ASMSU Senate passes resolution to become net positive carbon

The ASMSU Senate passed a new resolution on Thursday, Feb. 3 to become net positive carbon, sponsored by ASMSU At-Large Senator Atticus Cummings. Net positive carbon moves beyond zero carbon emissions by producing more energy than is required and feeding this energy back into the grid. Cummings is a junior in the interdisciplinary studies program with focuses in engineering, sociology and architecture. Alongside his studies, Cummings helped found MSU’s Campus Climate Coalition. Last spring, Cummings ran for the ASMSU Senate to increase his agency on campus and further the goals of the Campus Climate Coalition.

 Cummings' inspiration for this new resolution was sparked from a chat with the Director of the MSU Office of Sustainability Kristin Blackler. “She mentioned another school where the student government had opted to become carbon neutral and I thought that would be a really neat way to show our support as students for climate action,” Cummings said. “We only have so much space of operation or power in the organization of MSU, but we think that we should walk our talk and become carbon neutral.”

 For those unfamiliar with the term resolution, Cummings helped explain its purpose. “The primary power of the student senate through resolutions is to express the will of the student body and the will of us as representatives of the student body, whereas the bill modifies the internal workings in our organization,” Cummings said. The first resolution Cummings sponsored for ASMSU, which declared a climate crisis, was passed at the beginning of the fall semester. When discussing his first resolution, Cummings summarized it by saying “we, as a student senate, as a student body, acknowledged there is an existing crisis in the world, and that we should devote MSU resources to solving that most expeditious way.”

 The first step ASMSU will have to take to become carbon neutral and is to work with the university facilities department to monitor the energy use of ASMSU. Cummings classified the energy of ASMSU within three categories: office spaces, events hosted by ASMSU and the SUB. ASMSU will first focus on producing enough renewable energy for its office spaces to be carbon neutral. Then, they will work their way up the energy scale until they are producing enough renewable energy to be considered net positive carbon.

“My aspiration for the project is that we'll understand that ASMSU operates with X amount of carbon budget, and then produce enough energy to go beyond that, and give back to the system because ultimately, we're looking for something that's not just sustainable but regenerative,” Cummings said.

 ASMSU will work closely with MSU’s Facilities Manager EJ Hook to quantify the amount of energy ASMSU uses and will help determine a feasible location for additional rooftop solar panels on campus. Cummings hopes to get a monitoring system in place by the end of the month. Then after around a month of monitoring its energy, ASMSU will be able to calculate how many solar panels need to be installed to offset its energy use. After the amount of solar panels needed has been identified, the budgeting process will begin.

 “Ultimately, doing something like this is symbolic. We're not going to solve climate change by offsetting the energy that we use as an office,” Cummings said. “But since ASMSU speaks for the student body, we can send a message to the university at large and to the greater community.”

 Students looking to get involved with sustainability on campus can start with the MSU Office of Sustainability, the Sustainability Now Club (SNOW) and the MSU Campus Climate Coalition.