Making history on campus: what's happening
What types of sustainability initiatives are being implemented on college campuses?
Serving sustainable food
Building wind turbines and solar arrays
Purchasing clean energy and carbon offsets
Creating energy-efficient buildings
Offering transit passes and bike-sharing
Using biodiesel/alternative-fuel vehicles
Hiring sustainability coordinators
What are some examples of “common sense” environmental values and their “uncommon sense” alternatives listed in the table?
Individualism → “Land community”
Anthropocentrism → Biocentrism
Freedom/independence → Responsibility/interdependence
Materialism → Dematerialization
Quantity of life → Quality of life
Cheapness → Value
Buyosphere → Biosphere
More for me → Enough for everybody
How do cultures change, according to the passage?
Culture evolve like organisms, through mutations
What is the first college guideline for “common sense”?
College education isn’t just classes, papers, and GPAs. It’s also an open invitation to engage designing minds, first in understanding the designs of nature, second in understanding the culture of nature, and finally in designing a culture that enriches nature’s health and our own deep fulfillment
What is the sixth college guideline for “common sense”?
promotes infinite consumption on a finite planet and material production that produces, among other things, pollution, biodiversity loss, and a radically changed climate system that undermines the stability that’s essential for good business (among other things)
How are students contributing to sustainability efforts on campuses?
Vote to increase student fees for sustainability
Create Clean Energy Revolving Funds
Start organic farms
Organize recycling competitions and “energy wars”
How do advertisers and marketers influence college students' consumption habits?
They intentionally shape students’ values by pushing consumerist ideas of “the good life,” establishing lifelong buying habits, and encouraging desire for material goods, which increases environmental impact.
What does the passage say about hope?
Hope is not passive or wishful thinking; it is active. True hope results in actions that help create transformation
What is the second college guideline for “common sense”?
At college, students practice academic disciplines in their classes, but they’re also practicing human disciplines in everyday life
What is the seventh college guideline for “common sense”?
In a culture of remote control, it’s time to take control of the supply chains that produce goods and services for us all over the world.
According to the passage, why is higher education uniquely positioned to address climate change?
Because colleges have influence, critical mass, diverse skills, millions of students, and large economic power, making them capable of driving major societal and environmental change.
According to the passage, in what ways do college students still participate in unsustainable lifestyles?
They live in climate controlled dorms, buy and discard cheap items, drive cars frequently, consume heavily, spend time on screens, and follow patterns of American consumer culture that harm the environment.
What does he mean by “Lockbox”?
It means being countercultural in the most profound sense
What is the third college guideline for “common sense”?
opt out of cycles that depend on the ancient sunshine of fossil fuels and opt in to designs that power life with current sunshine—solar power, wind power, and biomass
What is the eighth college guideline for “common sense”?
Cultures run on peer pressure, and peer pressure is us. Every spoken word and text message, every compliment and complaint, every activity—even inactivity—shapes college culture.
What does the passage say is still lacking, despite sustainability initiatives?
There is more awareness than actual cultural change. Students’ everyday behaviors and the broader American consumer culture remain mostly unchanged, preventing true sustainability.
How is college culture lagging behind architectural and technological progress on campuses?
Even though campuses have green buildings, renewable energy, and sustainability initiatives, students still live the same consumer-heavy lifestyle as previous generations. Their daily routines haven’t changed.
What is Gandhi's famous quote that Farrell references when talking about the new way of learning with technology & what does it imply?
“You must be the change you want to see in the world”
That students must not only change themselves but also actively work to inspire and promote change in others on campus.
What is the fourth college guideline for “common sense”?
Students are embodied beings in a material world, and therefore their materialism matters
What is the ninth college guideline for “common sense”?
We’re all in this together.
What is the main goal of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC)?
Its main goal is eventual carbon neutrality, reducing campus carbon emissions to zero and leading society in addressing climate change.
What is the “social trap” David Orr describes?
It’s a situation where individually rational actions (like driving cars) lead to collectively harmful outcomes for the planet. No single person causes the crisis, but everyone contributes, making it hard to solve without shared restraint and regulation.
Why isn’t our current culture appropriate for the twenty-first century?
Because it fails to support sustainability; it promotes consumerism, outdated values, and behaviors that do not fit the environmental and social challenges of the modern world.
What is the fifth college guideline for “common sense”?
At college, students have the luxury to advocate for programs and policies that might make taxes more worthwhile, reversing current subsidies for global weirding and biodiversity loss, and advancing the energies of communities that are good for their places and the whole planet.
What is the tenth college guideline for “common sense”?
If the pursuit of sustainability isn’t also the pursuit of happiness, everyone will end up leading lives of quiet, or even loud, desperation. Environmentalism needs to be fun and fulfilling, honoring the pleasures of the flesh as well as the joys of conviviality