Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Why I Created this Blog

I am a University of Pittsburgh Alumn. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA and have a lot of pride in my home town as well as my alma mater.

Green Energy is energy that is produced from renewable, environmentally friendly sources. Switching to green energy would be a way for the University of Pittsburgh to contribute its share in the fight to reduce pollution and, hence, global warming. When I discovered that two universities in PA, the University of Pennsylvania (#1) and Penn State (#10) were among the

EPA's top ten College and University Partners

I was slightly embarrased for Pitt and thought to myself that that Pitt should be on that top 10 list too. Becoming a top 10 Univesrity partner would be a great way for Pitt to show that it is on the cutting edge when it comes to environmental awareness. It will also be a great marketing tool to attract potential students, setting Pitt apart from many of its out of its non-green competitors. The goal of this blog is to get Pitt on that top ten list by getting Pitt to purchase 10% of its electriciy from renewable sources. In order to achieve this goal, I will need the support of the entire Pitt community, i.e., faculty, staff, students, alumni, etc, as well as all "Pittsburghers". In addition, tips, suggestions, advice, and guidance from the "green community " will be greatly appreciated. I believe that if we can raise enough support, this goal can be achieved!

With this in mind, I have placed a petition on my blog with the initial goal of obtaining 100,000 signatures. Once I have received enough signatures, I will submit the petition to Chancellor Mark Nordenberg.

I think a good way for Pitt to offsett the cost of green energy, would be for Pitt to create an endowment, similar to the one being created for the football team.

Pitt could call it a "green endowment." I believe that this goal is well within reach of the University and its community, especially considering the University's successful fundraising via its Capital Campaign during the past several years.

I will elaborate on this and other issues in future posts.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

how does one sign this petition of yours? I think you should place a link for it more prominently on your blog as I spent 10 minutes searching and couldn't find it.

6:25 PM  
Blogger Barbosa said...

The petition should be prominently displayed on the right side of the blog right beneath the archives section. You may have the same problem that I have when logging onto this blog at work. When I log on at work the petition does not show up at all. I'm not sure but I think it may have to do with using an older version of internet explorer.

2:06 PM  

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