Last week, the ASUO Senate rejected a modest proposal to address looming ecological collapse brought on by global warming. In its great wisdom, the Student Government decided that it is more important to expend $100,000 on the Student Recreation Center, $300,000 on a new affluent “multicultural” meeting room, $100,000 on installing plusher seats in the Miller Theatre and $100,000 on the newest video projectors than saving the biosphere along with cultures all over the world from ecological catastrophe.
However, perhaps I should not place all the blame on them. Where were the University’s many so-called sustainability groups and program coordinators on lobbying these bright minds of the ASUO Senate? Were they unaware of the modest proposal to expend between $100,000 to $850,000 of surplus student funds toward an array of solar panels or ten thousand compact fluorescent lights for all who wanted them or the installation of a solar water heater systems atop the EMU? The UO could have been seen as a university on the forefront of the global warming emergency, perhaps like no other in the United States. Now, it looks like it will be seen as just another university/student body stuck in the old paradigm.
We need to realize that most of the world’s peoples who are slaves to our American and European consumer gluttony will be the ones who suffer the most from our lack of enacting real, tangible solutions to global warming. It’s time to act as if global heating is an emergency for us all and to lobby elected officials great and small to do what is right for our biosphere instead of just talking or lecturing about it.
Shannon Wilson
Eugene resident