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Latest NewsSeveral CCU Students to put on Week-long Earth Week CelebrationCCU students will be hosting a week of environmental education in celebration of Earth Day [More] CCU High Performance Building and Renovation InitiativeView the Resolution that formed the CCU Sustainability Initiative. Sustainability Links“If today is a typical day on planet Earth, we will lose 116 square miles of rainforest, or about an acre a second. We will lose another 72 square miles to encroaching deserts, as a result of human mismanagement and overpopulation. We will lose 40 to 100 species…, the human population will increase by 250,000… and today we will add 2,700 tons of chlorofluorocarbons to the atmosphere and 15 million tons of carbon. Tonight the Earth will be a little hotter, its waters more acidic, and the fabric of life more threadbare.” It is indisputable that our planet’s life support system is failing, threatening our nation’s prosperity and security, and indeed the future of all humankind. Virtually every indicator of our planet’s health is in decline, and climate instability due to human-induced global warming presents the greatest threat humans have ever faced. That’s the bad news, and it cannot be overemphasized. Fortunately there is good news: institutions and people of vision and heart are taking action that will slow this juggernaut of environmental deterioration. Statewide, the South Carolina Sustainable Universities Initiative has led the way by providing resources to state institutions of higher education. In 2005, on Campus Sustainability Day (October 26) Coastal Carolina University launched the CCU Campus and Community Sustainability Initiative. The Initiative represents CCU’s commitment to be a regional leader in environmental sustainability. The Sustainability Initiative is focusing its activities on campus operations, curriculum, and outreach. CCU recognizes that it is essentially a small city, and as such consumes significant energy and material resources and produces waste in large amounts. We understand our moral obligation to clean up our own house by applying significant financial, operational, and intellectual resources to minimizing our impact. And because institutions of higher education should be leaders in this important movement, the Initiative will do its part to ensure that every student who crosses the threshold of our institution, regardless of major, understands the concept of sustainability, and embodies a responsibility to practice sustainability both now and upon leaving CCU. A major emphasis of the Initiative is community outreach, which will include free workshops and courses, as well as other resources. The Intiative is working with Georgetown County Habitat for Humanity as well as the Georgetown Family YMCA. And there is more good news. Santee Cooper, the only utility in South Carolina to produce green electricity, is partnering with CCU on innovative energy projects which are significantly lowering electricity costs and emissions. The first involves energy efficiency upgrades to CCU’s newly acquired and renovated Coastal Science Center. These upgrades, which include state-of-the-art technologies such as an air-to-air energy recovery unit and occupancy sensors, were a result of a proposal to Santee Cooper by CCU’s Rein Mungo and Ron Gardner. The energy recovery unit is designed to reduce cooling and heating demand by about one-third, which translates to annual savings of an estimated $75,000. These reductions also mean the release of less carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere. On Oct. 31, 2006, Santee Cooper and Coastal Carolina University officially dedicated South Carolina's first solar Green Power site, a 16 KW solar array perched atop four bus shelters on the main campus. On a spectacular day with brilliant sunlight, the panels were delivering over 15 KW of clean energy. The need for sustainability is now. As Victor Hugo said, An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. Daniel C. Abel, Director |
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