332— Energy Reduction in Monroe Hall

As the world continues to struggle with global warming, we all need to start thinking about ways we can reduce energy usage. We all use energy, often obtained by burning finite resources such as natural gas or coal. This type of energy usage means more CO2 emissions, which lead to environmental issues. From research and experimentation, we have determined how to reduce energy and water usage in our buildings. We gathered Monroe Hall’s water, natural gas, and electric usage for the winter months and used this information to analyze which changes were most effective in reducing consumption. Monroe Hall is one of the most eco-friendly buildings on campus, yet still we caused approximately 18.4 metric tons of CO2 emissions in February. This is the same as 2,074 gallons of gasoline burned. We started a campaign to educate on actions we can each take to reduce our energy consumption. Small actions like taking shorter showers and consciously turning off lights was effective in lowering overall consumption in Monroe.Taking actions to reduce our carbon footprint and continuing to educate ourselves on the climate crisis are critical for the coming years