Higher Learning Adapts To a Greening Attitude

Washington Post ^ | June 22, 2008 | Susan Kinzie

[Lorianne]

For years, student activists have demanded environmentally friendly changes, prompting university officials to reevaluate how they heat classrooms, water campus greens and buy light bulbs. Frostburg State University in Western Maryland, for instance, has a wind-powered generating station. Johns Hopkins University is planning to build its own heat and power generator.

Students are also driving the academic push that is infusing curriculum and research with an environmental consciousness.

For those who are skeptical about global warming and think that the current trend is often too alarmist, the changes carry risk. "It discredits science," said Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT. "It's propaganda," he added, with opposing viewpoints rarely explored.

"I think it's getting a little out of proportion, the emphasis on the environment," said Donald J. Boudreaux, chairman of the economics department at George Mason University. He said people increasingly look at environmental issues almost as a religion, with unquestioning belief, rather than thinking critically about scientific evidence or economic issues.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !