Posted by Trevor Lovell

 
Let me begin by saying congratulations to the Aggie Green Fund team for a HUGE victory tonight! They set a precedent for campus sustainability in Texas and their efforts will raise $1.5million for green projects over the next five years. Seriously… well done!

We knew that if there was one campus where passing a green fund would be tough, it would be Texas A&M. The group we worked with was smart and dedicated, but they had big obstacles to overcome.

Then it got worse. As the bill to put the green fund on the ballot moved through the Student Senate it caught the attention of several members of Texas Aggie Conservatives (formerly the Young Conservatives of Texas) who decided to oppose it as a primary focus for their on-campus activism. The Aggie Green Fund team was ready for a robust debate, we were ready to support them, but we weren’t ready for a campaign loaded with misleading statements, personal attacks, and outright lies.

Leaders of Texas Aggie Conservatives invited their friends and members to a Facebook group called “Aggies Against the Green Fund” which they used to attract more fair-minded people who might be repelled by tactics used by more hardcore members. These included two flyers which were distributed on campus containing information that was not misleading, it was false.

The first such flyer claimed that voting for the Aggie Green Fund would result in shower timers being placed on dorm showers. The flyer employed absolute language, insinuating that this was not a potential project, but a definite one. The other one claimed that voting for the Aggie Green Fund would raise costs for an average student by $90 over his/her academic career. Since the fee was only $3 per semester or $1.50 per summer session, a more reasonable range would be $24-$36. Texas Aggie Conservatives claimed the flyer was justified because state law would allow the $3 fee to be raised to as much as $10, and further claimed that it could be interpreted to give the Board of Regents approval to make that change without student approval. Sounds very legalistic and specific, but there’s just one problem- subsection (d) of the bill (HB3353) clearly states that any increase in the fee must first be voted on by the student body. This second flyer clearly should have been thrown out by the Election Commission and the group distributing sanctioned. It is unclear at this time why this wasn’t done.

Despite these tactics and others, the final vote came in with more than 57% of student voters supporting the Aggie Green Fund! Leaders of the opposition group have vowed to keep fighting, but their members were clearly demoralized at having failed to make a small fee for smart sustainability projects into a wedge issue. Even with false information being spread about the costs and results of the fund, a large majority chose to move forward with what they knew to be in the best interest of both their campus and the planet.

Again, well done Aggie Green Fund! Go celebrate, get refocused on classes and whatever else you sacrificed to make this a victory, and know that what you did this week will inspire others to follow your lead.

Posted by Trevor Lovell

 
On Wednesday, the UT Austin student body became the first to vote in favor of a new green fund for a public university in Texas since Texas State did so in 2003! It was a big first victory for ReEnergize Texas and the Think Green Fund campaign.


The final count showed 71% of student voters were in favor of the referendum which asked students whether they would like to pay an additional $5 per semester to support sustainability initiatives at the UT Austin campus. The proposal will now move to the UT System Board of Regents which will decide whether or not to implement the $5 fee as requested by the student body.

If implemented, the fund is expected to raise $2.5million over its five year lifespan. If students want the green fund to continue after that point, they will have to vote to renew the $5 fee.

Reached for comment today, UT Austin’s Director of Sustainability, Jim Walker, had this to say:

“The green fund will likely help a lot of good projects on campus move forward. Sustainability is a growing priority here on campus, as this vote demonstrates. I look forward to working with students on projects that show we’re moving in a direction that is supported by the student body.”

Jacob Bintliff who has headed the campaign is presumed to be taking a very well-deserved nap.

The Longhorn announcement came just one day ahead of the announcement at Texas A&M (expected later tonight). The two schools have been bitter rivals in many arenas, and recently sustainability has become one of them. Various indices of campus sustainability rank the two institutions similarly. Both have recently hired staff specifically for sustainability. It is yet to be seen whether both will actually create green funds.

Congratulations to the student campaigners at UT Austin. You have put Texas on track to having more public universities with green funds than any other in the country!

Posted by Trevor Lovell

 
Of all the green fund campaigns we’re involved with this semester, Texas A&M’s has proven the most challenging so far. The group has amassed over 1,600 members on its Facebook group and has the blessing of administrators, but still faces a serious challenge organized by a group know as Texas Aggie Conservatives (might be more relevant to visit the Facebook page).

In response to the sometimes vitriolic and often misleading criticisms leveled at the Aggie Green Fund, pro-green-fund group members put together this video to explain why the fund is needed and how it will benefit the campus:

 
So make sure you visit their Facebook group and leave them a friendly comment. These students are keeping it positive and moving forward with their vision against an outspoken minority that is willfully misleading the student body about both its motives and the impacts of the green fund. They deserve a great deal of gratitude for defending sustainability on the front-lines.

Posted by:
- Patrick McAnaney, Rice senior & Student Association president
- Carl Nelson, Rice junior & SA Environmental Committee Chair

 
“As students, do we want to lead, or simply to follow?”

That’s the question Rice University students asked themselves during the Student Association General Election last week. When polls closed on Wednesday evening, the answer to that question was a resounding vote for leadership. With 71% of students voting to pay an extra $9 per year to create the Rice Endowment for Sustainable Energy Technology (RESET) it’s clear that students recognize the many personal opportunities and community benefits of campus sustainability.


While we’re excited about the many environmental improvements we expect from RESET, it wasn’t the environment, but rather the economy, that sparked the three-year effort culminating in last week’s victory. Inspired by the example of the many other universities with similar funds (at least 70 in the US and Canada), we began to look at Rice’s budget and were amazed at what we found. Over the past eight years, energy costs for Rice have quadrupled! Furthermore, over the last three years, on-campus housing fees have risen 20 percent, with a portion of these fees representing higher energy costs being passed along to students. When we also learned about the various efforts the university administration has taken in recent years to reduce energy use we knew it was time for students to stand up and do their part to keep costs low at our university!

Beyond the economic and environmental benefits, the successful RESET vote is also a victory for Rice students in fields ranging from engineering to biology to public policy. By allowing students and faculty to propose projects to a RESET committee, the endowment promotes student innovation by providing a unique opportunity to collaborate with professors, peers, and professionals to design and implement large-scale projects with a tangible impact in their community.

While RESET will be a much-needed tool for financing campus sustainability in this time of budget cuts and economic uncertainty, RESET alone won’t be enough. Luckily, administrators and staff from all over campus have demonstrated strong interest in providing matching funds for RESET projects. They hope it will provide students with as much as two dollars of benefit for every dollar contributed, marking an exciting new chapter in student-administration collaboration where student-proposed projects will receive financial and operational support from their university at a sustained (pardon the pun) and unprecedented level.

While Rice is hardly the first university to create such a “green fund”, it is the first school in Texas to create one since Texas State students established the Environmental Service Fee in 2004. With so many economic, environmental, and personal benefits to students and their communities, we certainly don’t expect it to be the last!

 
Posted by Eric Bremer

In a resounding show of leadership amongst Texas universities, The University of Texas at San Antonio has joined in the initiative of many top universities to put the Think Green Fund to a vote by the general student body. The vote will occur on Earth Day (April 22nd), giving students a chance to decide their energy future. The Think Green Fund initiative was placed on the ballot after the UTSA Student Government Assembly heard debate for it last Thursday and voted to have the issue placed on its own special ballot.

There is strong support for the Think Green Fund at UTSA, and it has become the top initiative of several student groups including ReEnergize San Antonio, The Green Society, Young Democrats of UTSA, and Students for John Sharp to educate their fellow students of the benefits of this fund. It has been amazing to see these groups all come together, with one common goal, to make UTSA a leading University in Texas through sustainability projects.

The Think Green Fund is a $5 fee paid by each student every semester, and this money can go to whatever renewable energy, energy efficiency, or other sustainability projects students choose for their campus. The goal of this fund is to allow students to become actively involved in providing a cleaner energy future for their university, lower energy cost to combat rising tuition rates, and educate students about creative ways to look at our future energy needs as they move into their professional lives.