Students and teachers push to reduce U.S. school emissions

• Many ageing buildings among 100,000 schools in U.S.
• School carbon emissions equal to 17 million cars
• Focus on green jobs, climate education, cutting emissions

WASHINGTON – Emma Weber traces the start of her climate activism to wildfires that two years ago burned hundreds of houses in Boulder, Colorado, and forced her family to evacuate their home.

"I was (coming) home from visiting my grandparents when I got a call from my friend. I could tell she was crying," Weber, now 16 and a high school junior, told Context, recalling how her friend warned her of the danger.

"I remember on that drive home promising myself after this experience, if I was okay, that I would do everything I could to make sure this didn't happen again – and if it does, that students and young people would be ready."

For that, she turned to one of the places she knows best: her school.

Over the past year, Weber and others have been pushing their 30,000-student school district to create disaster preparedness plans, lower school building emissions, expand climate-related education and help prepare students for green jobs.

Those steps are part of a framework known as the Green New Deal for Schools, which students are pushing to implement in 50 districts across the country, said Adah Crandall, an organiser with the climate advocacy group Sunrise Movement that is spearheading the push.

The national effort follows the September reintroduction of a similarly named bill in Congress that would make available $1.6 trillion over a decade for green buildings upgrades, hiring additional teachers and more.

"Not only do schools produce a lot of carbon dioxide and own a lot of buildings and buses, but they're also a place where students create their visions of life," said Crandall, 17, who recently graduated from high school in Portland, Oregon.

Last month, the Boulder Valley School District became the first to approve such a resolution, pledging to move toward 100% clean energy, boost climate-related instruction, expand opportunities for green jobs and give students a voice in sustainability planning.

When it comes to climate change, "we believe sincerely it's an existential situation for all of us," said Richard Garcia, a member of the local board of education that unanimously backed the student-written resolution.

"We want to do as much as we can possibly do within our budget," he said, expressing hope the vote will spark similar efforts elsewhere.

The move has received national attention, but frustrated some local people.

Jimmy Sengenberger, a Colorado columnist who has written on the subject, said in an email to Context that the resolution could drive up energy and other costs, placing a particularly heavy burden on vulnerable communities.

"Is this really about tackling climate change and improving education, or is it more of a social justice agenda?" he asked.

'Toxic' schools

For many backers, a Green New Deal for Schools could offer a new way to address ageing and physically deteriorating U.S. schools.

"We have 100,000 public schools in the U.S., one in every neighbourhood – about a sixth of the population is there every day," said Akira Drake Rodriguez, an assistant professor who studies urban planning at the University of Pennsylvania.

She called many of the schools "very toxic", pointing to problems in Philadelphia including asbestos, mould and buildings that average 80-years-old. She estimated modernising those in Philadelphia alone would cost more than $10 billion.

But revamping school nationally through a national Green New Deal for Schools would have a huge impact, she said – creating 1.3 million jobs, eliminating carbon emissions equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the roads, halving utility bills and more, according to a 2021 report she co-wrote.

The report urges a focus on retrofitting existing buildings, including putting rooftop solar panels on schools, electrifying heating and cooling, installing LED lighting and energy-efficient windows and boosting insulation levels.

Education unions have backed the bill, including the 1.7 million-strong American Federation of Teachers, whose president, Randi Weingarten said in emailed comments that it offered fixes for "real problems students and educators face every day".

Nicholas Limbeck, who teaches at a Chicago primary school, said climate change was increasingly stressing his city's nearly century-old schools and those who spend time in them.

His own school's decades-old heating and cooling system has been giving his students nosebleeds during the dry winter months, he said, and in August stopped working entirely during unusually hot temperatures.

Another school's boiler suddenly went into overdrive, causing dangerous lead paint to peel and forcing the district to carry out emergency remediation.

"Why should our school buildings be further polluting our neighbourhoods, some of which are already polluted?" Limbeck asked.

Resolving such concerns offers an opportunity to simultaneously address local and global issues, he said, by replacing old heating and cooling systems, helping schools go solar and preparing students for green jobs.

Chicago Public Schools did not respond to a request for comment.

Student pressure

Connecting larger climate concerns with day-to-day problems has helped gain support for action, said Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union.

"It's one of those issues that can easily fly under the radar," he said.

"But if you ask the question, 'Hey, how are your physical working conditions?' ... that becomes the centre of the conversation."

Discussion of greening schools is now feeding into long-term planning, said Potter. It has "really shifted the way the managers of the school systems have talked about facilities," he said.

In Boulder, Weber said the resolution's success had been a lesson in the strength of student voices.

Shiva Rajbhandari remembers getting fired up after eighth grade when he attended a climate protest in his hometown of Boise, Idaho. Afterward he began working to get a clean-energy commitment from local schools.

"It made sense that the next step was schools, given that (they have) one of the largest carbon footprints in the state," he said.

Last year, Rajbhandari, now a college freshman and Sunrise Movement organiser, was elected to the Boise school board, where he has urged the creation of a schools climate action plan.

The district has since expanded "climate action clubs" to all schools, started looking at school emissions and reviewing climate standards for education, he said.

"Even in districts where we're not seeing these policies, it's reshaping the (role) that education has to play in fighting the climate crisis," Rajbhandari said, pointing to communities across the country that, as in Boise, are electing young, climate-focused voices to school boards.

"It's the most pressing issue facing students today, and for that schools need to be accountable."

(Reporting by Carey L. Biron. Editing by Jon Hemming and Laurie Goering)