreme climate than 
both Stanford and Ohio State — its facilities 
require significantly more heating and cool-
ing energy to keep people safe and comfort-
able. The University, along with individual 
state residents, is also required by state law 
to use electricity from the local utility grid, 
which is more carbon-intensive than most 
others in the nation. The University invol-
untarily inherits the environmental impact 
of this electricity.
However, seeing the progress of these 
other institutions and spurred by the 
increasingly apparent dangers of climate 
change, concerned students and faculty have 
been pushing the University to make greater 
strides in its environmental policy. The most 
prominent campus advocacy group in recent 
months has been the Climate Action Move-
ment, a group of undergraduate and gradu-
ate students that was founded last year by 
LSA junior Julian Hansen.

CAM is now composed of several dozen 
students with considerable involvement 
in the campus environmental commu-
nity. These students are at the center of an 
increasingly urgent debate among activ-
ists, faculty and administrators over how 
to effectively combat climate change in 
higher education. Most members are part of 
other climate organizations, including Cli-
mate Blue, the Climate Reality Project, the 
Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Students for Clean 
Energy, the Sunrise Movement and under-
graduate environmental fraternities and 
sororities.
According to Sasha Bishop, a doctoral 
student in ecology and evolutionary biol-
ogy and a member of CAM, this wealth of 
experience informs much of CAM’s work; 
members make recommendations for policy 
and advocate for specific causes based on 
the expertise its members have gathered in 
their years of involvement in environmental 
activism. Bishop believes this is one of the 
core strengths of CAM and a reason for its 
considerable presence despite its relative 
youth.
Weaverdyck said a significant portion 
of CAM’s work has simply been spreading 
awareness about the University’s climate 
policies and their potential shortcom-

ings. Weaverdyck believes that most stu-
dents overestimate the University’s level of 
involvement because of its self-identification 
as a leader in higher education and scientific 
achievement.
“We need to raise a lot of awareness,” 
Weaverdyck said. “A lot of people assume 
that U-M, as this progressive campus, one of 
the world’s leading research institutions — 
people just assume that U of M is at the top 
when it comes to emissions reductions and 
being proactive. But that’s not the case.”
According to Weaverdyck, one of the 
biggest challenges for climate policy is the 
reluctance of the University leadership to 
set concrete goals as the administrators of 
other prominent universities have.
“When the leadership comes forward and 
sets a public goal — that’s what’s needed 
to get the huge machinery of a university 
to start moving and working together to 
achieve those goals,” Weaverdyck said.
For this reason, CAM has campaigned 
heavily for a firm commitment to carbon 
neutrality by 2035. Members have created 
a petition, published criticisms of the Uni-
versity’s policies and made appearances at 
the University’s Board of Regents meetings. 
After several months of lobbying and activ-
ism, the administration made a commitment 

to take action, and on Feb. 4, University 
President Mark Schlissel launched a com-
mission tasked with developing timelines 
and strategies for the University to achieve 
carbon neutrality.
However, members of the campus envi-
ronmental 
community 
have 
expressed 
concerns that the commission will not be 
effective in solving the problem. To explain 
their worries, Weaverdyck and Bishop cited 
the example of the President’ Greenhouse 
Gas Reduction Committee.
This committee was similarly formed to 
reduce the University’s carbon footprint 
in 2011, and it delivered a non-binding 
reportwith several recommendations in the 
summer of 2015. The University has made 
progress on several of the goals, including 
an upgrade to the Central Power Plant and 
plans to purchase renewable energy credits, 
which would allow the University to pay for 
the creation of renewable energy elsewhere. 
However, these plans still include extensive 
use of fossil fuels and no plans for future 
renewable energy sources on campus.
“We are currently implementing many 
of the GHG committee’s recommendations, 
including the Central Power Plant natu-
ral gas turbine; continued investment in 
the Energy Management Program, which 

focuses on energy conservation within some 
U-M buildings; on-campus demonstration 
projects; and renewable energy purchases,” 

Berki said.
Bishop and Weaverdyck also expressed 
worried about a perceived lack of account-
ability for the commission, again drawing 
parallels to the Greenhouse Gas Reduc-
tion Committee. They believe a firm com-
mitment from University leadership at the 
outset is the only way 
to ensure that prog-
ress will be made in the 
near future.
“It’s death by com-
mittee,” 
Weaverdyck 
said. “That’s something 
that we really can’t 
afford given the time-
line that the science 
makes clear. We can’t 
afford to lose another 
few 
years 
debating 
what the target is.”
Adam Simon, a pro-
fessor in the Earth and 
Environmental Scienc-
es Department, shares 
this 
concern. 
Simon 
has been a member of 
the Greenhouse Gas 
Reduction Committee 
since the summer of 
2017. He believes the 
committee has been 
able to do some produc-
tive work despite a few 
shortcomings.
“It was overall a posi-
tive experience,” Simon 
said. 
“There 
were 
certainly some times 
when I felt frustrated 
by what, to me, seemed 
like a slowness to react 
among the committee 
members.”
For instance, Simon 
was glad the committee 
met last year with the 
director of Renewable 

Energy at DTE Energy, which is a Detroit-
based energy company that runs the grid 
on which the city of Ann Arbor is situated. 
But he was sur-
prised 
to 
find 
out the commit-
tee 
had 
never 
done so before, 
describing 
the 
collaboration as 
a 
“no-brainer” 
that should have 
been 
started 
years previously.
Despite 
such 
delays, 
Simon 
praised members 
of the commit-
tee for initiating 
the relationship 
with DTE and 
cited it as an 
example of the 
kind of environmental work the University 
needs to be doing moving forward. In his 
view, it will be absolutely necessary to bring 
in outside expertise to accelerate the work 
of the Commission on Carbon Neutrality.
“I hope that (the Commission on Carbon 
Neutrality) does exactly what we need it to 
do, which is to reach out to people in the real 
world who do this for a living and figure out 
how we can partner with private industry 
to make carbon neutrality a reality,” Simon 
said.
Simon has also expressed particular 
concern about the University’s 2011 goal of 
reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 
percent by 2025 — which, remeber, is a goal 
among the least ambitious in the Big Ten. As 
of 2018, the University has achieved only a 
7 percent reduction from the 2006 baseline 
measurement.
The impending upgrade to the Central 
Power Plant is expected to reduce emis-
sions further, to around 12 or 13 percent. 
Right now, the University buys roughly 
two thirds of its energy from DTE Energy. 
The other third is produced by the Central 
Power Plant. Once the plant is upgraded, the 
University will produce about half of its own 
energy.
The Greenhouse Gas Committee’s report 
stated this upgrade is the single largest 
contributor toward meeting the emissions 
reduction goal. But the report also noted 
the upgrade ties the University to fossil 
fuels for at least another two decades, and 
likely more. Natural gas still has a notable 
environmental impact due to the emissions 
involved in its use.
Emissions are often organized into three 
categories, called scope 1, scope 2 and scope 
3. Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions 
from owned sources. Scope 2 emissions are 
indirect emissions from the generation of 
energy that an institution purchases. Scope 
3 emissions are all indirect emissions, not 
included in scope 2, that occur from sources 
not owned or controlled by the institution.

Last in line: 
U-M climate 
policy faces 
re-evaluation

Wednesday, February 13. 2019 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday,February 13, 2019 // The Statement 
 
5B

“It’s death by committee,” 
Weaverdyck said. “That’s 
something that we really can’t 
afford given the timeline that the 
science makes clear. We can’t 
afford to lose another few years 
debating what the target is.”

BY RILEY LANGEFELD, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE FAN

”

NIGHT SHIFT

See LAST IN LINE, Page 6B

INFOGRAPHIC BY NOLAN FELICIDARIO

