I remember when I was just a tyke at Ohio University: It was hot outside, and I was cranky and didn't like dealing with the humidity and the uncomfortable heat. Luckily, my room came equipped with an air conditioner which my roommate and I blasted at all hours of the day. I remember thinking, I pay a lot of money for this room
so I'm getting every cent out of it I can. Yeah, when I was a freshman, I was kind of dumb.
Nowadays, the air conditioner isn't on unless I'm close to melting, my computer (unless I forget to turn it off) isn't on if I'm not in the room and I make my showers as fast as possible. I'm not being compensated for my energy reduction, but I can give up my luxuries for the betterment of the environment. There are a lot of people on campus, however, who don't see the benefit of turning off light switches, air conditioning and computers when their dorm room comes at a fixed cost.
When I was at a forum on Green Power last Tuesday, I spoke with Director of Energy Management Ron Chapman about the percentage of the university's electric bill that is attributed to residence halls. During Fall, Winter and Spring quarters, he estimated at least 20 percent of the electric bill could be credited to residence hall use.
The problem with trying to get residence hall residents to conserve energy is that there is no motivation. It's tough to convince someone who is spending thousands of dollars a year on housing alone that they should go the extra step of reducing energy output for the benefit of the institution that is sucking up all their money.
It's the same reason we waste so much food in the dining halls, because the fixed cost system of an all-you-can-eat meal swipe encourages students to get more food than they would necessarily eat if they were spending money on individually priced items. On the pretense of paying for a bundle of meals each week, it is more of a waste to the consumer not to utilize those swipes, even if it means wasting food in the end.
I think it would be interesting to make an eco-dorm, much like the eco-house, which operates on the basis of sustainable living techniques to reduce energy consumption. One of the dorms on campus, or perhaps one on each of the greens if the program was successful, could be equipped to utilize green technology and to be more sustainable, with inhabitants who volunteer to be part of a residence hall that strives to cut energy costs and use. It's kind of like the students who all want to be in the same RLC, except the benefit here is helping the environment ' no homework required!
In my ideal world, there would be a foolproof way to bill students based on their individual energy use instead of at a fixed rate, because, much like the people who consistently take more food than they can chew at the dining hall, residents use their one-price-fits-all status to use energy rather frivolously. It's easy to ignore water conservation, carbon emissions and coal-fired power plants when your bill is stagnant no matter how you live.
Chapman told me that he has been working with residence life to try something along these lines (I don't know for sure if eco-friendly dorms was on the agenda), but nothing functional has made it past the drawing board. I don't know if my idea is functional, but I think students in dorms need to realize that infinite energy usage isn't the best way to look at their living situations. Especially in this area, the power supply is heavily reliant on coal-fired power plants that emit not only carbon into the air, but mercury and other dangerous toxins. The more energy we use, the more power we need pumping through the power plant and the more pollutants make their way into the environment.
With an electricity bill of approximately $5.7 million, Ohio University continues to hypothesize ways to reduce its energy usage, and the introduction of eco-dorms would be a noteworthy experiment. What we must remember above all else is that the responsibility is also in our hands; we have a sweet tooth for energy and convenience, but we're accustomed to someone else getting the cavity from it. It's time to put down the candy bar and take a look at where we fit into the bigger picture, and what we can do to fill the cavities we have created while preventing new ones from forming.
Cathy Wilson is a junior journalism major. Send her an e-mail at cw224805@ohiou.edu.
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Cathy Wilson
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