UC Berkeley Climate Action Course

With the approval of the Cal Climate Action Partnership (CalCAP - <http://calcap.berkeley.edu/> http://calcap.berkeley.edu) proposal this past spring, Chancellor Birgeneau committed UC Berkeley to reduce campus greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2014. The proposal was written by a team of authors guided by a steering committee composed of faculty, administrators, staff, and students and chaired by Vice Provost Cathy Koshland. It was built upon and extended a campus wide sustainability assessment completed in 2005 under the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability (CACS) that represented the first attempt to inventory campus wide greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption and make specific recommendations for reducing the ecological impact of campus activities. This Climate Action Course will bring together interested students to study the projects currently being considered for implementation under CalCAP, identify new projects the campus might undertake, and to move them forward through action-oriented research. This course will provide motivated students an opportunity to contribute to significant reductions in campus greenhouse gas emissions and the realization of longer term sustainability goals. Course sessions will engage CalCAP contributors, facilities management, research faculty, outside experts, and the UC administration in conversation on specific CalCAP projects and additional opportunities for emissions reductions on campus. Readings will include the 2005 Sustainability Assessment, the recently adopted CalCAP Proposal, documentation on similar commitments from campuses around the country, and peer reviewed literature on emissions reductions, behavior change, energy economics, building resource use, etc.