Cauldron

Issue date: 1/29/08 Section: Sports & Clubs

Media Credit: Ben Felleman ECOS club members, with adviser William Harris, environmental studies chair, unload recyclables collected from the UST campus at a local drop-off facility.

Now that a recycling program has been established on campus, the Environmentally Concerned Organization of Students hopes to plant enough trees to off-set the carbon dioxide produced by coal factories and natural gas plants that provide electricity to UST, according to ECOS's co-president Murray Myers, a senior political science and environmental studies major. The school could go carbon neutral within 10 to 20 years, and, if the club is successful, UST would be one of the first schools in Texas to become carbon neutral, Myers said.

Carbon neutrality is especially important in Houston because it is one of the most polluted cities in the U.S., he said. "We live a lower life expectancy because we live here, because the air is so polluted," Myers said.

Myers said that most people do not realize that the more electricity a person uses, the more carbon dioxide is pumped into the air by the coal factories and natural gas plants that produce electricity. To make UST carbon neutral, the club would have to plant enough trees to off-set the carbon dioxide produced by factories to power the school.

According to figures that Myers obtained from UST administration, every year UST uses about 11.6 million kilowatt hours of electricity, which translates to about 7,000 tons of carbon dioxide. Approximately 24,000 trees would have to be planted to off-set the amount of carbon dioxide the school produces on an annual basis. The trees would not be planted on-campus and their location would depend on the organization that ECOS was working with at the time.

ECOS has already begun working towards their goal. Working with the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, the club had two tree-planting sessions during the fall 2007 semester. Myers said that the club planted 120 total.

Planting the trees along the bayou has other beneficial effects on the environment, as well, Myers said. The trees help to restore wildlife habitat and filter chemicals that would otherwise go into the bayou.

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