By NICOLE DANNA Colorado Daily Staff Writer
Dan
Omasta, the CU-Boulder Colorado Public Interest Research Group (CoPIRG)
chapter chair, believes students have the power to tackle global
warming.
With enough knowledge, and education as to how to put
it into action, Omasta said Tuesday that college students in Boulder -
and across the country - should be taking a leadership role in an
effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
How? A good start
would be to volunteer with CoPIRG, a non-partisan, student-directed
organization working to solve public-interest problems related to the
environment, consumer protection and government reform.
“Right
now we have the know-how to deal with this problem,” said Omasta in an
Aug. 14 CoPIRG press release. “We want to show the country what's
possible.”
To
do so, the CoPIRG Boulder chapter invited Colorado State Representative
John “Jack” Pommer, D-Boulder, to speak before a group of students as
part of its Campus Climate Change campaign.
Students on more
than 280 campuses nationwide are participating in the campaign in an
effort to enact and promote policies that would reduce global warming
pollution - on campus and off.
To kick off the campaign, CoPIRG
invited students and members of the public to attend a screening of the
film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The 2006 documentary, directed by Davis
Guggenheim, offers a passionate and inspirational look at Vice
President Al Gore's crusade to educate people on global warming's
deadly progress by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround
it.
“Global warming is not all gloom and doom,” said Omasta, in a CoPIRG press release issued Aug. 14.
Omasta
said the campus is currently working with the university's housing
department on an EcoStar Housing program that would encourage students
to save energy.
“Over the course of a semester - over the course
of a year - we want to build productive habits that students will carry
with them [beyond school],” said Omasta.
Pommer said CU's CoPIRG
chapter is making great strides, and described the Boulder campus as
being part of “an amazing grassroots effort.”
For Pommer,
working towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions is attainable -
especially with the support of college students nationwide.
“[Reducing
global warming] is absolutely, easily achievable,” said Pommer Tuesday.
“And we can achieve it without inconveniencing ourselves Š and anyone
talking against it is ridiculous.”
This year Pommer said his two
foremost initiatives will be to “clean up” state power plants,
including the Cherokee power plant (one of Colorado's largest) and the
Pawnee power plant.
“That will have a huge impact in reducing acid rain and carbon-dioxide emissions,” said Pommer.
Pommer
said he also hopes to implement a “clean-car” initiative that would
encourage Colorado residents to buy “clean” cars, while convincing
retailers such a plan would not hurt business, but promote better
business.
“And we'll also be looking at transportation issues ... to try to get cars out of the mix entirely,” added Pommer.
Pommer
said that innovative alternative energy technology is everywhere, and
thanks to mandates like the Kyoto Protocol, more options will help
states like Colorado move forward in becoming more efficient.
The
Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the international treaty on climate
change that places mandatory emission limitations on those that adopt
it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The objective of the protocol is
to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level
that would prevent climate harm.
“Common-sense solutions, like clean cars, are around us everywhere we look,” said Omasta.
