Forum focuses on global warming

Mary Esther Van Shura rode the Pittsburgh city bus to Pitt on Friday morning.

“I was going… Mary Esther Van Shura rode the Pittsburgh city bus to Pitt on Friday morning.

“I was going to hop in my car and drive here,” said Van Shura, a representative for County Executive Dan Onorato. “But then I thought, how can I possibly drive there and then stand up there and talk about this?”

Van Shura was referring to climate change – the pressing issue that local politicians and students gathered to discuss at the Green Democracy Political Forum in David Lawrence Hall Friday afternoon.

The forum was part of a three-day teach-in last week held by Focus the Nation, a national organization dedicated to finding global warming solutions. More than 1,400 colleges and universities – including Pitt, Carnegie Mellon University, La Roche College, Duquesne University and Chatham College – participated in the teach-in by holding events on each of the different campuses.

From Van Shura’s decision to take the bus, to the event’s agenda printed on recycled banner sheets from Pitt’s computing labs, the discussion demonstrated what Pittsburgh institutions and politicians are doing to prevent climate change.

In 2006, the City of Pittsburgh created a Green Government Task Force in an effort to reduce the city’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Now, Clean Air Cool Planet and Green Building Alliance – both environmental organizations – are collaboratively creating a plan that will include steps to reduce these gases, said Lindsay Baxter, a Duquesne graduate student and intern at CACP.

The plan will be presented in May to Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and the city council for approval, Baxter said. Once the final version of the plan is approved, the city will begin taking full action to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Ravenstahl has already implemented projects such as retrofitting garbage trucks, installing energy efficient traffic light bulbs – which saves the city $300,000 in electricity costs – and creating the first bike lane in Pittsburgh on Liberty Avenue, said Kristen Baginski, Ravenstahl’s representative at the forum.

“We’re taking baby steps right now, but we’re getting there,” Baginski said. “We have all the right initiatives and ideas.”

Councilman Bill Peduto lightened the mood of the dimly lit auditorium when he turned to Baginski on his left and said, “Are you freezing? It’s really hard to talk about global warming when it’s so cold.”

But Peduto got down to business when he said that when President George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol, a worldwide treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, in 2004, climate change became a local issue.

Fifty-six percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Pittsburgh are because of commercial activity, Peduto said, while 20 percent are because of transportation. Pittsburgh’s industrial sector is responsible for just 6 percent of the city’s emission gases – a statistic, Peduto said, that many people overestimate.

Duquesne recently completed its first full-campus greenhouse-gas inventory and found that, in 2006, an individual student emitted about 4.8 tons of carbon dioxide per year. While 69 percent came from electricity and heating, about 31 percent came from transportation, a factor the university really needs to work on, Baxter said.

Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, said the public must be completely engaged on climate change as quickly as possible in order to make a difference.

“I believe global warming is real, and I believe it’s a real threat to the planet,” Doyle said. “Many legislators don’t believe it’s real, and until we get them to change their minds or replace them will we be able to truly do something about it.”

He added that society must fundamentally alter the way energy is used in the United States, and Pittsburgh is currently working to reduce greenhouse emissions gases by 80 percent.

Student representatives from each of the five universities participating in the forum explained what their schools were doing in response to the climate change.

Pitt received a C-, up from last year’s D, on its college sustainability report card, an assessment given by nonprofit organization Sustainable Endowments Institute. The report card is an evaluation of U.S. colleges’ “green practices” and is based on factors such as a university’s response to food and recycling as well as climate change and energy.

“Hopefully with all the projects we’re working on now, those grades will keep improving,” said Ashley Schmid, manager of the Pitt organization Free the Planet.

These projects include building a steam plant by Trees Hall as well as the Mascaro Sustainability Initiative, part of Pitt’s school of engineering that focuses on the design of sustainable communities.

The forum concluded with a brief question-and-answer session.

“Thank you for being in this cold room,” Peduto joked, “because it means you care. Your actions will change not only the planet but the lives of the people who live here.”