(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

A group of students will travel to Paris at the end of the month to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference (the 21st Conference of the Parties or COP21). The students are taking a course called “International Climate Negotiations: Unpacking the Road to Paris,” specifically designed to teach students about the issues involved with the conference and to prepare for the trip. Enrollment in the course was by application.

“Climate change is the issue of this generation,” said professor Richard Nevle, deputy director of the earth systems program and co-instructor of the course. “It’s something that [my co-instructors and I] have all been deeply committed to working on through different means, everything from activism to research to teaching.”

Paris trip and final project

After Thanksgiving break, the students will meet in Paris on Nov. 29 and stay until Dec. 6.

“I want students to leave this course and to leave Paris with an understanding of why it has been and is so challenging to reach a meaningful international climate agreement, what the key issues are in the international negotiations and, more than anything, with a resolve to continue their work for climate action in their work, their studies and their lives after Paris,” Strong said.

Each student is working on a final project and will use the trip to conduct research. Before traveling to Paris, each must create a plan for where to go, whom to meet and what to do while in the city for the project.

Students’ projects range from an exploration of how American new media covers and frames the negotiations to research on subnational engagement or climate activism.

Guest speakers representing diverse perspectives, including journalists, negotiators and NGO workers, will speak with the students every morning. Nevle said these speakers will help students understand the negotiation progress as it unfolds.

Preparing for Paris

The class focused on gaining a background knowledge on issues pertaining to climate change as well as preparation for the trip to Paris for the COP21 negotiations. Students studied a broad range of topics including climate finance, game theory, carbon accounting, climate justice, equity, adaptation and climate science communication. Despite the wide curriculum, students were able to study each topic in depth.

“The class has focused on the history of the international climate change negotiations, tracing the path that led to all the focus on Paris,” Aaron Strong, a Ph.D. candidate and co-instructor, wrote in an email to The Daily. “We have had practical lessons on the nuts and bolts of how the U.N. system works and how to read the texts that form the basis of negotiation.”

Students acknowledged the complexities of the issues involved with the climate negotiations and how that has informed their own learning.

“We learned how integral all of these considerations are to reaching a deal and taking a position that achieves the goals of justice, equity and progress that most people want,” Josh Lappen ’17 said.

“I think many of us realized by the end of the class that the more we learned, the more we became aware that we can’t know everything related to climate change, because it’s such a broad issue and covers so many different areas,” Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna ’18 said.

Students in the class come from a variety of backgrounds. Many are studying earth systems or another science, while others are majoring in political science or economics. According to Nevle, the instructors were purposeful in accepting students with “diverse academic perspectives.”

Many of the students, including Lappen, are participated in the sit-in at Main Quad last week to demand divestment from fossil fuels.

Mock COP

The first eight weeks of the quarter led up to four hours of mock negotiations last Sunday designed to replicate the real COP21. Of the 30 students, 28 represented a nation or party and two acted as co-chairs. According to Nevle, the mock COP was an authentic, realistic experience that helped students understand what the process will really be like in Paris.

According to Arrieta-Kenna, negotiators discussed a modified version of the actual 16-page text that will be used at COP21. Their goal was to agree upon the specific wording of certain parts of the document, taking into account each of their countries’ unique interests. Complete consensus was necessary to reach an agreement, so competing interests complicated the discussions.

Arrieta-Kenna was one of the co-chairs, and he said the experience was “intense” because of the pressure involved with his role. As co-chair, his only goal was reaching a successful agreement, rather than acting in the interest of a particular country.

Sarah Johnson ’16, who represented Egypt, said the mock negotiations were challenging because her country hasn’t released much information about its position on the topic so far. Still, she was engaged and came out with a better understanding of the complexity of the issue.

Impact of last week’s terror attacks

The terror attacks in Paris last week have raised some concern among students and instructors about the safety of the trip and how COP21 will be affected.

“I think we’re all very concerned about the recent attacks in Paris, and we’re going to have to wait to see…how it will affect the official negotiations,” Arrieta-Kenna said.

However, the group is still planning to travel, and the only effect the attacks have had on the negotiations is the cancellation of some side events, such as a major climate march and other celebratory gatherings. Increased security measures will also be implemented.

“The talks are not being moved to a new location outside the city. They will still take place at the Le Bourget Conference Center,” Strong said. “Most importantly for our class, the French government is keeping the large Civil Society space around the negotiations open to the public, and this is where much of what we are planning to do there will take place.”

Strong hopes students will use their time in Paris to try and understand how the attacks might impact the negotiations. He said the “resolve” among negotiators to reach a successful agreement might be higher because of the attacks.

“Several of our students are interested in following the rhetoric around these topics in Paris,” he said.

But overall, instructors and students feel that their participation in the course has been influential on their personal and academic lives.

“This has been the most amazing teaching experience of my life, and that is all thanks to the inspiration the teaching team has gotten from the drive, ambition and focused attention of our students,” Strong said.

Contact Sarah Ortlip-Sommers at sortlip ‘at’ stanford.edu.

As the head of WFP, she spearheads the effort to achieve zero hunger, as per the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted Sept. 25. Post-talk, The Stanford Daily sat down with Cousin to continue the conversation.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): You mentioned during the Q&A that you were raised with people talking about changing the world at your dinner table — are there moments from your childhood that you try to keep in mind now?

Ertharin Cousin (EC): When I was a child, my mom worked for the city of Chicago as a social worker and one of the things she would do every summer was that she would bring a box full of balls and bats and gloves home for the entire neighborhood. The kids could sign them out and bring them back. She didn’t monitor it — it was all on the honor system. Even children, if given the opportunity, will do the right thing. If given the ability, they’ll share with each other.

What I try to do every day is build an organization that gives people the tools to do the right thing. No mother I’ve ever met wants to stand in a line to feed her child. She just wants to be given the tools and the opportunities to do the right thing — which is to feed her own child.

TSD: How do you see national and on-campus civil rights movements relating to the communities with which you’re working?

EC: The more people who make positive change necessary, the more opportunity there is for people who otherwise don’t have access to achieve equity. And the more we have equity in any one country, the more people you have who care about ensuring equity in other parts of the world, and the greater the opportunity there is for achieving the public will that is required to support the multi-year investments necessary to make the changes in those marginal communities in other parts of the world.

For example, in the Republic of Korea, as the Korean population had increased economic opportunity in their country, the government is supported by their people in providing investments in agricultural production and in women’s empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa because there is a recognition of the difference it has made in their country and the possibility of the difference it can make in other countries.

TSD: What is WFP’s strategy to approaching sustained hunger, which has a harder time with funding than hunger caused by conflict or disaster? What role does media have in this?

EC: Acute hunger caused by conflict or disaster attracts media attention and, as a result, the support for immediate emergency response. As crises become more protracted, you don’t have media attention, but you also need different solutions. Those are the cases where the work we’re required to do goes beyond the humanitarian assistance and requires us to begin to build the capacity for populations to feed themselves.

The challenge is, as you note, continuing to have the public will — building media support is one tool we use. To get the media to identify the opportunities for change, because the reason the people stop contributing is because they believe nothing will change.

TSD: And what about the role of students — how can we keep that in sight?

EC: If we can build the desire [for] sustainable and durable food security, then we can make the difference. Student voices have the possibility of driving government policy because they’re voters, advocates, contributors, and they will ultimately be business people who can help by providing new tools as well as additional support.

As an African-American, I sit here today as a direct beneficiary of the student movements of the 1960s when students gave voice to the lack of opportunity for an entire portion of the population. We know that the world has changed in my lifetime and in your lifetime because of activism of students.

TSD: Do you see particular student movements now specifically related to hunger?

EC: Not enough. We have student organizations on campuses around the world, but hunger as an issue has not been one that students have taken up in mass. We’re hoping that will change; as the global community has adapted 2030 as a goal, we’re hoping that students will see this as an ambitious but achievable goal and will work with us and will lead us.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

An earlier version of this article stated that the Freeman Spogli Institute is running the lecture series instead of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Irene Hsu at ihsu5595 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(MISO KIM/The Stanford Daily)

The night before the rally, organized by Fossil Free Stanford (FFS), the participants had received another warning from the University, this time with a more clear timeline for punishment as well as an extended threat to suspend investment requests currently in the process of being reviewed.

University-FFS exchanges

On Thursday night, the administration delivered another notice to sit-in participants, many of whom were members of Fossil Free Stanford. Following up on the previous warning, the second letter outlined that if the protesters were not gone by 5 p.m. on Friday, they would be issued Fundamental Standard charges.

The letter clarified previous statements about Hennessy’s willingness to meet with protesters, saying that he will only meet with sit-in participants “on the condition that Fossil Free members are not continuing to act in violation of the university policies in regard to the Main Quad.”

The University’s message concluded with a warning that the University “is considering suspending Fossil Free’s request to APIRL [Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing] until they are in compliance with University policies.” The APIRL “advises and makes recommendations to the Office of the President on issues related to socially responsible investing,” which would include evaluating student proposals such as fossil fuel divestment.

Similar to the exchange between the administration and FFS participants earlier this week, participants in the sit-in released an Op-Ed letter in response to the University’s. After summarizing what they view as the success of the sit-in (375 students at the opening rally, 80-100 students camping out around the clock, over 30 faculty led teach-ins and 30 alumni joining the protest and announcing the withholding of donations to the University), the FFS letter heavily criticized the University’s threat to suspend APIRL processes.

According to the response letter, by not processing APIRL requests, the University would not be punishing the students for breaking the Main Quad Policy but rather “condemning all of the people on the front lines of climate change and pollution, who face injustices perpetuated by the oil and gas industry everyday.”

“If we will have earned a charge under the Fundamental Standard at 5 p.m., we have earned it already,” the letter said. “Come charge us at 11 a.m. in our encampment. We are not just Fossil Free Stanford. We are Stanford. And we are not going away.”

Concluding rally

On Friday morning, sit-in participants woke early to prepare for a concluding rally and potential Fundamental Standard charges, which the University ultimately did not press.

(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

A half hour before the rally began, Stanford members of two workers’ groups — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2007 and the janitorial group DTZ — joined sit-in participants for a pizza lunch provided by SEIU. Francisco Preciado, the executive director of SEIU, emphasized the need for students and workers to join in solidarity on causes of social justice.

“We’re asking for your support to raise the standards for wages, for just and socioeconomic research related to health,” Preciado said to a crowd of staff and students. “We’re here to support you in this just cause, and we hope you come to support us in our just cause as well.”

When 11 a.m. rolled around, no students had been charged with violations, and the closing events proceeded in the Main Quad uninterrupted. Rebecca Behrens ’19 opened the rally by saying that although Stanford has not committed to divest from fossil fuels, FFS was ending their sit-in “in victory.”

“I felt ignored, frustrated and hopeless, because of the apathy that Stanford showed,”Behrens said. “Yet every day… I was inspired and uplifted by all of you.”

“[The administration] cannot ignore us when we made international headlines as we did all this week,” she added. “This week, we showed the world that our voices do matter… We showed the world that we can win.”

A medley of speeches and performances followed. Four students detailed personal encounters with consequences of the fossil fuel industry — from environmental degradation in Alaska to conflict in the Middle East. Fossil Free’s a cappella group sang an original song calling for climate change action.

Pedro Martins ’19 and Sadie Cwikiel ’19 took the microphone to acknowledge the many campus groups — students, faculty, alumni and staff — that have supported the sit-in, contrasting these groups’ solidarity with the University’s response.

Cwikiel then explained FFS’s decision to end their sit-in at 11 a.m. and said that FFS hoped all participants would attend the Transgender Day of Remembrance event occurring in White Plaza at noon.

At that point, members of FFS stepped in to announce that they had just confirmed a 2 p.m. meeting with Hennessy, open to all.

Finally, after a performance by the a cappella group Talisman, Behrens affirmed that although the sit-in was ending, FFS “will continue to escalate and take direct action until the University divests fully from fossil fuels.”

The sit-in closed the same way that it began — students holding hands and singing.

Meeting with Hennessy

The meeting with Hennessy was held in the Oak Lounge in Tresidder Union, where administrators had to pull up additional chairs to seat more students. Despite this measure, many students had to remain standing in the crowd of around 100.

The meeting opened with FFS leader Yari Greaney ’15 M.S.’16 summarizing the five day long sit-in. Greaney stressed the real-world negative impacts of climate change and fossil fuels.

(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

Hennessy, who sat in the circle with his senior assistant Jeff Wachtel, said that while he agreed on the facts of climate change, that didn’t change the fact that not everyone on the Board of Trustees supports divestment. According to Hennessy, the Board has a very specific process for investment decisions that requires significant amounts of time and research.

“Quite frankly if I asked SCIR [Board of Trustees’ Special Committee on Investment Responsibility] on to do divestment, they would say no,” Hennessy said. “I will tell you completely honestly [complete fossil fuel divestment] has no chance of passing because it has no background research.”

The issues of the Board processes and the research necessary for action became two of the central topics of discussion. According to the FFS leaders, the research required has already been done by outside parties around the world, including the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the Board has access to this information.

“We aren’t going to fudge these numbers — we are here because of those numbers,” said Josh Lappen ’17.

While Hennessy said that the Board would move as fast as possible while still being “deliberate,” he also stressed how far Stanford has come by divesting from coal.

ASSU President John-Lancaster Finley ’16, who was present at the meeting but did not participate in the sit-in, said that while divesting from coal had made Stanford a leader, the community shouldn’t stop at just coal.

“We really need to show that Stanford can lead on this, and Stanford should lead on it again,” Finley said.

Finley also emphasized that he was representing not just his own views, but the views of the student body that has voted in favor of full divestment.

At this point, Wachtel also entered the conversation, stressing that the University has other obligations and has to consider future divestment campaigns as well.

“Given the commitment you made to sitting around, it would in some ways be easier for us to divest,” Wachtel said. “But rather than taking the politically easy route and making everybody here feel happy about it, we are thinking about the long term.”

Beginning to wrap up the meeting, Lappen and fellow student leader Sijo Smith ’18 reiterated that FFS was requesting a commitment from Hennessy and the Board to use and publicize criteria based on scientific research.

With no real change as a result of the meeting, Greaney concluded the student input, telling Hennessy that Fossil Free “will still be here and will continue calling for full divestment.”

“I admire your conviction, but there can still be a disagreement on whether or not divestment is the solution,” Hennessy responded.

Correction: A previous version of this article listed Sadie Cwikiel as Sadie Cwikly. The Daily regrets this error.

Editor’s Note: Ada Throckmorton was an embedded reporter at the sit-in.

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu and Hannah Knowles at hknowles ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Second Official Notice from Stanford University

A group of local alumni joined the sit-in on Thursday and marched to the Alumni Center to say that they would not donate if the University continues to invest in fossil fuels.(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

At the site of the Fossil Free Stanford (FFS) sit-in outside the president and provost’s office, wakeup times are staggered as the sun rises. Some participants, in tents, sleep longer. Others, in sleeping bags under the Main Quad arcades, begin to wake earlier. Most begin to pull out laptops, starting their work for the day.

When most of the sit-in protesters are awake, Yari Greaney ’15 M.S.’16 gathers the group for their morning meeting. In a typical day, the participants meet all together twice — once in the morning and once in the evening. Sitting in a circle on the quad, they share announcements, discuss their emotions as the sit-in continues and conclude each meeting in song.

Greaney herself has been with FFS since its conception three years ago. An earth systems undergraduate and coterminal student, Greaney has experienced the impacts of climate change firsthand with widespread forest fires and lowering reservoir levels near her home in Redding, California. For Greaney, these experiences have reinforced the need for urgency in climate action — something FFS doesn’t feel the Stanford administration has taken into account.

“Toward the end of last year, we were realizing that the University might not follow through on its commitment to act quickly,” Greaney said. “When our mentor at 350.org asked if we would be interested in escalating to nonviolent direct action, we began to plan.”

As the sit-in has progressed, Greaney said the conflict between University administration and the Stanford community has become more apparent as the community has shown “overwhelming support” over the past week of the sit-in.

There are common activities from day to day of the sit-in: homework, teach-ins, film screenings, music, art. Food is brought in from co-ops or just friends of the participants. One alumnus brought hot chocolate to warm up protesters late Wednesday night, and on Thursday afternoon more alumni walked up carrying pizzas.

Many of the amenities brought to the protesters are offered to the police standing watch at the door to Building 10 as well. Most of the time, the officers decline the offers of coffee or granola bars, but the relationship between the officers and the sit-in participants is a comfortable one.

Chris LeBoa ’19, a freshman who heard about FFS during Admit Weekend last year, has been particularly interactive with the police.

“The police officers are there because they have to be, but they have a lot of stories too,” LeBoa said. “Carol, who’s working now, actually lived on a boat… Chris, the guy in the morning, is a surfer who lives in the Santa Cruz mountains. Israel wakes up at 4 a.m. to get his kids ready for school.”

According to LeBoa, the main “sacrifice” he has made to the sit-in is that his parents haven’t been supportive of the idea. They’ve told him that they didn’t intend to raise an activist.

“But for the first time, I’m not just doing what I’m told but doing what I think is right,” LeBoa said.

Students as well as protestors, the sit-in participants are frequently doing work to try and minimize the academic “sacrifice.” For some, this means getting a little distance (sitting 50 yards away from the main campsite) and getting some reading done. For others, this means pulling out a whiteboard and forming a Computation and Mathematics Engineering (CME) 100 study group.

Some of the participants hardly leave the site, while others continue to attend classes and other functions.

According to Zhanpei Fang ’19, an intended physics major who joined the sit-in because she felt powerless as a student in the “Stanford bubble” and saw the sit-in as having real cultural impact, the sit-in has been calm enough to get homework done. Nonetheless, she hasn’t stayed on-site at all times.

“I have been going to classes because I don’t want to fail,” Fang said. “And I went back to my dorm once to shower.”

In addition to individual studying, some of the teach-ins have taken the form of classes that either relocated to the site of the sit-in or classes that allowed students to attend via Skype in order to not miss out on learning opportunities.

Sijo Smith ’18, who Skyped into Earth Systems 112 with seven other classmates from outside Building 10, indicated that many professors have been very accommodating of students participating in the sit-in.

“It’s been great working with professors who have allowed students to make up classes one way or the other,” Smith said.

Throughout the day, work and learning tends to be broken up by musical interludes. On Wednesday alone, the sit-in was visited by Occupella, a Bay Area pacifist music group; the Stanford Collaborative Orchestra; and the University Singers.

Much of the music, however, is more impromptu. Walking through the arcades, songs are hummed under students’ breath. One student pulls out a ukulele, and a group surrounding her breaks into an impromptu cover of Vance Joy’s “Riptide.”

The most frequent instances of music, however, have been the songs of the protest itself. With simple songs about building power and expressing confidence in this power to effect change, the students sing both at meetings and at various other times during the week, such as when Smith presented FFS’s response letter to the administration’s warning letter.

Smith, who has been a member of FFS since her freshman year, said she came to the sit-in with a strong group of friends, but also with people she didn’t know as well or had never met.

In fact, participants in the sit-in have differing levels of connection to Fossil Free Stanford and the rest of the environmental community at the University. Fang, for instance, decided to come to the event after reading about it on several email lists, but she didn’t know anyone doing it particularly well.

“I have had my friends visit me though,” Fang said. “They’ve been very supportive of the cause.”

FFS organizers have also encouraged participants to attend other activist events on campus. On Tuesday, this meant a rally in the courtyard of Old Union to uplift Muslim and Arab voices in the wake of Islamophobia following the Paris attacks. On Wednesday, this meant a #StudentBlackout rally in White Plaza to stand in solidarity with students protesting racism at campuses across the country such as Mizzou, Yale, Claremont McKenna and all other educational spaces where discrimination occurs.

While the fossil fuel divestment movement is not directly about these racial discrimination issues, the global environmental justice implications of fossil fuels is heavily emphasized in the FFS campaign.

Gabriela Leslie ’15 M.S.’17 was one of the people that led the charge on an art project underscoring the way that the fossil fuel industry has impacted communities across the globe. The project was a large trifold structure placed first off the main quad facing the oval, then moved back to the site of the sit-in after being notified by the University that it would otherwise be taken down by workers.

The idea of the work, according to Leslie, is to “shine a spotlight on the high profile cases of global communities that have been directly affected by the negligence of the fossil fuel industry.” The piece specifically features stories from the Chevron oil spill in Ecuador, the threat of sea level rise in Tuvalu and the drought in California, among others.

“The two main criteria that institutions typically ask when deciding to divest is [one,] whether the product creates substantial societal harm and two, whether there are alternatives to the product or service readily available,” Leslie said. “We wanted to tackle this first question in particular.”

“[The project] really brings the moral issue to the absolute forefront in a place where the University can’t turn a blind eye,” she added.

Other actions have included the response letter presented back to the administration and an op-ed written by Andrea Martinez ’15 M.S. ’15 in response to an article published in The Stanford Review.

For the protesters, the work and the music and the visitors are all just part of the now natural sit-in routine. The final shakeup of this routine, however, may come when the group has a rally on Friday at 11 a.m. and a tentative public meeting with President John Hennessy at an undetermined time on Friday. While FFS organizers have met with Hennessy in the past, this will be the first time it will occur in a public setting.

Going into Friday, Greaney emphasizes the importance of attitude of the group.

In the words of Greaney, the students intend to show Hennessy just how “passionate and persistent, hopeful and determined” they are, as they once again make their case for fossil fuel divestment.

Editor’s note: Ada Throckmorton is an embedded reporter at the sit-in.

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

OpenXChange held the first of six “Open Office Hours” on Thursday, Nov. 19, featuring a panel on climate change. (TARA BALAKRISHNAN / The Stanford Daily)

OpenXChange launched its “Open Office Hours” program on Thursday with a panel discussion on climate change. The event was the first in a six-part series.

“Our hope [was] that, like office hours, the event [would] serve as a venue for people who want to learn about a complex topic to ask questions and engage with faculty,” wrote Sharon Palmer, Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, in an email to The Daily.

The discussion was moderated by professor Pamela Matson, dean of the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. Attendees had the opportunity to hear from five panelists from a variety of academic fields.

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam opened with a few words about the new Open Office Hours program. The intent is for each event to imitate real office hours, giving students and experts the opportunity to “exchange ideas.” There will be five more discussions this year on the topics of human rights, immigration, Black Lives Matter, sexual assault and mental health.

Elam then offered the floor to student representatives from Fossil Free Stanford to read a statement they had prepared. They expressed their gratitude toward the University administration for acknowledging the importance of climate change and for this event.

“We hope that meaningful action can and will emerge from the discussions that take place today,” one student said.

They also noted their disappointment that some administrators “have not engaged with us” at Building 10 during the sit-in. They invited everyone at the event to talk with them at the site if they have questions or concerns.

“Fossil Free Stanford hopes that OpenXChange will be used as a springboard for action, rather than an excuse for inaction,” they said.

Matson launched the panel discussion by highlighting the urgency of the climate change issue and the challenges of responding effectively.

“This is the kind of discussion we need to be having in the University,” she said. “This is an era of responsibility. The actions we make today will affect our kids and grandkids and future generations.”

Each of the five panelists spoke about their experience with climate science or policy and offered unique perspectives on the next steps we need to take to address the issue both as inhabitants of the earth and as members of the Stanford community.

Katharine Mach, senior research associate at Carnegie Science’s Department of Global Ecology, discussed the challenges we face in limiting climate change into the future. She specifically addressed warming limits and the timeline for reducing carbon emissions. She explained that if the world keeps emitting at its current rate, we will reach the current warming limit, two degrees Celsius, in a little over 20 years. Total global emissions will have to be zero in order to not surpass the limit once we get there.

“It’s not a question of if we get to zero emissions, but when,” she said. “This challenge can be an opportunity to build a better world.”

Arun Majumdar, professor of mechanical engineering and co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, discussed possible technologies that would help with a smooth transition to sustainability.

“The big question is how do we decarbonize our system while continuing economic growth?” he said.

While many people believe these two efforts are mutually exclusive, he rejected that assumption. He outlined his top 10 technologies for making the two more “inclusive,” which included reducing the price of carbon capture, improving battery storage, increasing enforcement of building codes and increasing efforts in genetic engineering.

Larry Goulder, professor of environmental and resource economics and senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, provided insight into the economic and political levers for addressing climate change. He noted how some special interest groups have stakes in forestalling action, and many say that the cost of taking action to reduce climate change outweighs the benefits. But from an economic standpoint, Goulder said, this is a false claim.

“Appropriate public policies can deal with the problem and can create… benefits that are greater than the sacrifices,” he said.

He emphasized the need for public policy to combat climate change, citing two specific types of policy that would be most effective. The first is policy that discourages the demand for carbon-based fuels (i.e. cap and trade), and the second is policy that directly promotes clean-energy innovation.

Goulder also noted that education, voting in elections and local environmental actions are also crucial in the fight against climate change.

Alicia Seiger, deputy director of the Steyer Taylor Center For Energy Policy & Finance, discussed the Steyer Center’s efforts in clean energy investment. She proposed recycling old tax policies from oil and gas industries and applying them to clean energy and analyzed the risks and returns of certain actions involving capital to combat climate change.

Law professor Michelle Anderson discussed the relationship between poverty and climate change, which she described as “the two central challenges of our era.”

She responded to a widespread view that the goals of reducing inequality and limiting climate change must be “pitted against each other.” Instead, she believes that we can work toward achieving both goals without sacrificing benefits in one area for benefits in the other.

After hearing from the five panelists, Matson asked them a few questions. The first, directed toward Goulder, questioned what policies are “win-wins,” or the most effective in terms of costs and benefits. Goulder said that removing subsidies for coal, oil and gas would eliminate some deadweight loss to the economy as well as benefit the environment. A carbon tax would also be effective, he said.

Another question addressed possible technologies. Majumdar talked about efficiency and what he thinks are the best steps moving forward. He specifically discussed enforcing building codes, reducing the cost of carbon capture and eventually increasing nuclear power.

“We need to reduce energy consumption without sacrificing energy services,” he said.

Matson then turned to the topic of divestment. How do we reconcile the fact that “not all oil and gas actors are evil?” she asked.

Seiger said she is particularly upset with companies such as Exxon that purposely hide information about climate change. However, she explained that we need to understand that not all companies are the same, even if some are particularly egregious.

“Actively obscuring information is something we shouldn’t be standing for as citizens,” she said.

The panel finally responded to questions from members of the audience, many of whom were students involved in the sit-in calling for divestment from fossil fuels.

One person questioned the emphasis on GDP as a measure of the well-being of society. Majumdar agreed that there may be better measures of quality of life, particularly Human Development Index.

Another asked about top-down versus bottom-up approaches to fighting climate change. With the COP21 in Paris coming up, she mentioned that the United Nations historically has taken a top-down approach. Goulder responded by discussing how as more and more countries realize taking action is in their interests, negotiations such as the upcoming summit will move toward a bottom-up approach. Majumdar pointed to the recent joint statement between the United States and China as a “critical” example.

Mach addressed the issue of divestment from fossil fuel and what kinds of challenges are present based on the way Stanford manages those kinds of decisions. She also offered information to those interested in promoting change, like the students who attended the event representing Fossil Free Stanford and the divestment movement.

Contact Sarah Ortlip-Sommers at sortlip ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Students participate in a “teach-in,” led by Jeremy Sabol, a SLE section leader, in the Main Quad. (ADA THROCKMORTON / The Stanford Daily)

Fossil Free Stanford (FFS) sit-in participants responded Wednesday night to the University’s warning letter to protesters by affirming their resolve to remain outside President John Hennessy’s office. Throughout the day, many faculty members supported the sit-in participants by holding “teach-ins” and relocating regular classes to the area outside Building 10, where protesters are camped out.

Hennessy also has agreed to meet publicly with protesters on Friday. No specific time, however, has been set.

Fossil Free’s response letter

In a letter to Hennessy and the Board of Trustees, members of FFS mimicked the structure and language of the administration’s own warning letter to reject the University’s suggestion that they end their sit-in or relocate to White Plaza. The group stated that they will stay outside Building 10 “specifically to call for action from Hennessy and the Board of Trustees.”

Paralleling the University’s call to protesters to leave the Main Quad in order to comply with school policy, the letter from the sit-in participants states, “In order to comply with Stanford University’s mission and Fundamental Standard, you must immediately divest from the rest of the fossil fuel industry. The student body and Stanford community are instructing you to do so.”

After laying out the repercussions of Stanford’s refusal to divest from fossil fuels (“Can you accept the consequences of your own inaction?”) and refusing to move to White Plaza, the letter says, “This movement is not going away.”

The protesters presented a physical copy of the letter to Chris Griffith, associate vice provost and dean of students. Griffith and Nicole Taylor, associate vice provost for student affairs and dean of community engagement and diversity, delivered the university missive to sit-in participants on Tuesday afternoon.

Faculty teach-ins and classes demonstrate support

Since Tuesday, faculty have shown their solidarity with protesters through a near-continuous lineup of teach-ins and relocated classes held in the Main Quad.

“A lot of faculty are teaching and researching and thinking about different facets of this campaign and environmental justice,” said Daniel Murray Ph.D. ’15, Stanford’s director of community engaged learning. “Trying to bring other folks into this space and capitalize on those conversations is valuable for helping students think critically about what they’re doing here.”

Teach-ins — which range from “Politics and Justice in Carbon Accounting” to “Antigone and Social Dissent” — are open to the entire campus community and discuss social, political and environmental issues relevant to the Fossil Free movement. Relocated classes do not necessarily relate to the sit-in and divestment, but FFS student organizer Josh Lappen ’17 said that these classes combine with the teach-ins to help make the sit-in “an educational space.”

“The fact that we’ve chosen this [sit-in] tactic means that we have a lot of spare time,” said FFS media coordinator Michael Penuelas ’15 M.S.’16. “We wanted that time to be constructive toward the goal of educating people about fossil fuel companies… and their role in driving climate change.”

“Upholding the educational mission of the University, we wanted the sit-in to provide space for all kinds of discussions, including but not limited to fossil fuels,” Penuelas said.

As of Wednesday night, FFS’s website listed 10 teach-ins and 12 relocated classes that have already taken place; more are planned for Thursday and Friday. This list continues to grow as more faculty members hear about the outdoor classes and request to participate, said Lappen, who helped coordinate the educational activities.

Lappen pointed out that 379 Stanford faculty members have signed a letter urging the University to divest from fossil fuels. He noted high interest in teaching at the sit-in as further proof of strong faculty support for the movement.

The students in FFS reached out to trusted professors late last week asking if they would be willing to teach classes in the Quad. Penuelas said that the Earth Systems program was the most contacted and most responsive department, but that faculty members leading the classes represent a wide range of disciplines, from urban studies to classics to computer science.

Faculty members leading the teach-ins were eager to share areas of expertise that they thought would intersect with and provoke thought about the divestment movement.

Donna Hunter, a lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR), held a teach-in Tuesday evening called “Black Lives Matter and Student Activism.” She argued that, overall, University professors were more supportive of the Occupy movement than the Black Lives Matter movement because they could relate more to the former group. Hunter challenged FFS students — whom she pointed out are mostly white — to consider the role of racial politics in their own movement.

“I feel like even five years ago there wasn’t this kind of activism on Stanford campus,” she said. “I see students getting really motivated to take their education really seriously, but also what’s going on off campus.”

Murray led a teach-in called “Radical Democracy: Power to the People” at midday on Wednesday. He spoke about the limits of a democracy in which citizens choose representatives but rarely engage more deeply.

Students participating in the sit-in were grateful for faculty support.

“It feels similar in nature to having people come and drop off warm supplies, or having people drop off food,” said Gabriela Leslie ’14 M.S. ’17. “They’re coming in and dropping off their knowledge.”

However, Penuelas emphasized that the teach-ins are for everyone, saying that Fossil Free has sought to publicize the teach-ins with posters and a Facebook page. He estimated that about a third of the 30 attendees at professor of classics Rush Rehm’s teach-in “Antigone and Social Dissent” were not members of FFS.

“They’re just folks who came because they wanted to engage with the issues,” he said.

Similarly, urban studies lecturer Kevin Hsu ’10 — who moved his class “International Urbanization” to the Main Quad on Wednesday — emphasized that the sit-in classes should be inclusive of all students and views.

“Being here does not necessarily mean that you have to agree with what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re just saying that we think it’s a worthwhile conversation to have as members of the Stanford community and inhabitants of planet Earth… You are citizens of this community that we’re all part of — students, faculty, alumni and staff.”

Contact Hannah Knowles at hknowles ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Official Notice From Fossil Free Stanford

Official Notice from Stanford University

Students protested outside of President Hennessy’s office on Monday afternoon (RAGHAV MEHROTRA/The Stanford Daily)

Around 1 p.m. on Monday, 104 students, many affiliated with Fossil Free Stanford, walked to Building 10, which houses the offices of the president and provost, and announced that they would be participating in a sit-in until the President John Hennessy and the Board of Trustees agreed to full divestment from fossil fuel companies. At the same time, a rally for full divestment took place in White Plaza.

At the conclusion of the main rally event, students began to put up tents around the building to camp outside the office. The participants were later issued a warning for potential violation of both the Fundamental Standard and California law.

Progress of the sit-in

When the group of around 100 students first reached Building 10, they were greeted by two police officers. Upon finding that the door was locked, Fossil Free Stanford member Michael Peñuelas ’15 M.S.’16 asked the police if they would be admitted, exercising the right of students to speak with administration.

The police officers denied the students any further entrance, and upon being asked for supervisors or administrators they could contact, the only name the officers would provide was Stanford police chief Laura Wilson.

In an email to The Daily, University spokeswoman Lisa Lapin wrote that “we respect the right of students to peacefully demonstrate in a way that does not impede University operations.”

Lapin also said that Hennessy would be willing to meet again with students if they set up an appointment through his office. Meanwhile, Hennessy was filmed around 2 p.m. getting a haircut at Stanford Hair in Tresidder Union, near the site of the rally in White Plaza. Lapin stated that Hennessy saw some students while getting his haircut but could not confirm the time.

Announcing disappointment in the Stanford administration for “refusing to even engage in the conversation,” Stanford Fossil Free logistics coordinator Yari Greaney ’15 M.S. ’16 called up letter-readers from the group of assembled students.

At the end of the letter reading, the students held hands and formed a ring encircling all of Building 10, taking off sweatshirts to reveal Fossil Free shirts. The students proceeded to join in song.

Simultaneously with this action, another group of over 200 students rallied for divestment in White Plaza to support the sit-in participants. Event emcee and Fossil Free Stanford member Emma Fisher ’17 gave a short speech highlighting the goals of the Fossil Free movement at Stanford and importance of swift action on the divestment issue and then led the gathered students in chants.

As the songs outside Building 10 continued, the group of students at the White Plaza rally marched to join the students outside the president and provost’s offices, led by Fisher and other members of Fossil Free.

After the arrival of this second group, ASSU Executives John-Lancaster Finley ’16 and Brandon Hill ’16 spoke, reminding the crowd of the “overwhelming” student support for fossil free divestment. The ASSU Undergraduate Senate, the Graduate Student Council and the student body have all voted for divestment.

Next, Andrea Martinez ’16 M.S.’16 spoke to the crowd. Citing the statistic that children in West Oakland are more than seven times more likely to be hospitalized with asthma than the average, she told the crowd, “I can not think of a human right more basic than breathable air.”

“We can not afford your apathy,” Martinez said as she turned toward the president’s office.

“Stanford may not be a sovereign nation, but we too are a global leader,” she added, referencing the need for action before the Paris climate negotiations in December.

Fossil Free Stanford representatives then read another letter to the larger group before announcing the beginning of the sit-in.

Potential repercussions for participants

At around 9 p.m. sit-in participants were visited and issued a warning by Nicole Taylor, associate vice provost for student affairs and dean of community engagement and diversity, and Chris Griffith, associate vice provost and dean of students. Taylor and Griffith were accompanied by a police deputy.

According to a statement read by Taylor, the students in the quad were in violation of the use of main quad and memorial court policy. This policy states that “unscheduled events and unsanctioned gatherings such as any activities with amplified sound, marches, rallies and performances” are prohibited, as is blocking the arcades in which the participants are camped out. Taylor continued that failure to comply with the policy could result in a referral to the Office of Community Standards under the Fundamental Standard.

In addition, participants were told that they could potentially be charged with a misdemeanor for trespassing or with a violation of the fire code under California law.

According to Taylor, tonight’s warning was preliminary and a formal written copy of the potential violations will be issued to participants at some time on Tuesday. She said that the purpose of this first visit was to make sure participating students were as informed as possible about policies and laws they might be violating.

Context of the sit-in

This particular civil disobedience strategy of “sit-ins” has been used at other universities with fossil fuel divestment campaigns. For example, a sit-in at Syracuse University last fall was part of a series of protests from both students and faculty that resulted in agreement by the administration to divest.

Last spring saw another wave of sit-ins at colleges such as Harvard, Swarthmore and Yale, all with mixed results. At Yale, 19 students were issued citations and fines for trespassing. At Swarthmore, the sit-in lasted 32 days before ending in a faculty vote for divestment, although the university’s board ultimately did not choose to divest.

More recently, students at MIT began a sit-in outside President L. Rafael Reif’s office on Oct. 22 after the university released a five-year plan to address climate change that did not include divestment.

The students participating in the Stanford sit-in issued a pledge in early October to engage in civil disobedience if the University did not agree to comprehensive fossil fuel divestment (as opposed to just divesting from coal companies) by the upcoming climate negotiations in Paris.

Since then, Hennessy and the Board released a letter indicating that Stanford takes climate change very seriously but did not make any further commitment to divest. While six faculty members released a response letter again urging comprehensive divestment, Fossil Free had not publicly released more details about their disobedience pledge until the start of the sit-in.

According to Fossil Free Stanford administration liaison Sijo Smith ’18, the group met in person with Hennessy, his assistant Jeff Watchel and Susan Weinstein, chair of the Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing (APIRL), the week before the sit-in.  

“We gave three criteria for not divesting in oil and natural gas companies on principle — that fossil fuel companies commit to keeping 80 percent of their current reserves in ground, stop seeking new reserves and stop lobbying against climate policy,” Smith said.

In her email, University spokeswoman Lapin wrote, “Stanford is a leader on both sustainability and the environment and has done more to reduce its impact on climate change than any university in the country.”

Hannah Knowles contributed to this report. Photos by Raghav Mehrotra.

Editor’s note: Ada Throckmorton is an embedded reporter at the sit-in. 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

Students comparing notes of their findings in the field. (Courtesy of Elena Cryst)

A new pilot program aims to take students out of the classroom and into the field. After taking ECON 121: Social Science Field Research Methods and Applications in the spring, students spent three weeks in Puebla, Mexico to conduct field research on whether providing information on a household’s electricity bill and simple methods to reduce energy consumption would lead to a decreased energy bill for a house.

This course is a pilot collaboration between the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Office of International Affairs.

During the students’ stay in Puebla, they, alongside students from the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, spent eight to 10 hours a day conducting interviews and surveying households. At their most efficient, the students would do as much as 44 surveys in one day, culminating in 260 surveys completed in 10 days of field work. Currently, three students are working as research assistants to create a self-administered online version of the survey instrument that that they hope will help thousands of households in Puebla.

Getting students out into the field and applying their knowledge is the driving force behind the program, according to Frank Wolak, who taught the class and is professor of economics.

“While students at Stanford have many opportunities to pursue independent research projects, they rarely have the opportunity to receive first-hand training in conducting interviews, research design and field implementation,” said Wolak in an interview with the Stanford Report. “With that in mind, we set out to design a program that would carry the students through the basics of empirical research and then give them the opportunity to apply that knowledge under close faculty supervision. Taking students out of the classroom and giving them the opportunity to see textbook methods in action is invaluable.”

During the class in spring, students learning the basics of design, implementation and interpretation of field research in the social sciences. Though a knowledge of statistical methods, economics and research practices is required, the class paid significant attention to differentiating what can be learned in the class and what can only be learned out in the field.

While students might have come to the course with some ideas about this, once they were onsite and had a greater understanding of how local residents actually lived, empirical data changed how they made recommendations.

“There are a variety of situation-specific problems that are hard for any researcher to know fully without being immersed in the field,” Wolak said. “For example, one of the students’ recommendations to improve energy efficiency was to switch household light bulbs from incandescent to compact fluorescents (CFL). This is a valid recommendation in the United States, where most people still use incandescent bulbs in their homes, but — surprisingly to the team — most of the people interviewed had already converted to all CFLs in their home.”

Wolak noted that the pilot program “exceeded [his] expectations in the best possible ways” and hopes to bring the program to other parts of Latin America, such as Chile or Colombia.

“Our hope is that this training equips the students with the academic and logistical skills they need to execute their own robust research, be that for an honors thesis, a capstone project or an advanced degree,” he said.

Contact Jeremy Quach at jquach ‘at’ stanford.edu.

National Security Advisor and Stanford alumnus Susan Rice urged students to take action to curb climate change on Monday. (Courtesy of Linda Cicero/Stanford News Service)

In an event hosted by the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) on Monday, National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice ’86 spoke on climate change and its role within national security, anticipating the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Paris starting on Nov. 30.

This was Rice’s second official visit back to campus, the first being when she delivered the Commencement address in 2010 while serving as ambassador to the United Nations. This time, she was welcomed by President John Hennessy and Michael McFaul, Director of the FSI and former ambassador to Russia.

After fondly recounting her personal experience at Stanford, Rice quickly focused on the topic of climate change, remembering that in 1985, during fall quarter of her senior year at Stanford, scientists from around the world had concluded that the buildup of greenhouse gases — particularly carbon dioxide — would result in the greatest rise in global mean temperature in man’s history.

“It’s not that we didn’t see climate change coming,” Rice said. “Instead, for the better part of the three decades, we failed repeatedly to treat this challenge with the seriousness and the urgency it deserves.”

Rice believed that the ideological gap between developing and developed countries on how to cope with climate changes by adjusting paces of economic development compromised the prospects of international cooperation. At the same time, “domestic pressures,” as Rice put it, also hindered the U.S. government from taking timely action. In addition, considerable attention has been devoted to other national security considerations, ranging from terrorism to cyber attacks to the Ebola crisis.

However, “today, we face no greater long-term challenge than climate change,” Rice asserted. “The science is not up for debate. I know you all are not the crowd that needs to be convinced. You’re living it.” She cited Stanford’s redwoods and eucalyptus trees dying from drought as vivid evidence of global warming.

“As for those who remain unconvinced, I respectfully suggest that they’re either not paying attention, or they’re not living on the same planet as the rest of us,” Rice said.

Many prominent Republican leaders, including several candidates for the 2016 presidential election, have openly expressed their doubt on whether global warming is real. For instance, Republican Senator Ted Cruz recently told Time Magazine that “if you look to the satellite data for the last 18 years, there has been zero recorded warming.”

Openly contesting the claim, Rice mentioned that, “in the past 15 years, we’ve had 14 of the hottest years on record, which is exactly the kind of changes climate scientists back in 1985 suggested we would be seeing by now.”

Rice cited extreme weather patterns on both ends of the spectrum. Last year, 2014, was the hottest year on record and many scientists now say there is 95-percent chance a new record will be set this year.

“While we can’t say that climate change is the direct cause of any specific weather event,” said Rice, citing the unprecedented level of rainfall in Carolina last week, “these are exactly the trends that we expect to see more of if climate change continues on the current trajectory.”

Despite the Republican suspicion, however, Rice believed that “we are in fact at an inflection point, a moment where consensus is building.” She mentioned that President Barack Obama has emphasized climate change policy as a defining imperative in both foreign and domestic policies.

“American leadership under President Obama has been crucial to galvanize many countries, particularly the major carbon emitters to move beyond the ideological shackles that had held us back in the past,” Rice said.

Last year, the United States and China, the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, signed a historic act agreeing to work together to ameliorate climate change, signaling the possibility of collaboration between developed and developing countries on environmental protection.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit last month, the two countries issued a Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change, in which both parties aimed to “promote sustainable development and the transition to green, low-carbon, and climate-resilient economies” by taking strong domestic actions, including development of clean energy sources and “efforts in Washington,” such as prompting Congress to stop sequestration and passing a budget for the Green Climate Fund. Rice did not specify how bipartisan cooperation might be achieved on these issues.

Rice urged Stanford students to address the global challenge of climate change.

“Thirty years from now, when one of the students sitting in the audience today might have my job,” Rice said. “What would you say to a room full of students with their whole future ahead of them? I hope you’ll be able to tell them when the world finally came together to preserve the one earth we all must share.”

Contact Qitong Cao at qitong ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

The Stanford Educational Farm serves as a teaching ground for Earth Systems 180B (NINA ZUBRILINA / The Stanford Daily).

EARTHSYS 180B, “Principles and Practices of Sustainable Agriculture,” takes students outdoors to Stanford’s Educational Farm for a hands-on environmental studies experience where they learn everything from plant anatomy to composting.

Students meet twice a week — once for a conventional indoor lecture, and once for a lab section held at the six-acre O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm, which is located on West Campus and opened just last spring.

“Part of our pedagogy in environmental science is that we want to get people out in the world,” said Patrick Archie, a lecturer in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences. “We don’t just teach from the book, or in a cloistered setting.”

“It’s easy to get theoretical and abstract when you’re not engaged on the front lines with the problem,” he added.

The class, which focuses on teaching ecologically sound agricultural techniques, fulfills the “Scientific Method and Analysis” WAYS requirement, as well as the “Applied Study in the Field” requirement for earth systems majors in the sustainable food and agriculture track.

At last Wednesday’s lab section, Archie led small groups through an activity on asexual reproduction in plants. Students snipped plants into three-to-four-inch pieces that, with proper care, will put out roots and grow.  

Archie’s lesson ran more like a conversation as students chimed in frequently with questions about everything from cutting technique, to “Is this plant edible?”— for Cuban mint, the answer was yes, and students proceeded to taste it.

“Pepper me with questions; I love it,” Archie said.  

When not working with Archie, students were out in the sun and dirt, shoveling and preparing soil beds for planting.

Before the Educational Farm was opened, EARTHSYS 180B was a one-sixth-acre garden plot within the old Stanford Community Farm. The new space offers expanded opportunities for hands-on work in his class, Archie said.

According to Archie, the larger plot allows students to work with more diverse plants, as well as new tools, like a tractor. The course still benefits from field trips to bigger farms, but students can also learn larger-scale farming techniques more conveniently.

“It’s difficult to do stuff in the field when you’re in the midst of the quarter and you’ve got a bunch of other courses, and so having a farm that we can literally walk to just down the road is great,” Archie said.

Archie said that readings and traditional lecture are important, but that hands-on work helps reinforce students’ knowledge. Over his five years of teaching the course, he has increased the amount of class time spent outside.

EARTHSYS 180B student Pablo Haake ’19 agreed that hands-on experience has enhanced the course material.

“I think you care a lot more about something when you see it in action — when you can see the vegetables and fruits growing,” Haake said.  

Even in homework assignments, students of the class encounter practical applications. Last week, they began work on a group project that will help shape the Educational Farm. Each team is tasked with researching a different of subset of perennials, such as cane berries or stone fruits, and recommending particular species to plant at Stanford.

According to Archie, his class comprises a wide range of ages, from freshmen to graduate students, as well as a range of academic interests.

“In general, in our society right now, everyone’s gotten really interested in food,” Archie said. “I think at Stanford, too, people see food as an interesting nexus, it’s a way of making lots of different connections.”

For example, current EARTHSYS 180B student Aitrin Doan ’18 came to the course through an interest in international relations, particularly food and water security.

Doan also said that she likes smaller classes with a hands-on component, mentioning a Community Engaged Learning (CEL) course she enjoyed last year. CEL classes interact with the broader community around Stanford.

Deputy Director of the Earth Systems program Richard Nevle Ph.D. ’95 recalled his own experience as a graduate student at Stanford, saying that in-the-field learning has always been important to the earth and environmental sciences.

“It’s not a new thing at all,” he said. “It’s just the way that we teach.”

“You can’t really appreciate the scale at which the Earth Systems processes occur without moving classroom to the outdoors,” Nevle added.

He described a variety of options for experiential learning in the Earth Systems department, from a quarter-long program in Hawaii to short weekend trips to Sophomore College courses in the Rocky Mountains and Alaska.

Nevle emphasized that these in-the-field programs are aimed not just at Earth Systems majors, but at the entire Stanford community.

“In my perfect Stanford world, every single student on campus would take at least one course… to help them gain environmental literacy,” he said. “And I think that hands-on, field-learning opportunities are really an incredible and fun way to do that.”

Contact Hannah Knowles at hknowles ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Photo Gallery by Nina Zubrilina

Al Gore speaks about climate change in White Plaza. (CATALINA RAMIREZ-SAENZ/The Stanford Daily)

On Friday night, an estimated 2,000 people gathered in White Plaza for the Know Tomorrow rally, featuring former Vice President Al Gore. The event was part of a national Day of Action aimed to raise climate awareness in preparation for the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris this November and December.

The event was put on by Stanford student representatives from Know Tomorrow, a national organization, and members of Students for a Sustainable Stanford (SSS). In addition to Gore and representatives from his nonprofit The Climate Reality Project, speakers included Stanford faculty, ASSU Executives John-Lancaster Finley ’16 and Brandon Hill ’16 and members of student groups such as the Stanford American Indian Organization (SAIO) and Fossil Free Stanford. The Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB) and Talisman also performed at the two hour long event.

Hall Connolly, senior vice president of The Climate Reality Project, said that when the Know Tomorrow campaign approached the former vice president about speaking at Stanford, Gore’s organization saw it as a good opportunity to work with students.

“This generation is the one that will solve climate,” Connolly said. “And being here today, you could feel how excited the crowd was and how much energy there was.”

Former Vice President Gore Calls Students to Action

After taking selfies with several students on his way to the stage, the former vice president opened his speech by thanking the crowd but also charged them with a certain responsibility.

“The main solution to the climate crisis is right here – with your willingness to get involved,” Gore said.

Gore then said that there are really only three questions left for climate change: “Do we have to change?”, “Can we change?” and “Will we change?”

Addressing the first question of whether or not humans need to change to solve climate change, Gore spoke about both climate deniers and societal tendencies that encourage people to ignore the problem.

“We are telling all the big polluters it is okay to use the sky as a giant open sewer,” Gore said. “The answer to that question ‘do we have to change’ is abundantly clear.”

After recognizing the need for action, however, the former vice president had a more optimistic take on whether society can and will change. Gore answered the matter of ability to change by citing the unlikely examples of both the “Green” Tea Party from Atlanta, Georgia and the Christian Coalition – two environmentally active groups, despite being otherwise conservative.

In answering the final question, Gore’s answer was multi-faceted.

“We are winning this struggle; we just have to win faster,” he told the crowd.

Gore then declared that the climate change movement, to truly succeed, will have to match the scale, tactics and enthusiasm of other grand-sweeping social movements such as women’s suffrage, gay rights, the civil rights movement of the 1960s and Black Lives Matter today.  

“This movement is in the tradition of every great moral movement that has advanced the equality of our society, and every single one of them has met resistance to where the advocates reached the point of despair but persevered,” he said. “We are close… to where this issue is resolved by the simple question of choosing between right and wrong. But because we are humans, the outcome is for-ordained.”

Harkening again to history but tailoring his message to the majority-student audience, the former vice president closed his address by describing his awe at the United States’ eight-year path to putting a man on the moon. According to Gore, the average age of the people in the NASA control room at the time was 26, making them just 18 years old when President John F. Kennedy first declared that the U.S. would put humans of the moon.

“Be persistent; be persuasive. The facts are on your side,” Gore said. “Political will is a renewable resource.”

Members of the Stanford Community Talk Climate Change

In addition to the former vice president’s speech, members of the local and campus community participated onstage. After an energetic opening from LSJUMB, organizers from SSS gave an introduction to the rally and acted as MCs for the event before the former vice president took the microphone.

Earth systems science professor Noah Diffenbaugh ’96 M.S. ’97 also spoke about his work as a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. Joking about needing to use scientific jargon, Diffenbaugh told the crowd that when scientists record temperatures and see that they’re increasing, they call it “warming.”

“I embrace warming; I know that we’ve measured it,” Diffenbaugh said. “Global warming is not a matter of belief or ideology. If you believe in thermometers, you believe in global warming.”

Civil and environmental engineering professor Mark Jacobson ’87 M.S. ’88 discussed the progress that is being made toward clean energy around the world.

Jacobson argued that many clean energies are already economically viable, citing that wind is the cheapest form of energy in the United States by a factor of two, and that after capital and maintenance cost, wind and solar are free energy sources. According to Jacobson, nonprofits like his own Solutions Project have been effective at spreading such technologies.

ASSU President Finley and Vice President Hill took the stage following the two faculty members. The two received cheers from the crowd as they announced that they have reached out directly to the Stanford Board of Trustees demanding full divestment from fossil fuels, rather than just the current divestment from coal.

“Let the world know that we are here to fight,” Hill concluded. “We are here to act, and we are here to lead on climate change.”

Jasmin Vargas, representing Communities for a Better Climate, a Bay Area organization focused on environmental justice, told the crowd how she was inspired to study environmental science after attending a Radiohead concert during college where the band discussed the environmental crisis and implored the audience do something about it. Vargas changed her major to environmental studies soon after.

Following Vargas, Chasity Salvador ’17 performed a spoken word piece about growing up on a farm amid fires and water shortages. Salvador represented SAIO and spoke about the ways that climate change and environmental degradation affect indigenous communities.

For the final speech by student group representatives, Sijo Smith ’18 and Jenai Longstaff ’18 from Fossil Free Stanford addressed divestment from fossil fuels. Like Finley and Hill, they asked for a next level of action, saying that the Board of Trustees had heard the calls for divestment from the ASSU, the Graduate Student Council and over 375 faculty members.

Finally, Dominique Francks ’16, the Know Tomorrow campus representative, took the stage and told the crowd a story about literally passing out from fear after seeing “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“When I came home, I told my dad what had happened, and he gave me some advice,” Francks said. “‘If it scares you that badly, then go out there and change it.’”

Wrapping up

Throughout the rally, student volunteers asked attendees to sign the Know Tomorrow petition demanding leaders at the UN conference to “create a world with zero global warming pollution and zero extreme poverty” and asking that President Barack Obama sign “a strong agreement to cut emissions” at the Paris negotiations.

By the end of the event, organizers had collected approximately 2,000 signatures, which will be compiled with signatures collected from campuses across the country on the Day of Action.

“I think Stanford has a lot to be proud about in terms of this event,” Connolly said.

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

This push is a part of the national Know Tomorrow campaign leading up to the 2015 International Paris Climate Conference, also known as the 21st Conference of Parties (COP-21). A National Day of Action and rally will be held on Friday in White Plaza to kickstart the rest of the campaign.

At Stanford, the campaign is a joint project between many student groups on campus. The rally itself will host a variety of groups and speakers, ranging from guest speaker Former Vice President Al Gore, to social-justice themed a cappella group Talisman, to the Stanford American Indian Organization (SAIO), to Stanford faculty members, to the Sexual Health Peer Resource Center (SHPRC).

While there is an umbrella organization of environmental student groups called the Green Alliance for Innovative Action (GAIA) that meets each year to endorse ASSU candidates, the Know Tomorrow participants come from a greater number of disciplines and focuses. According to event organizer and SSS member John Zhao ’18, the wide array of groups intends to recognize the ways climate change and environmental issues can affect underserved populations and many other global issues such as food security and health.

“All these different groups are participating because we want to highlight the fact that climate change is inherently a social justice issue,” Zhao said. “Many mainstream climate movements tend to ignore that climate change disproportionately affects the impoverished and communities of color.”

In addition to presenting the intersection of multiple issues related to climate change, SSS hopes to present the movement through as many mediums as possible. For Maria Doerr ’17, this means organizing Environmental Art Mixers to support the campaign and reach new audiences on campus.

“This is not just a movement for environmentalists,” Doerr said. “Artists and people interested in social justice across disciplines are all included, and art bridges that gap and says we all have a place in this movement.”

According to Charlie Jiang ’16, SSS president, the goal of the campaign is not only to raise awareness on campus but also to pressure real world change. One way the coalition hopes to do this is by collecting signatures on the Know Tomorrow petition, which intends to serve as the primary petition of millennials demanding leaders to commit to cutting carbon emissions.

This specific petition was made by Know Tomorrow’s national organization with the intention of giving millennials a voice in the climate conversation.

“We want to use the petition to demonstrate how many students have decided to turn out on this one day to show that we are able to come together when the time is necessary,” said Jiang. “This petition will be taken to [the Paris COP-21] and delivered to the people who are making these real decisions.”

Focusing again on this Friday’s rally, Jiang said he hopes to bring out as many people as possible from as many corners of campus as possible.

“Success for us means turnout because we want this to reach a wide section of the community,” Jiang said. “Success means bringing to light the issue of social justice in climate change and the critical role this will play in December and beyond.”

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(Courtesy of Andy Loveridge/Stanford News Service)

When Cecil the lion was killed illegally this summer, it brought the international spotlight on the issues of sport hunting and poaching in Africa. Questions were raised about the legality and morality of Cecil’s killing, as well as what can be done to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. Scholars and conservationists like David J. Hayes J.D. ’78, a distinguished visiting lecturer in law at Stanford Law School, have urged the U.S. government to take action.

Cecil had been a popular attraction at Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park and part of a study done by the University of Oxford. Tourists and academics enjoyed photographing and observing him, and Cecil, who wore a GPS tracking collar, was accustomed to allowing people to approach him.

But in early July, Cecil was lured out of his sanctuary by the scent of an elephant carcass. He was shot and wounded and then tracked for 40 hours before being killed by U.S. dentist and recreational hunter Walter Palmer.

As the details of his death unfolded, outrage mounted in social media and the press. There had been no legal permit for Cecil to be hunted, and the lion had been coaxed out of a protected area.

Hayes has joined the collection of voices pointing out that the killing of Cecil is part of a larger problem.

“The Cecil the lion story is an important one because it has drawn awareness to the challenges lions are under, as well as elephants and rhinos and some other species,” Hayes said. “These are not healthy, expanding populations. These are populations under great stress.”

Hayes believes hunting must be compatible with the health of the species and that there are steps the American government can take to discourage trophy hunting.

For example, African wildlife can be “uplisted” as endangered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act. According to Hayes, this would restrict hunting and protect certain species because species that are categorized as endangered under the Endangered Species Act receive the full protections of U.S. law. Imports and international trade are monitored more closely – meaning no animal trophies can be imported into the United States and any sport hunting would be more easily prosecuted.

Back in October 2014, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed to list lions as endangered.

“The African lion…faces serious threats to its long-term survival,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe in a news release. “It is up to all of us, not just the people of Africa, to ensure that healthy, wild populations continue to roam the savannah for generations to come.”

According to Hayes, proper wildlife hunting can support conservation and African economies, but stricter regulation is needed. That regulation could come in the form of a more rigorous review of hunting practices, especially for animal populations that are under stress from poaching, loss of habitat and other challenges.

“The issue is number one: Is it appropriate to deplete animals in the population, is the population strong enough and healthy enough? And number two, if the money is being put towards conservation, is it really being spent well and productively to protect the species as a whole?” Hayes said.

Increased regulation could include clearer links between hunting funds and on-the-ground conservation activities. There could be more transparency surrounding how much money goes directly to conservation programs, as well as how much local populations benefit.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to list lions as endangered is still pending.

Contact Caroline Harris at 15charris ‘at’ castilleja.org.

William F. Moerner, professor in Chemistry and Applied Physics, won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (Courtesy of Jilliene Drayton).

For William E. Moerner, professor in chemistry and applied physics, winning the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry simultaneously opened many doors and placed more weight on his shoulders.

“My colleagues don’t treat me differently at all, but the rest of the public now puts a lot more emphasis on what I say,” said Moerner, who won the Nobel Prize for his development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy along with Eric Betzig and Stefan Hell.

According to Moerner, his Nobel Prize is a culmination of work that started in 1989 with his research on the optical detection of a single molecule — a hydrocarbon called pentacene — inside a solid crystal. Previously, single molecules were thought to be optically undetectable. However, by tuning a laser to the molecules’ broadened absorption line at temperatures close to absolute zero, Moerner became the first scientist in the world to measure the light absorption of a single molecule.

In 1997, Moerner demonstrated that the possibility to optically control the fluorescence of single molecules by manipulating the wavelength of light on them, which made it possible to create high-resolution images of samples by taking snapshots of a few excited fluorescent proteins at different times. Through the 2000s, the Moerner Lab has been making developments in optical nanoscopy,or super-resolution microscopy, and is still continuing his Nobel-Prize-winning research.

Since receiving the prize, Moerner has had the opportunity to work in fields beyond his typical area of research, including work regarding climate change. That opportunity allowed him to attend Nobel Laureates’ Symposium on Global Sustainability held last April in Hong Kong, which focused on megacities.

This meeting was the second of a series of meetings among Nobel laureates regarding climate change this year. On the final day of the 65th Lindau Meeting, 36 Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration 2015 on Climate Change, stating “that the nations of the world must take the opportunity at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015 to take decisive action to limit future global emissions.” The last Mainau Declaration was signed in 1955, in which laureates called for an end to nuclear weapons.

“I’ve always been interested in energy; some research in my lab is related to energy, specifically photosynthesis,” Moerner said. “I got concerned about environmental issues ever since Al Gore and “An Inconvenient Truth,” and how the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased through human efforts. ”

While this year enabled Moerner to further his own interests in energy and environmental issues beyond his own lab’s research and focus on molecular chemistry, he maintains that he has not gotten any smarter and emphasizes the need to stay grounded.

“My wife says I still put my pants one leg at a time,” Moerner said. “I do feel responsibility in that people put more weight on what I say; I’ve been concerned about how various people in society deny science, the scientific method and statements consistent with laws of nature and reject models when measurements improve. Results can only be certain to a degree of probability. That degree of probability is then misinterpreted as ‘the science is no good’ and used against the majority.”

Contact Ruiwen Adele Shen at shen.adele ‘at’ gmail.com.

“Even in the possible situation that white sharks may be recovering, we quantified how many ocean goers there have been [in California], and taking that number into account, the risk of being attacked has decreased,” said Francesco Ferretti, lead author and postdoctoral scholar at Hopkins Marine Center.

The study, to be published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, is an effort to increase public understanding of behavioral and migratory patterns of white sharks, or “great whites,” the species most involved with shark attacks in California. Its authors believe that this rise in understanding will help reduce the risk of shark attacks, and the paper will be published at the end of July.

Researchers explained that location and timing are key factors for shark attack risk. For example, the likelihood of an attack while surfing on the Mendocino County Coast in October is more than 1600 times greater than the risk while surfing between San Diego and Los Angeles in March.

The researchers have proposed two possible causes for the decrease in the number of attacks: that the number of white sharks has declined or that shark behavior has changed in recent years. Researchers do not have enough data to confirm declining population numbers, however, and have leaned toward the latter hypothesis.

In 1970, the federal government issued the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which has helped save seals and sea lions, the main diet of the white shark, from near extinction.

“[Sharks] are less likely to bump into people when they’re doing their business in the ocean,” said Salvador Jorgensen, co-author and Monterey Bay Aquarium research scientist. “As the prey increases, the sharks are more focused on that area and less focused on beaches where people go.”

Although some governments, including those in Hawaii and Australia, have attempted to reduce shark attacks by “culling,” or killing sharks, the authors explained that this destructive tactic actually has no effect in reducing attacks.

“If you kill a thousand sharks, a thousand more will move in [that area] because it’s open space,” Jorgensen said.

To preserve the white shark population and also reduce the number of attacks, the authors hope that their data will alleviate misconceptions about sharks and help ocean-bound visitors make more informed decisions.

“Not having a complete control of the [ocean] environment increases our fear [of sharks],” Ferretti said. “By knowing the ecology of the [white shark] species and the distribution, we can increase the safety of people.”
Contact Kalpana Gopalkrishnan at kalpanagk1999 ‘at’ gmail.com.

According to the study, led by Greg Bratman, a fourth year doctoral student in the School of Earth Sciences, after a 90-minute walk at the Dish, participants reported lower levels of rumination, which the study states is a known risk factor for mental illness. Participants also showed reduced neural activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain linked to negative emotions and mental illness risks. The participants walking along El Camino Real for the same amount of time, on the other hand, had neither of these benefits.

This summer, Bratman and his team are looking to further develop this study by replicating and validating the rumination finding and by finding other aspects of emotion regulation, along with an explanation of these benefits.

The research team also includes Gretchen Daily, Bing Professor in Environmental Science and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Daily is a founder of the Natural Capital Project, which uses studies like this one to integrate nature into the decision making of urban planners and the government.

“We’re trying to come up with rigorous and quantitative ways of bringing in the values of nature into our planning and investing,” Daily said. “We’re using mental health metrics to understand what the return would be, in some sense, in investing in nature.”

Bratman previously led a more general 50-minute walk study before focusing in on rumination for the 90-minute study. Other researchers had reported mood and memory benefits from nature, but the team wanted to focus on emotion regulation.

According to Bratman, three trends set the stage for the team’s investigation. First, over half the population lives in urban areas, and by 2050, the proportion is projected at 70 percent. Second, there has been a marked decrease in nature exposure and the opportunity to have nature experiences. Finally, there has been an uptick in mental health disorders globally, including anxiety disorders and depression. These are particularly pronounced in urban areas.

“We don’t know if these three trends are causal, or how they’re related,” Bratman said. “But they intersect, and that’s what we’re trying to explore by reintroducing nature to people who are deprived of it in urban settings.”

Though Stanford students have access to nature and hikes, other communities in more urbanized areas do not. The team hopes that this empirical evidence will prompt more care into integrating nature in cities.

“The actual design and planning of a city itself, in my mind, should incorporate attention to detail when it comes to parks and the layout of the city that allows people to bump up against nature in an easy way,” Bratman said.

So far, the subject pool has been urbanites and suburbanites and the team would like to see how these effects differ across people. For example, rural inhabitants may be saturated in their daily nature intake and not benefit the way their urban counterparts do. The researchers write that the positive effects come from the “soft fascination”, “sense of belonging” and “sense of being away” of natural environments. People already in a rural environment may not feel this “sense of being away”. Conversely, those who love city life may find some positive benefits in urban areas, an idea that requires more research in “pleasant urban settings” to see how they compare.

This study and related ones hope to spread awareness of nature’s connection to mental health and develop a deeper understanding for these benefits.

“I hope all of us help to inspire the movement that’s ongoing to start seeing our future as intimately linked to the prosperity of natural systems,” Daily said.

This summer, the team is bringing people into a more controlled environment to isolate specifics, such as noise, to identify the causes of these benefits. They will also look at how other interactions, including watching nature videos, could replicate the same effects.

“We’re just beginning to scratch the surface on the way nature helps us,” Bratman said.

Contact Alina Abidi at alinafabidi ‘at’ gmail.com.

“PSSI and Stanford together began the Deskside Recycling program because we had found that during waste audits, about 17 percent of our landfill waste was paper,” said Moira Hafer from the Office of Sustainability.

Students can participate in this program by taking an online pledge signing up for the Cardinal Green Office Program. In return, participants receive a 14-quart recycling bin and mini trash bin, which will be emptied regularly.

According to an email response compiled by Julie Muir, Michael Rohrs and Kathleen Sumner from Stanford’s Land, Buildings, and Real Estate (LBRE), this program has facilitated recycling by encouraging students and staff to take greater initiative in reducing the amount of recyclable paper in landfills by virtue of convenience.

Since its official implementation in 2014, the Deskside Recycling Program has distributed over 6,000 bins in over 70 buildings. As a response to the efficiency and popularity of this program, Stanford has recently made modifications to increase recyclable collections from once a week to three times a week.

The University hopes that by 2016, the Deskside Recycling and Mini Trash Bin Program will be effective throughout the entire campus.

An example of the recycling bin and mini trash can attachment, part of the University’s Deskside Recycling program. (Courtesy of Moira Hafer)

“Right now, our campus is at a 65 percent diversion rate, which means that 65 percent of the waste that is generated on the campus is being recycled or reused in some way,” Hafer said. “Our diversion rate has improved by a dramatic 15 percent since 2000.”

According to Hafer, students occupy an important niche in reducing waste on campus.

“The best thing students can do is to be aware of what types of material to put in what waste stream,” Hafer said. “Stanford is unique in that we separate all of our recyclable and compost. Raising awareness is a challenge for a lot of students who come from all different places that have all different types of recycling programs, but making sure that knowing what kind of materials go into which bins is the best way to ensure that our recycling rate is going to improve.”

Worldwide, about 230 million people are infected with and 800 million people are at risk of being infected by schistosomiasis. The parasite, hosted in both humans and snails, is known to cause anemia, growth stunts, infertility, liver failure, bladder failure and lasting cognitive impairment. Although drug treatment for schistosomiasis is available, high treatment cost, lack of supply, and potential re-infection does not make the drug effective.

According to their study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, freshwater prawns feed on the snails that host the parasites but cannot carry the disease themselves. Essentially, the prawns could “synergize with local efforts in the developing world to fight parasitic disease and to foster new aquaculture-based industries,” said Susanne Sokolow, a Woods-affiliated research associate at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine station.

The researchers found that over the course of 18 months when the river access point near a village was stocked with prawns the infected snail population decreased by 80 percent. Additionally there was 50 percent decrease in parasitic eggs found in the urine of the village where the prawns were released. Researchers suggested that stocking rivers with prawns and drug treatments should be used together for extremely effective disease control in high transmission areas. Along with stocking the river with prawns, researchers suggest that making dam-bypassing systems could promote the reproduction of prawns in the rivers so there can be a steady population of prawns for both food and disease control.

Contact Citlalli Contreras at 17ccontreras ‘at’ castilleja.org.

In June 2013, Glenn Wilson*, a graduate student in the School of Engineering, walked outside his Escondido Village apartment to find his 3-year-old daughter playing in lead paint chips that University officials told him “weren’t harmful.”

He spent the next two years trying to get Stanford to take responsibility for exposing Escondido Village residents and dozens of construction workers to dangerous amounts of lead. Instead, Stanford downplayed the extent and risks of resident exposure and rehired the companies involved in the incident, according to an investigation by The Stanford Daily.

‘Chunks of paint, just, everywhere.’

Before the ’70s, lead-based paint was in high demand across the United States. Its density made the paint easier to use than oil-based alternatives, and lead paint was endorsed by the United States government up until 1978, when it was discovered to be a major health hazard. By that point, lead paint was ubiquitous — so much so that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to warn homeowners that homes and condominiums built before 1978 are likely to be painted with lead paint.

According to the EPA, undisturbed lead-based paint poses no health risks. However, health concerns arise as soon as the painted surface is disturbed. Even a surface scratch could lead to paint chips flaking off the wall, leaving residents exposed to dangerous amounts of lead. Health risks include behavioral and learning problems, nerve disorders and seizures. In 1991, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services called lead paint the “number one environmental threat to the health of children in the United States.”

Wilson, a 20-year veteran of the construction industry, was all too familiar with the dangers of lead paint exposure. In one of his earlier jobs as a union laborer, Wilson witnessed his coworkers sandblasting lead-based paint off a steel bridge. He said that their project manager was not wearing proper respiratory equipment, as mandated by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) for all lead paint stripping projects. Less than half a year later, the project manager passed away from medical problems tied to lead poisoning.

In 2009, Wilson was accepted to a Stanford graduate program and was assigned housing in Escondido Village (EV). Upon moving in, Wilson said, he was handed a federally mandated notice from Student Housing detailing the presence of lead paint in residences.

Wilson was concerned about the possibility of living in a lead-painted residence with his wife and his young children, but his concerns were soon set aside as he focused on his graduate research.

Five years later, in the summer of 2013, Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE), the University auxiliary that runs housing and dining, began a long-planned renovation project in Escondido Village. Part of the renovation project involved San Jose Construction (SJC), an R&DE contractor, stripping lead paint from 42 EV buildings.

Multiple EV residents said they were not informed of the potential for dangerous lead paint dust or told to take any precautions.

During the renovations, workers sealed windows and doors with plastic sheeting, but residents said that the sheeting was not particularly effective, with construction dust still making its way into residences. To complicate matters further, according to multiple residents, it was an unseasonably warm period, with temperatures regularly breaking 100 degrees. Some EV residents, having not been made aware of the lead paint stripping by Stanford, tore open the sheeting in an effort to bring fresh air into their apartments, which did not have air conditioning.

Wilson remembered a particularly hot day at a friend’s apartment when he realized the risks posed by the construction. Like many in EV, the friend had poked holes in the plastic sheeting on his windows in an effort to counter the heat. Wilson said that much of the apartment was covered in a fine layer of construction dust, as were most common areas outdoors. He thought back to the 2009 notice detailing the presence of lead paint and was suddenly ill at ease.

“It was like postage-stamp chunks of paint, just, everywhere,” Wilson said.

The lead paint that killed his project manager was now lying on his doorstep, on his friend’s kitchen table and on the playground equipment used by his 3-year-old daughter.

During any removal of lead-based paint, the remover must continually dampen contaminated surfaces to avoid allowing lead-based particles to escape, according to the California Code of Regulations, the state law that covers lead paint safety. The Code’s Title 8, Section 1532.1 states that employers “shall prohibit the removal of lead from protective clothing or equipment by blowing, shaking or any other means which disperses lead into the air.”

Contractors, however, pressure-washed old paint off the buildings in Escondido Village, spreading lead-based paint chips across EV and coating apartment interiors in a layer of dust. The dust covered Wilson’s belongings, his toddler’s high-chair and the table at which they ate every meal, despite the plastic sheeting.

On June 26, 2013, Wilson sent an email to Stanford Housing detailing his concerns of the lead paint dust hazard. Housing did not respond. Almost two years later, Stanford has yet to take action against those responsible for the incident. To this day, Stanford continues to use the same painting contractors for other projects.

“At no time was there a threat to the health and safety of residents at Escondido Village from the summer 2013 painting project,” said Lisa Lapin, University spokeswoman, in an email to The Daily.

Responsibility in the subcontracting process

In order to provide the best quality work on larger construction projects, the general contractor will often subcontract out portions of the work to companies that specialize in a particular area of construction. Subcontracted work ranges from electrical wiring to paint removal and reapplication. In the process of dividing up a job, the responsibility for completing the work both adequately and safely passes to the Project Manager of the subcontracted company.

(VICTOR XU/The Stanford Daily)

For the Escondido Village renovation project, R&DE contractor SJC subcontracted the stripping, disposal and repainting work to Sunnyvale-based Monroe Painting.

On July 1, Wilson contacted the Santa Clara County Department of Health (SCC-DOH) and left a message for the Senior Environmental Health Specialist, Lisa Flores, who never called him back. The Daily confirmed this with Flores, who remembers never returning the call.

On July 29, Wilson followed up with SCC-DOH and reached out to Cal OSHA, the local arm of the federal agency responsible for ensuring compliance with the laws regulating the use of lead paint. OSHA received the following complaint of hazardous working conditions at Monroe Painting: “Employees are scraping off lead-based paint without wearing any protective equipment. Paint chips are on the ground and are not disposed of properly.”

Meanwhile, Monroe Painting continued to power-wash lead-based paint off buildings without protective equipment.

On July 31, 2013, OSHA had still not responded to Glenn Wilson. After calling dozens of Stanford administrators with no response, Wilson submitted a HelpSU in a half-exasperated, half joking last-ditch attempt to provoke a response from the University. Eventually, Kip Fout, Stanford’s Asbestos & Lead Health Program Coordinator, who works in the Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) department, responded. EH&S is responsible for minimizing safety, health, environmental and regulatory risks on campus. The department is tasked with overseeing every construction project on campus and has rigorous contractual standards.

Fout found what Wilson had been claiming all along: construction crews had power-washed the building exteriors, in violation of EH&S regulations. EH&S issued a stop order and sent an abatement crew, Restoration Management, to clean up the toxic debris created by Monroe’s workers.

“We don’t perform a lot of sampling for lead,” Fout said. “We’re overly protective. We presume everything has lead.”

If a contractor doesn’t want to treat paint as containing lead, Fout explained, they have to prove that there’s no lead in it. According to Fout, Monroe Painting violated their contract.

Monroe Painting did not respond to requests for comment.

Health concerns and workers’ rights

Glenn Wilson was suspicious that Stanford would neglect to take the issue seriously enough to take proper steps to clean up the toxic damage. On July 7, 2013, Wilson and a friend collected samples from soil and sand around Escondido Village residences to submit for lab testing for lead contamination.

Lab results discovered measurable levels of lead in all five of Glenn Wilson’s samples, two of qualified as hazardous waste with levels above 1,000 mg/kg. (Courtesy of Glenn Wilson)

On July 9, they sent five samples to Torrent Laboratory to test for lead contamination. Three weeks later, the test results arrived in the mail. Two of the five tests came back positive for hazardous waste, showing lead levels above 1,000 mg/kg. In smaller concentrations, traces of lead were found in all five soil samples.

Even the smallest incident of lead exposure carries health risks. In emails sent to EV residents on Aug. 14, Donald Smith, Environmental Toxicologist at the University of California Santa Cruz, wrote: “The CDC has done away with a ‘threshold of concern’ approach in light of the evidence showing measurable effects on cognitive function in children with blood lead levels well below 10.”

After seeing the results of the lab testing, Wilson and his friend wrote separate emails to Student Housing urging the department to take the incident seriously. “The levels of lead are demonstrably hazardous, and it is clear that the chips have been scattered throughout the area, both visibly and invisibly,” wrote his friend. Their emails cited previous communications in which Housing had dismissed the issue. Four days later, a Housing Associate responded to the pair’s concerns by explaining that nothing could possibly be amiss, because “the workers would be doing abatement if the paint were dangerous.”

Unaware of their exposure, workers would return home to their families in the evenings coated in a toxic dust.

Troubled by Stanford’s lack of reaction, Wilson reached out to the Stanford’s Student and Labor Alliance (SALA), an organization devoted to protecting the rights of support workers on campus. Despite years of experience working with Stanford administrators, SALA was also unable to obtain a satisfactory response from the University.

Even if they are aware of hazards on the job, workers often find it impossible to exercise their right to a safe workplace out of fear of losing their job, retaliation by their employer or, if they are undocumented, being discovered and deported. According to Andrea Hale ’15, a member of SALA, such fears are common to workers on campus.

“My understanding is that if you speak out about something… you’ll just be fired, for whatever other reason,” Hale said.

Fout explained that the painters placed at risk were employees of Monroe Painting, SJC’s subcontractor. Because Stanford did not directly employ Monroe Painters, Fout said, the University had neither the power to follow up with workers nor the legal authority to require workers be tested for lead exposure.

Cleanup

Under Fout’s direction, EH&S initiated an immediate cleanup of Escondido Village, contrary to Student Housing’s initial stance that nothing was amiss.

Wilson and his daughter watched from their backyard as the abatement “outside contractor” crews picked up lead-based paint chips — some of them with their bare hands — from the public open spaces of EV.

Abatement crewmembers, some of whom are not wearing gloves, picked up lead-based paint in EV in 2013. (Courtesy of Glenn Wilson)

Fout explained that no license is required to clean up lead-based contaminants, and the decision to provide workers with personal protective equipment is based on an exposure assessment done by the company contracted to do the abatement work. In this case, he said, “the risk of exposure picking up paint chips is relatively low.”

On Aug. 2, 2013, Residential and Dining Enterprises finally announced the lead exposure — and R&DE’s cleanup efforts — in an email to EV residents:

“It has been brought to my attention by some thoughtful residents that the actions of a painting contractor in Escondido Village may have disturbed some older paint,” wrote Mike VanFossen, who was, at the time, the Project Manager from Student Housing overseeing the project. “Some small paint chips or flakes have fallen away from the mats laid down to catch the material on the patios, and we will be making immediate efforts to clean up that residue.”

VanFossen wrote that there was no reason to believe there had been “problematic” exposure to the lead-based paint. He cited Wilson’s test results as proof: “As further reassurance, some testing has already been done, and several of the tests came back negative.” There was no mention of the two tests that came back positive.

History of issues with lead exposure

Lead exposure has been an issue for Stanford in the past. In October 1994, Stanford paid $166,265 to settle with Sarah Dennison-Leonard J.D. ’94 and her family over a lawsuit alleging their 1-year-old daughter had been exposed to lead paint at the family’s graduate residence in Escondido Village.

The plaintiffs alleged that Stanford had violated Proposition 65, the 1986 Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, declaring that Stanford had “failed to give clear and reasonable warning to student families residing at Stanford’s Escondido Village Housing Complex and to the parents of students enrolled in Escondido Village Childcare facilities who have allegedly been exposed to lead.”

“They denied everything,” Charles Dennison-Leonard said. “[Stanford] had galvanized swing sets but they had painted them, and that was one of the exposures. Paint was flaking off into the sand pit.” Dennison-Leonard said that Stanford had not adequately cleaned up the paint, citing Stanford’s action to change the sand in the sand pits after the settlement in 1994 without removing the swingset.

Wilson maintains that, by not responding to his complaints, Stanford violated Section 10 of the settlement agreement, which states, “Stanford agrees to inspect apartments within five working days of a report to the Escondido Village Facilities Office by a resident of peeling, flaking or bubbled paint, and promptly notify the resident of the results of the inspection in writing.”

The fallout

Seven years ago, Glenn Wilson applied to the Engineering Department at Stanford hoping to study how the construction process could better address workers’ needs. He imagined Stanford would model relationships between laborers and management and exemplify safe, responsible construction.

He never imagined his children would be exposed to lead.

Almost two years after the paint removal in EV, Monroe’s trucks still appear on campus. Wilson pulls out his iPhone and scrolls to a picture of a Monroe Painting truck. “I took this photo last week,” he said on May 7, 2015. While R&DE has the power to stop working with companies that violate rules and regulations dictated in their contract, Monroe’s trucks still appear on campus.

Fout maintains that Monroe Painting is to blame for the incident, yet the contracting process gives Stanford the power to dictate the rules and regulations construction companies have to follow.  Moreover, as a private entity, the University can elect not to award jobs to contractors who regularly violate such regulations.  

Glenn Wilson said he has spent the last two years trying to get Stanford to take responsibility for exposing hundreds of EV residents and dozens of construction workers to dangerous amounts of lead. Two years ago, Glenn Wilson contacted the Dennison-Leonards to ask for guidance in his dealing with the University.

“I can’t say that we were surprised, when we were contacted two years ago in 2013,” Charles Dennison-Leonard said. “The most important thing to Stanford was to deny wrongdoing and stonewall.”

“We did hope that the problem would just be dealt with instead of contained from a publicity approach. So there’s a little disappointment.”

Taylor Brady contributed to this report.
Contact Reade Levinson at readel ‘at’ stanford.edu.

The Searsville Dam has been the source of much controversy over the past few years. (Courtesy of Matt Stoecker, Beyond Searsville Dam)

After an extensive four-year study of the contentious Searsville Dam and Reservoir, the university has recommended two alternatives to removing the dam entirely.

For decades, the dam has drawn criticism from environmental groups for hurting the native steelhead trout population, which must travel upstream to spawn. The Searsville Study Steering Committee, formed in early 2011 to determine the best way to address the dam’s environmental concerns, recently proposed an option that would create an opening at the base of the structure. This would allow the San Francisquito Creek to flow through the dam and provide fish passage.

However, due to uncertainties over whether the sediments in the reservoir can be relocated, the committee also recommended a second option: to allow the reservoir to completely fill with sediment and then create a new stream channel through the sediment.

Action is unlikely to occur for several years, as the university must have any proposed changes reviewed and approved by organizations ranging from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Searsville Dam and Reservoir is located in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Once used for recreation, the lake now operates at only 10 percent of its original capacity due to heavy sedimentation. The dam remains a source of non-potable water used at Stanford for landscape irrigation.

Contact Victor Xu at vxu ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect credit for the photo of Searsville Dam. The Daily apologizes for this error.

The new Central Energy Facility will significantly reduce carbon emissions and freshwater usage (Courtesy of Todd Quam, Digital Sky Aerial Imaging).

The Stanford Energy Systems Innovations (SESI) project’s new Central Energy Facility began full operation on March 24, eight days ahead of schedule. The plant will significantly reduce both campus carbon emissions and campus freshwater usage, according to executive director of Sustainability and Energy Management Joseph Stagner.

According to Stagner, Stanford’s old cogeneration plant, which was fueled by the combustion of natural gas, “used 25 percent of the University’s total freshwater supply.” Shutting down the fossil-fueled powered plant in favor of the Central Energy Facility will reduce water use by 18 percent.

“Of course with [California] Governor [Brown] asking everybody to cut 25 percent of their water use, by reducing most of that wasted water use with the cogeneration plant, we’re getting a real boost to help Stanford meet these water reduction goals during the drought,” Stagner said.

The project will save the University approximately $300 million over the next 35 years. Additionally, the new facility relies primarily on electricity instead of fossil fuels and will also reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent.

“By relying on electricity, this opens up the path for sustainability through any source of new, clean electricity that could be developed in the future,” Stagner said.

The $438 million project concept was approved by the Board of Trustees in December 2011, and construction began later in 2012. Stanford’s old cogeneration plant will be demolished to make space for a new neuroscience lab.

As part of a 2008 Energy and Climate Plan, Stagner reviewed technologies that the University could use to reduce carbon emissions. He found that 70 percent of the heat being wasted by the cogeneration plant – which has fueled campus since 1987 – could be used to fulfill 80 percent of the university’s heat needs.

He and his team then worked to develop a system in which heat produced by campus cooling systems could be recycled to heat the campus. In the past, much of this heat – generated by processes like air conditioning – was sent to evaporative cooling towers and discarded.

The Central Energy Facility is also operated by the Central Energy Plant Optimization Model (CEPOM), an automated system that calculates the heating and cooling needs of buildings across campus and delivers them efficiently. Both the facility and CECOM have received widespread attention from other universities and large commercial utility companies.

“Most people in the country think gas-fired cogeneration is the most efficient way to provide electricity to heat and cool a campus, and we think we can show that that’s not the case,” Stagner said.

Stagner encourages students and community members to come tour the facility, which was designed to both be functional and provide a learning opportunity. In addition to the docent-guided tours, signage and interactive electronic displays are being installed as aids.

Tours will begin on April 22 to kick off the Office of Sustainability’s annual Celebrating Sustainability Activities Festival. Spots on the tours can be reserved at SESI’s website.

Contact Alexandra Nguyen-Phuc at nguyenphuc ‘at’ stanford.edu

The annual Roundtable talk Thursday morning was moderated by Lesley Stahl and discussed controversies regarding climate change, including the possibilities of raising the cost of water and taxing companies for carbon usage.
(RAHIM ULLAH/The Stanford Daily)

Raising the cost of water, taxing companies for the use of carbon and making global warming a more personal issue were some ideas to combat society’s indifference towards climate issues discussed in this year’s Roundtable.

“Twenty-five percent of kids in LA have asthma due to air pollution,” said Tom Steyer, philanthropist and founder of NextGen Climate, when discussing some of the ill effects of global warming.

Making climate change personal

Described as “the climate conversation you haven’t heard,” Stanford brought in the “rock stars of the environmental and energy sectors” for its annual Roundtable discussion, held in Maples Pavillion on Thursday morning. With climate change, the overall conversation has shifted from whether or not it’s because of humans to what we can do to actually fix the problem. Even though the majority of people understand that the issue is important, one of the bigger issues the panel tackled is the struggle of getting people to actually care.

“Two-thirds of Americans agree on the issue of climate change, but they don’t think it’s very important,” Steyer said. “When discussing climate change, we have to think local and we have to think human.” Citizens are more concerned with their own problems, their families and their local communities than the overall global climate, and the panel discussed ways to make the issues of climate change more relatable.

“People don’t make decisions based on global average temperatures, but what’s actually happening in their communities,” said Bina Venkataraman, director of global policy initiatives of the Board Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Society’s current bystander status has lead to an overall indifference toward climate issues and a common sentiment to “deal with it later.”

A growing sense of urgency

Global warming is as important of an issue as ever, with a recent study saying there may be “40 percent more rapid warming than we just recently understood,” according to Field.

Greenland is very much feeling the effects.

“Greenland’s way of life has always involved ice,” said Lesley Stahl, moderator and correspondent for 60 Minutes. “And now there’s no ice, but they’re finding oil.”

“Who owns the atmosphere? It’s not the government; it’s citizens.” said Alvaro Umaña,  former minister of Costa Rica’s Energy and Environment government branch. “No one is standing up for the atmosphere.”

“The most challenging aspect of the climate problem is the urgency and consequence of delaying action,” said Chris Field, professor at Stanford and director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology. “The longer we wait, the more it costs and the more solutions become complex.”

“I’ve been working in this area for 40 years and haven’t seen much progress, so it’s frustrating,” Umaña said. “We can do small things right away that will be very effective.”

Umaña recalled his work in Costa Rica, where a series of small changes has resulted in renewable energy sources that produce 90 percent of the overall electricity generated.

“We have to start acting because everyone else is going to start acting,” Umaña said. Umaña was disappointed with Apple for not leading the charge for companies to be more environmentally aware, but they have instead made the iPhone 6 leave a larger carbon footprint than the iPhone 5. “No company wants to be first or last.”

“There are nine companies in the world that generate two-thirds of all global emissions,” Umaña said. Companies should be held accountable for the carbon they use, the panel agreed, and believed that a tax on carbon is a way to ensure this.

“Let’s put a tax on carbon and make it revenue neutral,” said George Shultz, former Secretary of State and distinguished fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. “The people producing carbon are imposing a cost on society.”

“The polluter should pay for the pollution,” Steyer said, leading to one of the loudest applauses from the audience that morning.

Regulating personal water usage

The current state of the climate has lead to issues with water, such as California’s drought, and citizens should be held accountable for their water use as well.

“We all think of water as a common resource that we have an absolute right to,” Steyer said. Even with the drought, many people still water their lawns and use excessive of water in their homes, as the water bill for many wealthy homes is so minimal that it’s irrelevant.

“Water is also an issue of equity,” Venkataraman said. “Residents in Hillsborough use three times as much water as residents in East Palo Alto.” Raising the price of water seemed like the answer, the panel agreed, but they understood the limitations and potential concerns.

“We all need water to survive, and pricing it at a level where people can’t get the water they need is something we can’t do,” Steyer said.

Moving forward

Even after a morning detailing how climate issues were not being addressed, the panel remained optimistic for the future, knowing that many innovators are looking towards the future and am working on technologies to combat global warming.

“I strongly believe that our ability to solve climate change from a technical standpoint absolutely exists,” Steyer said.

The event closed by putting the issues at the hands of a full crowd of Stanford alums, many of whom are in a place to make change happen.

“All the great ideas start with academics discussing the issue and moving out from there,” Stahl said.

Contact Jeremy Quach at jquach ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Charles Kolstad, professor of economics and international expert in environmental economics, talks to The Daily about the increased conflict as climate change intensifies.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): You were quoted in a Bloomberg article on the Pentagon report saying that climate change posed problems for future foreign policy. What was said during the phone interview that didn’t make it into the actual piece?

Charles Kolstad (CK): What I told them was that there are a lot of tinder boxes around the world, like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the Middle East — there are other places, too — where if there’s an environmental shock, it could cause all sorts of instability…Countries don’t like it if people come across their border without permission, and these [migrations] can cause conflicts. The Pentagon has been, for years, worried about that. Not that people are going to come across our border, but we tend to, for some unknown reason, get embroiled in many of these conflicts around the world.

TSD: Your quote from the article says that climate change damage such as water scarcity is “much more likely to exacerbate regional conflicts, which can be real risks to the United States.” Would you like to expand on that?

CK: Let’s just paint a scenario — and I’m not sure this is going to happen; this is just one possibility. Pakistan is a very dry country; it’s got desert areas. India is much bigger and not quite so susceptible. We have a drought in India — a prolonged drought [that] really causes economic disruption. The politicians in charge are getting very unpopular so they start a war. Politicians like to start wars when their popularity is waning; Margaret Thatcher did that — [that was] one reason for the Falkland War. We could say that Vladamir Putin is doing that now to increase his popularity, and American presidents have done that, too. So you could get a war in Pakistan and India, and then nuclear weapons could end up being used. [The war] could expand beyond the borders, like WWI did.

The Pentagon understandably is very nervous about that, and [those countries are] just one possible place [where] that could happen…People tend to think of [climate change] as just a change — instead of living in the average temperature of 70 degrees, we’re going to live at an average temperature of 73 degrees. If it was only that, it would be a much more modest risk, but it’s the change that causes disruptions.

TSD: Was the Pentagon report sensationalized at all, or do you feel it represents real concerns?

CK: I didn’t think it was sensationalized. I think it was a bit too much of talking about how their bases will be warmer and [how] that will cause some disruption to the air conditioning and load. I thought there was maybe an over-emphasis on those sorts of disruptions, and there could have been more emphasis on the risk threat. But both were in there. I thought, in fact, it was written in a very bureaucratic way — not at all exciting to read.

TSD: Your research interests include information, uncertainty and regulation, and much of your research is on climate change and energy markets. What are your current research projects?

CK: I have been involved in a significant way with the U.N. in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. We just finished a five-year [project] a couple of months ago. That’s not necessarily a research project, but it’s policy engagement at an international level.

In terms of research, I’m working on the theories of international cooperation on environmental matters. One of the things that people talk a lot about with climate change is using treaties to solve the problem or partially solve the problem. But how we get countries to come [together] cooperatively and voluntarily to [create treaties] has been a really difficult problem. It boils down to the theory of voluntary cooperation, which a lot of people in economics look at among individuals and countries. So [I’m] looking at theories of cooperation and perhaps how we can structure things to get more cooperation on environmental matters.

Another area I’m working on is [exploring the question] “how does one encourage research and development of high-climate friendly technologies?” And what kinds of policies will get the inventors moving to invent better ways of dealing with emitting carbon and keeping our standard of living around the world?

TSD: What were your experiences with the Peace Corps in Ghana like?

CK: No Ebola then — we did have cholera though! I [went to Ghana] right after my bachelor’s degree. It was essentially teaching high school in a rural school so the job was fairly well defined…I was doing pure mathematics at that time. I was a math major in college, and I taught math and physics in high school. It was in those two years [with the Peace Corps] that I saw the problems of Africa in comparison to our problems. Their problems seemed much, much more significant. That’s what caused me to ultimately switch to economics [from] pure mathematics, even though, for a few years after the Peace Corps, I did go into grad school for mathematics.

So it changed the direction of my career. If you look around Stanford and see which faculty members have been in the Peace Corps, I bet you’d be surprised how many have been. It really changes the way you look at the world.

TDS: How did you initially decide to go on that trip and be involved with the Peace Corps?

CK: I could tell you that I was extremely idealistic and thought it was the right thing to do, but at that time the draft was still active. So you couldn’t just drift around after you graduated from college, or you’d get nabbed. I had to do something. I could go to grad school immediately; I could teach high school in the U.S.; or, what I thought was more interesting, [I could] teach high school in Africa. Out of those three choices, I decided that [going to Ghana] was a great opportunity and adventure…The Peace Corps is fairly paternalistic, and they take care of you. It wasn’t a very risky job, and it was a very rewarding job. So I did it, and I’m very happy I did. I would recommend it to any of the Stanford students — to consider the Peace Corps.

TSD: You talked about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but could you talk a bit about your work with the other organizations you’re involved with, like the California Air Resources Board and the Journal Review of Environmental Economics and Policy?

CK: [The Journal Review of Environmental Economics and Policy] is my journal I edit. Basically I’m in charge of it. It’s a journal of environmental policy that bridges the academic discipline of economics [with] the policy folks in Washington and around the world. It’s actually an international journal. It’s a very rewarding activity, but it’s not as time-consuming as the IPCC activity.

The Air Resources Board — you probably know that California is a leader in trying to do something about climate change and greenhouse gases. About 10 years ago, we passed what’s known as AB32, Assembly Bill 32. It’s the Global Warming Solutions Act in California, which has a goal to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide in the state — in 2020 by a certain amount and then in 2050 by a much bigger amount…California is a leader around the world in [reducing carbon dioxide emissions]. The whole world is watching us. The people in Sacramento are very nervous that the state doesn’t screw up — a lot is at stake. So one of the things they’ve done is put together an economics advisory group, which has a couple Stanford faculty on it — Larry Goulder and myself. And then there are other people who are experts in this area. It’s really an economic question of how you get the polluters in the state to reduce their emissions in a way that’s least disruptive to the state. We’ve been doing this for several years — trying to help the state make a smooth, effective implementation of AB32.

TSD: I read that you were the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

CK: The IPCC, of which I was a member, was [actually] the co-recipient. The IPCC shared it with Al Gore in 2007, and basically the folks on the IPCC had some halo effect from that. It was quite an honor. The head honcho of the IPCC went to Oslo on behalf of the IPCC; then we all got these plaques with a print of the award on the top. [The prize money] was donated.

I was just in Chile at a conference two weeks ago, and I met somebody there that was very impressed that I got the Nobel Prize. I had to explain the difference to him between [my] winning the prize and the IPCC’s getting it. It’s nice, but I don’t think it’s as deserved as other things. It was given to the group, not to me. I think one of the honors that’s most significant is being recognized by your fellow scholars, academics. I think being identified as a fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists is one of the highest honors, as well as working with great people at the great California universities — that’s a real treat.

[This transcription has been condensed and edited]

Contact Rebecca Aydin at raydin ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Jerry Brown spoke at a drought conference co-sponsored by the Hamilton Project and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. (Courtesy of Joseph Garappolo)

Gov. Jerry Brown was the featured speaker at a drought conference at Stanford on Monday, co-sponsored by The Hamilton Project and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

Brown focused on the $7.5 billion water bond measure on the Nov. 4 ballot as an opportunity to increase water storage and delivery.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg made welcoming remarks, followed by an introduction of the event by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin.

California is in the third year of a drought, with 82 percent of the state experiencing extreme drought according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The Governor declared a state of emergency in January and called for residents to cut water use by 20 percent.  In response to the Governor’s request, Stanford has taken additional measures to further reduce water usage on campus.

Other participants at the four-hour conference included Thomas Iseman of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Barton “Buzz” Thompson of The Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Michael Markus of Orange County Water District and Solomon Hsiang of UC-Berkeley. Closing remarks were by Steven Denning of General Atlantic and Chairman of the Board at Stanford University.

The co-sponsors released three papers which highlighted opportunities for improving water management in the United States in the face of scarce water supplies:  “In Times of Drought:  Nine Economic Facts about Water in the United States,” “Shopping for Water: How the Market can Mitigate Water Shortages in the American West” and “The Path to Water Innovation.”

In January, Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in California due to the three-year drought, and has called for a 20 percent reduction in water usage. The State Water Resources Control Board implemented emergency regulations effective Aug. 1 which fine individuals and companies for excess water usage.

Outdoor water usage

To comply with the new regulations implemented by the state, Provost John Etchemendy ’82 announced a watering schedule for lawns at faculty and staff housing.  On July 30, Etchemendy issued Emergency Drought Response Measures in response to California emergency drought regulations.

In an email to faculty and staff, Etchemendy stated that effective Aug. 1, “irrigation on Faculty and Staff Housing and other campus lawns using domestic water may occur only on Tuesday and Saturday nights for even numbered addresses, and Wednesday and Sunday nights for odd numbered addresses, between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.”

Noncompliance of the state regulations are punishable by fines of up to $500 per day for individuals and $10,000 per day for water supply agencies.

The mandatory measures prohibit the application of domestic water to any hard surface, watering outdoor landscapes to cause runoff, using a hose to wash a motor vehicle, unless the hose is fitted with a shut-off nozzle, using potable water in a fountain unless the water is recirculated and irrigating landscape with potable water more than two days a week.

These methods help fix a common problem — overwatering — as excess water running into the street and sewer is a major waste of water.

Although Stanford has not implemented tiered billing, in which greater usage of water is charged at a higher rate, and which has been found to reduce water consumption by 50 percent in the Irvine Ranch Water District, Stanford has revised the water bill received by faculty and staff.  The newer bills include a recap by month of water usage in a bar graph, allowing people to see trends in their water use.

In addition to implementing water conservation, Stanford faculty, staff and students are encouraged to report any water leaks, run off from irrigation, violations of the mandatory measures, or to suggest opportunities for water conservation to the Stanford Land, Buildings and Real Estate organization.

“If the University has to, it will [let lawns turn brown.] As the drought gets longer and longer, we must resort to stronger and stronger measures to conserve,” said Barton Thompson ’73 MBA ’75 JD ’76, Stanford Law professor and Perry L. McCarty Director and Senior Fellow of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

According to Thompson, Stanford is experimenting with Smart Irrigation Controllers, which reduce irrigation based on weather conditions and help reduce water usage and minimizes runoff.

Thompson, who is also one of the faculty members piloting the control system, said, “These controllers are used on the main campus and are being tested at faculty homes.”

Stanford students find fun ways to conserve water

Stanford students have also made active efforts to contribute to the water conservation efforts of the University. Since 2012, students have participated in Water Wars, an inter-dorm competition to determine which dorm has the greatest reduction in water usage.

According to Stephen Koo ’15, who helped set up the inter-dorm Water Wars for the past three years, these competitions have made students more water conscious, with many continuing their good habits after the competition.

“I met a lot of students from Water Wars from two years ago and I think they remember being a part of [the competitions] and being excited, and being a part of this large collective effort to conserve water,” Koo said.

Some ways students used less water during Water Wars included: taking shorter showers, turning the tap off when brushing their teeth and doing only full loads of laundry.

“A lot of [competitions] are good educational tools to make people aware that there is a shortage of water,” said Joseph Stagner, executive director of the Department of Sustainability and Energy Management.

According to Stagner, the University is initiating placing more energy meters and water meters throughout campus. The data from these meters would later be placed into a database and made available information to the public. Theoretically, more meters around the dorms would allow students to gauge their energy and water usage.

Members of the Students for a Sustainable Stanford set up a refillable station for water bottles on the second floor of Old Union at Stanford, to create a convenient and efficient  place to fill up. The club is tracking the success of this refillable station and hopes to install more around the campus.

“The key is for people to understand that they have the power in their hands to actually change the levels of water consumption in their dorms or at their homes,” Koo said.

Other water conservation efforts at Stanford

In addition to free shower timers, Stanford is also offering students, faculty and staff in campus housing free shower heads, kitchen and bathroom aerators and toilet leak detection tablets.

Marty Laporte, associate director of Utilities For Water Resources & Environmental Quality, said, “The shower timer has a suction on the back of it … and it beeps at you after five minutes.” Laporte added that the shower timers are popular items, with hundreds given out already.

Methods for saving water and information on water efficiency at Stanford are available on Stanford’s Sustainability & Energy Management website, with links to rebates for planting drought resistant plants, lawn removal, low water usage toilets and high efficiency clothes washers.

Although free water timers are available for members of the Stanford community, one staff member is keeping his shower short the old fashioned way.

Akhtar Masood, a member of the Department of Sustainability and Energy Management posted on Sustainable Stanford’s Facebook page, “I am helping conserve water by cutting my shower time in half by singing ‘Let it Go’ only twice in the shower.”

Contact Jacqueline Carr at jacquelineecarr ‘at’ gmail.com.

For example, since 2000, Stanford has reduced domestic water use by 20 percent — including removing water from outdoor decorative fountains in 2013, removing trays from dining halls and installing low-flush toilets.

Recycled water is used in academic buildings across campus. Some engineering buildings, such as Y2E2, new buildings in the medical school and buildings in the Graduate School of Business, use recycled water in the toilets and bathroom sinks.

New buildings at Stanford will be built to use 30 percent less energy and 25 percent less water than older buildings.

Additionally, earlier this year, the campus began a voluntary water conservation program which  reduced the overall domestic water use by 11 percent. From 2000 to 2007, Stanford reportedly reduced water consumption from 2.7 million gallons a day to about 2.3 million gallons a day.

Furthermore, in March, Stanford broke ground on the Codiga Resource Recovery Center, which will test promising technologies for recovery of water and energy from wastewater.

According to Craig Criddle Ph.D. ’89, professor of civil and environmental engineering and who will later direct the Codiga Center, there are plans to conduct research focusing on these efforts this academic year.

For more information on Stanford’s current initiatives to curb water usage on campus, please read our extended feature.

Eighty percent of California is in an extreme drought condition.
(KATHERINE CARR/The Stanford Daily)

More than 80 percent of California is now in an extreme drought, according to new data from the National Weather Service as analyzed in a Los Angeles Times article.

A third of California’s water supply comes from the Sierra snowpack, which ended the season with only 18 percent of its average level, as detailed in a Stanford Magazine article.

Twenty-one percent of Stanford’s domestic water consumption is used on student housing and dining, with another 21 percent used on faculty staff housing, including irrigation, and 16 percent on academic and administrative uses, according to “California’s and Stanford’s Water Supply” Fact Sheet for August 2014.

Stanford uses 2.15 million gallons of domestic water per day. This water comes from San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) which is supplied by the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Domestic water use comprises about two-thirds of total water use, with irrigation comprising the other third.  Irrigation uses non-potable, or not drinkable, water which is mainly runoff from local watershed and groundwater from Stanford wells. Stanford uses 1.23 million gallons of non-potable water per day.

Thirty percent of Stanford’s lake water consumption goes to academic and administrative uses, with 14 percent for the golf course and 24 percent used on other athletic fields. Student housing and dining accounts for 11 percent of lake water consumption.

Stanford has saved over 20 percent of its water, or half a million gallons per day, since 2000, although the campus has grown by 2.5 million square feet.

The Stanford water bill samples estimate that individuals use 12 gallons of water per day for a shower.

The earthquake — said to be the largest to hit the Bay Area since the Loma Prieta Earthquake nearly 25 years ago — lies within the San Andreas Fault system that forms the boundary between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates.

USGS officials also reported 2.5 and 3.6 magnitude aftershocks about four miles southwest of Napa at 5:01 a.m. and 5:47 a.m., respectively, although up to 60 aftershocks were reported throughout Sunday. Officials have also said 30 to 70 small aftershocks could hit the area during the next week, though none will be as strong as the initial earthquake.

No damage was reported at Stanford, according to Brad Hayward, a University spokesperson, although several students on campus reported mild shaking and tremors.