Carolina Alumni Review - March/April 2008

Liz Veazy ’04 led a campaign to add $4 to the student fee for renewable energy campus initiatives, which helped pay for solar panels heating 60 percent of the hot water used in Morrison, above.

and activities create. A double major in geography and environmental science, Gantt is now a graduate student in atmospheric science at N.C. State. He hopes to work someday for the Environmental Protection Agency on air-quality research or policy.

“I’m always trying to look at life from an environmental point of view,” he said. He rides his bike to class, recycles, uses a low-flow showerhead and drives an energy-efficient car.

“A big issue on my personal carbon footprint is food,” he said. “Buying local and buying organic helps that out a lot. For me, it’s a lot easier to go to Harris Teeter, but I’m trying to go to farmers’ markets and make the time and effort to buy local food. I like to have my apples and oranges all year, so that’s a tough one.”

Examining a personal carbon footprint can be an eye-opener, even for Crawford-Brown.

“I was a little stunned last year when I discovered that I use a large amount of carbon dioxide flying over to England to teach students how to reduce their carbon dioxide,” he said. He got rid of his Jaguar, which got 20 miles per gallon, and bought a Toyota Prius hybrid, which cut his auto-related emissions 60 percent. He uses

video conferencing to replace some plane travel. But he still expresses discomfort about how much more energy he uses than his parents did.

“My dad made as much money as I do, but when I grew up, we never lived in anything larger than 1,500 square feet. My house is 3,200 square feet,” he said. “I have a plasma-screen TV, and I was stunned by the amount of energy that uses. LCD screens are lower energy.”

Media attention has led to more awareness about energy issues, he said, but energy use in the U.S. continues to climb. “It’s partly because the population keeps going up, and also because the intensity of people’s lives keeps going up. We’ve begun to turn the corner. But there’s no signal I’m seeing that people are using less energy.

“People build energy-efficient houses, but they’re 4,000 square feet. The efficiency of individual automobiles is going up, but people are buying SUVs and also driving much more. There’s nothing wrong with satisfying human needs, but a lot of the stuff we’re doing doesn’t satisfy any need. It’s important to ask ourselves if we’re doing anything for human needs when we expend this energy.”