Campus Sustainability

I think we're all hoping we can get on top of this one a little sooner than we did the last collaboration. First off we all need to calculate our footprint (http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.html), and then go through the reading on the Envs1001 website.

Here's the link to make things easier: http: //fennerschool-lectures.anu.edu.au/lectures/2009/ENVS1001/lectures_and_tutorials/tutorials/campus_sustainability.html

Our questions/tasks are:

1. What can you do to reduce your own ecological footprint?

2. What are some of the resource inputs and wast outputs of universities like the ANU and NUS and how do these contribute to their overall footprint?

3. List some innovative strategies that the educational institutions like the ANU and NUS are doing to reduce their overall ecological footprint. Do any of these strategies challenge social or institutional "norms"? (That is, Change the way people behave or think?)

4. Devise 2 strategies that ANU or NUS could implement to reduce their footprint, and enhance sustainability. Who is responsible? Individuals changing their behaviour, the univerisity changing the way it conducts business, or both? Why?

I'll get my footprint and some of the responses up in the morning to get us started.

Just before we get into the discussion, does anyone think we need to change anything about how we collaborate on these?

Tragedy of the commons

So, what we need to do is:

Define: what is a commons?

List examples of communal systems we've been a part of, and think about which ones worked and which didn't.

Look at why some communal systems involving resource management work and why others don't.