Tag Archives | Pennsylvania State University

Encouraging the Use of Renewable Energy

By on January 12, 2012 in APUS Sustainability Efforts, Green-Building, LEED Building, Renewable Energy, Sustainability in Higher Education

by Sarah McNair

Renewable power is quickly becoming an important option to fuel the world’s electricity demands.  Nonrenewable sources, such as coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear energy, pollute our air and water and destroy natural habitats for plants and animals.  Renewable energy sources have less of a negative impact on the environment and include hydroelectric, solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and electricity from municipal solid waste.  In the United States, the majority of our electricity is powered by coal, followed by nuclear, natural gas, and oil.  Less than 9% of our electricity is generated from renewable sources.… Read the rest

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The Battle Over Bottled Water on College Campuses

By on February 10, 2011 in Sustainability in Higher Education

by Beth Gray

Scott Carlson notes quite poignantly in a September 2010 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Wars in the past have been fought over oil.  Wars in the future, experts say, will be fought over water.”  Carlson goes on to explore the ways in which the battle over water, in its bottled form, is already being waged on college campuses. 

In 2006, Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water.  According to the organization Back2Tap, nearly 50 billion plastic water bottles end up in landfills every year, noting that not only does that equal 140 million bottles every day but also that it is enough bottles to line up end to end and reach China and back every day.  Aside from the discarded bottles, bottled water’s carbon footprint is much larger than is perhaps immediately obvious.  In 2007, a blogger for TreeHugger.com estimated that to create and transport 1 bottle of Fiji water required 7.1 gallons of water, .26 gallons of fossil fuel, and emitted 1.2 pounds of greenhouse gases.  Largely driven by environmentally conscious student groups, college campuses are beginning to address the issue of bottled water and are taking dramatic measures to do so.… Read the rest

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