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by Greg Orwig, '91
If you've taken Whitworth's Core 250 course on the history of Western rationalism, you may remember Blaise Pascal's simple thought exercise "The Wager." If God does not exist, argued the brilliant 17th-century mathematician and philosopher, belief can give one a sense of hope and purpose, while the consequence of disbelief is neutral. If God does exist, however, belief offers eternal salvation, while disbelief leads to hell. It is more reasonable, Pascal concluded, to believe in God than not to.
A similar rational pragmatism can be applied to the debate over climate change. If humans aren't contributing to global warming, then living more sustainably offers tangible and intangible benefits over time, even if it may not be necessary for survival. But if humans are contributing to global warming, then taking action could save the planet, while doing nothing presents a fate nearly as calamitous, not to mention as hot, as that of the foolish gambler in Pascal's wager.
Though environmentalism has ebbed and flowed for decades at Whitworth, student activism and administrative leadership have upped the ante over the past year. Through individual choices such as taking shorter showers and ordering coffee in re-usable mugs, as well as through a bold institutional commitment to achieve campus climate neutrality, Whitworthians have embraced the internationally accepted yet disarmingly simple mandate for sustainability: Meet current needs without sacrificing future generations' ability to meet their needs.
Whitworth President Bill Robinson, one of the first Christian university presidents to sign both the Evangelical Climate Initiative and the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, sees many economic and practical reasons for improved environmental stewardship. But just as Pascal believed reason alone was insufficient to know God fully, Robinson says that much more than pragmatism drives Whitworth's commitment to sustainability.
"Educating our students and ourselves, and deepening the extent to which we value creation, ties directly to our mission to honor God, follow Christ and serve humanity," Robinson says, echoing a growing number of Christian leaders who see creation care as a biblical mandate with humanitarian as well as environmental implications. "Even if a case can be made that not all the global-warming causes are human in origin, there are clearly human ways to attack the problem. And our students arrive at Whitworth now simply wanting to protect God's creation; they don't bring a lot of political baggage to the issue."
Galen Sanford, a senior philosophy major from south King County (Wash.), helped spearhead a free-wheeling student demonstration last May calling for, among other things, greater institutional efforts on sustainability. He says, "There's a lot of good will," though not yet enough resources and imagination, dedicated to those efforts. He'd like to see the university move forward on measures outlined in a sustainability task force report, completed over the summer, addressing operations, curriculum, research, and external outreach. The report is available on a new website, www.whitworth.edu/sustainability, which also features a dozen sustainability initiatives already under way, including:
- recycling bins distributed to every office and dorm room for white paper, newsprint, mixed paper, aluminum, glass and plastic bottles;
- all classrooms outfitted with sensors to adjust air flow and lighting when the rooms are not in use;
- four electric trucks purchased to replace gasoline vehicles used by facilities services staff;
- a paper stock with 30 percent post-consumer waste selected for the official university letterhead; and
- paper eliminated from numerous university business processes.
Whitworth also renewed its campus food-services contract with Sodexho last spring, based in part on the company's strong commitment to sustainability. The cafeteria serves all organic fruit when it's available, bread products made from grain grown locally using sustainable farming practices, and fair-trade coffee. Plastic silverware and cups, and Styrofoam to-go containers have been replaced with biodegradable products.
Something as simple as reducing the size of dining-hall trays and plates has resulted in a nearly 10 percent reduction in food waste, according to Sodexho General Manager Jim O'Brien. If the trend continues all year, he says, savings in food and waste-disposal costs could reach $100,000 – some of which would be allocated for campus sustainability initiatives.
"This campus, when presented with a compelling cause or need, always takes the ball and runs with it," says O'Brien, who has led Whitworth's food-service operation for 21 years. "There are things that all of us can do as individuals, but this is a great issue to tackle as a campus community."
By signing the Presidents' Climate Commitment, Bill Robinson joined 427 other college and university presidents who recognize the scientific consensus that global warming is real, is exacerbated by human activity, and has the potential to cause large-scale social, economic and ecological damage. They pledge to pursue campus climate neutrality through tracking and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, integrating sustainability into the curriculum, following Green Building Council recommendations in new campus construction, and participating in other sustainable practices.
Most of the activities carry short-term costs, but financial savings also are possible. Whitworth spent $1.7 million last year on electricity, natural gas, water, sewer service, printing/copying and waste disposal – all of which can be reduced by changes in employee and student behavior.
Amy Johnson, a junior sociology major who is president of the student environmental group Good Deeds for Trees, believes Whitworth is moving in the right direction and could do even more. People don't need to be convinced that environmental stewardship is good, she says, but they do need to be convinced to take actions that may require inconvenience or sacrifice.
Next spring, a campus sustainability challenge will allow teams of students and employees to earn points for completing various sustainability activities. The competition will take place over several weeks to encourage people to form new, environmentally friendly habits.
But if Whitworth is to succeed in producing graduates committed to sustainability, Johnson and others believe, the motivation must come from core values formed inside and outside the classroom rather than from winning a competition, saving money, or even heeding Pascal's pragmatism.
"A lot of us are involved in sustainability for humanitarian reasons and because we want to integrate our faith into our stewardship choices," Johnson says. "Improving the environment can also improve the lifestyle, health and well-being of people living in affected areas. We see this all over the world, and we see it right here in Spokane and at Whitworth."
Orwig is director of communications at Whitworth.
For additional information regarding the creation-care documents signed by Whitworth President Bill Robinson, visit the following:
by Vic Bobb, Professor of English
Efforts to protect or sustain the environment sometimes engender eye-rolling and cynicism from even the best-intentioned folks. It occurs to me that the problem might be less with the concept than with the language.
"Sustainability" is a word that has acquired some undesirable baggage. In part, I think the fact that it has become a buzzword makes some people a little shy of it; the term gets used in pretty imprecise and unthinking ways, and people who value precision are dubious about committing themselves to a notion that has not been clearly defined.
In addition, the term is used by some pretty radically Luddite opponents of modern farming methods and technologies, a fact that increases the reluctance of the reasonable person to be associated with the word.
Perhaps most significantly, though, "sustainability" has come to be associated with the bullying and the intellectual dishonesty of the more vocal and apocalyptic global-warming activists. Even though sustainability and climate change are separate matters, they've been (not unreasonably) conflated in people's minds. It's easy to understand why a person would edge sideways so as not to be touched by the penumbra of the ugly associations of "sustainability" in 2007.
However, we have a perfectly Presbyterian and scripture-rooted term available to us that avoids virtually all the potential perception-pitfalls of "sustainability." Perhaps we could recast some of our appeals into terms of "stewardship." Most of the practical implications are the same, the principle is biblical, and the excesses of the extremists are not associated with the word. Calvin would approve, and so might some of our eye-rolling colleagues.
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