This year, the California Public Interest Research Group and other campus organizations are focusing their energy — literally — on the Campus Climate Challenge through efforts to decrease global warming emissions and address environmental issues at UCSD.

Over the next few weeks, Green Campus, a student organization in its third year at UCSD, is coordinating various events to raise student awareness of on-campus energy usage. An energy-saving competition began last week between Revelle College, John Muir College and Sixth College, where meters placed in participating dorms record energy consumption by on-campus students for 29 days until Nov. 22. The organization also set up a “Don’t Be Spooked by Phantom Loads” booth at the Muir College Halloween Carnival to demonstrate to students the hidden energy draws of appliances.

Together with the statewide organization Alliance to Save Energy, over 1,100 compact fluorescent light bulbs were distributed to on-campus students last month in an effort to replace less-efficient incandescent bulbs currently used by Housing and Dining Services. The CFLs, which cost about $2 more per bulb and last about 10 times longer, cut over 75,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and saved H&DS over $4,000 in energy expenditures this year alone, according to CalPIRG data.

Along with the phantom load booth and energy saving competition, Green Campus is in the process of creating a freshman seminar on energy sustainability for winter quarter.

“Hopefully that will take off and become a recurring freshman seminar or even expand to a full four-unit class that’s possibly a [general education requirement] for at least one of the colleges,” Ward said.

In the future, even if Green Campus is no longer around, this seminar would continue to educate students on how they can help lower energy costs and sustain a cleaner environment for future generations, according to Ward.

Last month, the UC Sustainability Steering Committee agreed to direct UC campuses toward a climate-neutral environment, according to a CalPIRG press release. Next month, UC President Robert C. Dynes will decide on the proposal, which awaits action by the UC Board of Regents in January.

In 2003, the UC system adopted the Green Building/Renewable Energy policy, an action that committed the UC campuses to use Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards when building new campus structures and to utilize 20 percent renewable energy by 2017.

However, the state legislature’s passage last month of AB 32, which puts a statewide cap on greenhouse gas emissions and sets a goal to reduce emissions to 1990 standards, displays the need for the UC system to follow the additional footsteps carved by the state government and set an example for colleges around the nation, according to CalPIRG Campus Relations Coordinator Alana Hitchcock.

“We’re working to get the university invested in the idea so the administration can come up with its own plan [to use renewable energy],” CalPIRG campus organizer Megan Severson said. “We can throw out as many ideas as possible … but the administration firstly has to agree that this is important.”

Although the initial costs of transitioning to alternative energy are usually more expensive than current methods, the long-term payoffs will be substantially rewarding — with increasing demands for renewable energy such as solar power, the costs of production is decreasing, Hitchcock said.

In participation with the Campus Climate Challenge, CalPIRG’s long-term goal is to guide the UC campuses to going climate neutral by 2050. Over 300 college campuses in the United States and Canada currently participate in the challenge, and an estimated 1,000 will take part by 2008, according to Hitchcock.

“We want to raise student awareness about their own impact — it’s hard to change habits, but we need students to think about energy saving so that when the time really comes to go climate neutral, the transition will be easier,” Hitchcock said. “The administration already has this goal. But they want to see that the students want it and that they’re committed to it.”