More responses - here's what the UW is doing

On Nov 19, 2007 10:25 AM, Marc <> wrote:

The UW decided on its own to purchase electricity that is from 100% renewable sources and has higher cost. See this
http://uwnews.org/uweek/uweekarticle.asp?articleID=22435
http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/light/Green/greenPower/greenup.asp

Therefore it seems plausible the UW could on its own require that say carbon offsets be purchased if an airline provides them when a ticket is purchased. The cost would be spread over all the budgets that buy the tickets.

Short of that an individual faculty could buy the offsets themselves. The value of award travel from frequent flyer miles they receive from university paid trips exceeds the amount of the cost of the carbon offsets for those miles so technically they wouldn't be paying for it.

I think this is a good example to shame people into changing their habits. From
http://www.tufts.edu/tie/tci/carbonoffsets/TCI-offset-handout.htm
The average American is responsible for the emissions of about 20 tons of CO2 annually, the average European or Japanese for about half that. If you fly to Europe and back from the US, you’ll add about 3-4 tons to your (already large) carbon footprint. With one flight you will have
caused more emissions than 20 Bangladeshi will cause in a whole year. Unfortunately they are the ones who will lose their homes and livelihood once sea level rise inundates their low lying country.

I overheard a faculty once that said I need to get another trip in this year to make Premier status for next year. This does make one wonder how many trips are really necessary. It would be nice if some large conferences like AGU could be attended virtually. Some computer science
courses I took 10 years ago had 2-way video from UW to Microsoft in Redmond and Intel near Olympia so students didn't have to commute. It not perfect but its a shame more of this isn't being used.

Marc