"The Day of Action is a national event, with over 80 schools across the country urging their universities to become more efficient with their energy use," Cowley said. "This is especially crucial at this time because of the era of global warming that we are currently in."
The Day of Action is sponsored in part by Greenpeace, and Cowley said it serves two important purposes: to raise student awareness concerning the Kyoto Now! initiative and to promote national unity.
"Most of our efforts for this campaign are directed at gaining student support for reducing Penn State's institutional energy consumption -- specifically, to reduce institutional production of greenhouse gases by using energy more efficiently," Cowley said. "One idea we have for a small group of people to get involved with Kyoto Now! is to organize an 'Energy Conservation Challenge' within the dorms."
The idea is to host a competition between dorms or between floors to see who can use the least energy in a week's time. "This would encourage students to think about their own energy usage habits while also demonstrating support for our campaign," she said. "As of yet, we have not had anyone volunteer to coordinate this project, but it may still happen."
Jon Williams (senior-sociology), who has strong ties to Eco-Action, the Green Destiny Council and the Kyoto Now! initiative, has also worked hard to put the Day of Action together.
"I just want other students to know that the first and easiest thing they can do to support our campaign is to come out on the Day of Action and sign our petition. We will be in front of Pattee Library all day on April 1," Williams said. "Afterwards is a press conference at 5 p.m. on the steps of Old Main. The more student support we have the better."
Joshua Pearce (graduate-materials), Green Destiny Council member and Mueller Project coordinator, works with Eco-Action and the Green Destiny Council. Pearce said both groups came up with similar ideas at the same time to work with Penn State for energy efficiency.
"The Kyoto Now! protocol at Penn State was sparked by the national attention brought to energy conservation and environmental awareness," Pearce said.
Recently, Penn State has taken the initiative to learn more about the energy waste problems.
"Five percent of the energy Penn State uses is now from windmills, which is great to begin with," Pearce said.
A few years ago, Penn State did a study at the Mueller Building that tested the effectiveness of the building and its components in relation to energy.
"One study showed that changing the margin settings on all of the computers from 1 inch to three-quarters of an inch would save $120,000 a year in paper," Pearce said.
While these small changes are a great improvement from before, Pearce is hopeful that more can be done.
"Students should continue to nudge the administration to continue the energy conservation efforts we have started," Pearce said. "One thing we feel strongly about is continuing to use the Guaranteed Energy Savings Program (GESP). GESP works with buildings individually to assess the efficiency of the building and suggest improvements that we can make."
Pearce said he thinks that everyone would benefit from optimizing the performance of new buildings by making them state-of-the-art energy efficient.
"This will save the most money in the long run," Pearce said.
Mary Peterson (senior-public relations), also involved in Eco-Action and the Green Destiny Council, is helping to promote the Day of Action on campus.
"Most students are probably unaware of how much energy is used on campus and how much they could save by making small changes," Peterson said. "We need major student support for this initiative in order to be heard by the administration, and that's what we are trying to gain through this event."
For more information, go to www.psukyotonow.org.
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