The Student Association approved a bill Monday night to request that the university address global warming by increasing its usage of renewable energy.

The bill was written by Tina Notas, a member of the Student Environmental Action Coalition, and sponsored by SA Parliamentarian Joan Gabel. Notas and Christine Smith, a junior in The College of Arts and Sciences, proposed the bill to the assembly.

‘Global warming, if not arrested, threatens our planet with potentially catastrophic consequences,’ the bill said.

Notas said switching to renewable energy sources, which include wind, solar or hydraulic power, would cost the university one to two cents more per kilowatt-hour. She could not tell the assembly how much the overall cost of switching to more renewable energy would be because the university would not release those figures.

According to the bill, Harvard, Brandeis, Colgate and Temple universities already use renewable energy. Smith said SU should switch to renewable energy, because doing so would encourage others to switch and depress the cost of renewable energy as more institutions change sources.

‘Over time the more people that use it the cheaper it will become,’ Smith said. ‘Once the big guys turn green more people will follow.’

Smith said that currently two percent of the energy used by the university is renewable, whereas state universities will be required to use 25 percent renewable energy in coming years. By the end of the year, State University of New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry will use renewable energy for 10 percent of its energy. Smith said the university’s use of renewable energy should be increased to at least 20 percent.

‘We eventually want it to be 100 percent,’ Smith said.

The bill received support from all assembly members in attendance except for Gordon Baxter, a junior in The College of Arts and Sciences, because he said it is an ‘immature recommendation.’

‘I think there needs to be a lot more information before we take this action,’ Baxter said. ‘I’m a person that’s never jumped into anything without knowing.’

Notas said that the university should release information regarding how much more increasing renewable energy would cost.

‘We’re working to try and get those statistics but the university probably won’t release those,’ Notas said.

In other SA news, the assembly elected four new members to the University Senate. The new senators are Ryan Doyle, Kelly Ferguson, Joan Gabel and Ryan Kelly. Gabel said that, although she was not familiar with the committees in the University Senate, she would like to create a women’s caucus within the organization.

Published on March 20, 2005 at 12:00 pm