The ASUO Senate voted down a resolution supporting research and development of renewable energy at its Earth Day meeting, citing concerns that it was politically motivated and scientifically unsound.
Sen. Nick Schultz, the resolution’s sponsor, said the measure was timed to coincide with Wednesday’s Earth Day celebration. The resolution’s operative clause read: “As students at the University of Oregon, we hold that renewable energy must be given greater attention, in research and development in the coming years.”
However, senators who voted against the resolution said they were concerned language explaining its reasoning was political, specifically a clause that said, “The environment is changing in the United States, some or all of which is a product of human activity.”
“If the Senate really feels like we should be ruling on whether global warming is real or not, then we can do that,” said Sen. Demic Tipitino, who voted against the resolution.
Schultz said Tipitino and others were missing the point. He said the resolution was “a separate issue from global warming.”
“The basic argument is that, hey, renewable energy is important. There needs to be more R and D on that,” Schultz said.
Senators who support environmental causes also criticized the resolution, written by junior Cims Gillespie.
“I am on the opposite end of the spectrum from Demic,” said Sen. Arielle Reid, who also voted against the measure. “I don’t think it’s all-encompassing enough.”
Senators also questioned the science behind a clause that said carbon dioxide “disrupts the Earth’s atmosphere at the Ozone layer,” calling chlorofluorocarbons the real culprit.
In 1995, chemist F. Sherwood Rowland concluded that chlorofluorocarbons depleted the ozone layer above the polar ice caps. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work.
In his acceptance speech, Rowland said, with regard to global warming, “Another area for concern is the changing temperature structure of the stratosphere because of the steady increases in the greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide,” explaining that the gas could form polar clouds that act as launching pads for the reactions that cause ozone depletion.
The tenor of the debate led senators to question the merit of resolutions in the first place. Resolutions allow the Senate to voice its opinion on issues.
“I think resolutions generally are a waste of our time,” Sen. Nick Gower said.
The process of approving the resolution also frustrated senators. The measure had to be submitted in the Senate on April 15, then sent to the Senate Rules Committee for approval before it could be voted on Wednesday. When senators suggested tabling the resolution, Schultz bristled.
“This is the problem of the bureaucratic process,” he said. “We keep putting things off and we wait and we wait.”
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Senate votes against energy resolution
Daily Emerald
April 23, 2009
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