Student Blogs - What should uOttawa do about Earth and climate change... and why?

This summer we are featuring a series of blog posts from students in the ENV 2301 course "History of Environmental Thought". We are super happy to highlight the thoughts and ideas of these bright young individuals.



With close to 50,000 members of the University of Ottawa, representing both staff and student, our university is responsible for a large influx of vehicles, electricity, food resources, and other consumables that help the university run. However, given this large population, the negative effects on our climate are inevitable with our current practices, and are unsustainable. While one university alone cannot change the scope of climate change, practicing climate and earth conscious measures can help promote a more environmentally conscious system to other private and public institutions, in hope of creating a cumulative effect. Thus, for this article I propose a solution to Earth well-being and climate change, to re-adjust 7:00 pm to 6:00 am scheduling in order to reduce resource consumption and electricity use.

Because Ontario still generates over 16% of its electricity from natural gas and coal combined, uOttawa will be using at least a portion of that energy for the school. The decision to re-adjust scheduling and close certain low-traffic buildings after 7:00 pm, would reduce the total energy used by the University of Ottawa. For example, I a building such as Tabaret or Simard, which sees much less traffic compared to Morissett or Crossroads, would be closed at 7:00 pm, thus reducing the need for those buildings to consume energy. Showing that such measures are possible, would hopefully promote the idea to other large institutions and universities to close certain buildings completely during low-traffic hours, thus leading to a cumulative reduction in the need for energy, and further reducing the need for energy more climate harmful energy sources such as coal and natural gas. While the explicit use of electricity itself is not a driver for climate change, the methods of extraction and production of electricity often can be, and thus, this measure is a long-term, cumulative plan that would ideally start with uOttawa and span across many institutions.


With Ontario already heading towards a climate friendly energy plan, a measure like this could halt the need for the small portion of energy that is not climate friendly. uOttawa has the capacity to undertake this action, as there are many buildings that are large enough to facilitate all students between the suggested hours. Furthermore, it has the potential to set an example for other institutions, and eventually create a cumulative reduction of energy consumption.

Kobe Wolters

No comments