Green—And Naïve

In this annual period of lunacy at Harvard—when newly inducted members of final clubs besiege the campus in vulgar outfits, and a crop of would-be politicians try their luck at student government—the Environmental Action Committee (EAC) has introduced a new element of farce: The group wants students to endorse a detailed ballot initiative whose potentially huge cost it is unable to even estimate.

Alongside the ballot for the Undergraduate Council’s (UC) presidential election, students will be asked to decide whether or not they “call on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to a level 11% below total emissions in 1990 by the year 2020.” The non-binding measure is a symbolic gesture that depends on the idea that students are making a “sacrifice” for the environment, but, because it does not give information about the scale of the sacrifice (i.e. the cost), it is a meaningless gesture.

Students are now in the uncomfortable position of having to make a decision without the relevant cost information. The only reasonable option for those who both care about the environment and about sensible college finances is abstention. It should be noted that the result will inevitably be skewed by the fact that yesterday—the first day of voting—online ballots did not allow students to abstain from the EAC referendum if they chose to vote in the UC Presidential election. In response to a complaint, the Election Commission has now addressed the problem, though the ballot still carries a biased paragraph of information that never touches the real issue in implementing the EAC’s planned reforms: cost.

The absurdity of the EAC-sponsored referendum has nothing to do with the sentiment behind its proposition: Encouraging environmental awareness about potentially dangerous gases is a good thing. However, the EAC has failed to present a ballot detailed enough to be supportable.

Among all the information rallied to their cause, supporters of the referendum did not include any cost estimate (read: an idea of what Harvard will have to sacrifice in order to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions). The ballot question, as it was first proposed, clearly stated, however, that a “yes” vote on the EAC’s referendum means that the student “recognize[s] that this will take sacrifice and innovation from across the FAS community, and pledge[s] to do [his/her] part to realize these reductions while [he/she is] at Harvard.” Interestingly, the phrase about “sacrifice” was removed from the final draft of the ballot.

Perhaps it was taken out because how big this “sacrifice” will be is still anyone’s guess. It could be the cost of new windows (unlikely) or a multi-million dollar, multi-pronged effort by the entire University (likely). Thus, by forcing students to make a choice without the relevant costs, and insisting that the referendum contain specific propositions that will have specific costs to implement, the environmentalists have made a “yes” vote on their own referendum illogical; support for an undefined sacrifice is not much of a statement.

And how does the EAC explain this glaring gap in their plan? Apparently, the University will only form a commission to investigate the cost if students express support for spending it. This puts students in an absurdly paradoxical situation, whereby they can only find out the cost they are being asked to support by voting to support it.

Even worse, when questioned about the costs, the EAC has reminded students that the referendum is non-binding, and thus won’t necessarily incur any costs since it will have no definite effect on FAS’ operations. If Harvard finds the cost to be too expensive or too inconvenient, then it seems that the EAC would settle for eight percent reductions, or maybe six percent. They would settle for any outcome as long as Harvard starts moving, and moving publicly. Yet if the EAC deems the vote unlikely to achieve the goal stated on the referendum, it is unclear why the EAC bothered to push for this initiative at all.

Supposedly, critics simply don’t understand the urgency of the situation: The world will end if we don’t do this! Yet it is precisely because of the seriousness of this issue that we are cautious: Proponents of the ballot should cease their well-meaning campaign to push for a vague measure simply on the grounds that it will “send the right message.” In doing so, the EAC undermines the credibility of its own cause—and the likelihood of actually finding a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 11 percent.

Clearly, cutting Harvard’s own emissions is next to useless on its own. But even if the measure generates national publicity, the EAC would do far better to present an accurate measurement of the costs to give this exercise in student box-checking some meaning. Without a clear idea of the necessary sacrifices, a potentially powerful student demand is reduced to a futile wish.

It’s unfortunate that the EAC has pushed its ideals at the price of a responsible and informative campaign. Campaigners should instead have focused their energies on pressuring FAS for such an analysis. However students vote this week, it is certain that the solution to the world’s problems won’t emerge from this brand of reckless environmentalism.



Andrew D. Fine ’09 is a social studies concentrator in Eliot House. Juliet S. Samuel ’09 is a social studies concentrator in Eliot House. They are both Crimson editorial editors.