As April begins, it is impossible to ignore the beady, wet snowflakes pelting the ground outside. While some students, especially freshmen coming from warmer climates, may be wondering, “What about those April showers bringing May flowers?” the Sustainability Office and Environmental Action Club (EAC) have come together with a radical scheme to reverse local climate change.
Skidmore’s dedication to becoming a green campus has manifested in many positive initiatives over the past five or so years. The off-campus solar field provides about 12% of Skidmore’s electricity, while the dining hall receives most of its daily hot water from thermal solar panels. As many of you may have noticed, the parking lot behind Palamountain was, until this semester, in a state of disrepair. In actuality, yet another progressive environmentally-conscious initiative was underway, that being the installation of geothermal heat pumps, which accounts for about 40% of the heating and cooling on campus.
This new innovation is an even greater leap in Skidmore’s environmental track record. Thanks to the tuition from the Class of 2020, Skidmore has invested in a technology called Cloud Seeding, which was initially began in the Middle East to increase rainfall during drought. This technology is entirely responsible for the snowfall we are currently seeing. The professors heading this initiative have proudly proclaimed, “With this new technology and the environmental coolants that we’ve developed over the past two years in interdisciplinary labs in Dana Science Center, we can proudly say that the class of 2017 will be able to build snowmen on the day of commencement. I can already imagine the historic day to watch the newly graduated class engage in a massive snowball fight.”
The only setback this revolutionary initiative has met was relatively minor. During communications regarding importing cloud seeding technology, a professor found that the Trump administration was monitoring and recording this process. This came to a head when newly appointed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leader Scott Pruitt, relying on Russian hacking techniques, bombarded the computers within the Skidmore Sustainability office, delivering a real time message in which he threatened to, “Tell Trump on y’all,” for working to improve the fragile global climatic situation. Despite clear governmental distain for the world upon which we all entirely rely upon, the initiative has succeeded and is expected to continue bringing snow to campus through commencement. The long-term effects of this experimental initiative will be monitored to collect empirical data for global usage. Summer courses are expected to proceed under typical summer climates.
One professor, struggling to drag a rolling briefcase through the thickening snow, stated, “isn’t this great? We’re hoping to recreate snowball earth at the highest extreme. Anything is better than the threat of warming temperatures. Can you imagine what that would do to Skidmore? Who would want to come here if everyday was like the first three weeks of fall semester?”
Produced for our April 1 special edition.