Spring 2008 Vol. VI, No. 3

From the Editors

Dear Alumni and Friends,

In February 2008, 500 children from across Beirut attended a screening of An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film on global warming starring environmentalist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and former US Vice President Al Gore. The Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation Project (LCECP) organized the film screening, which was covered by The Daily Star, as part of the Energy Efficiency School Promotion Campaign. It was encouraging to see that Lebanese children are learning about environmental issues at an early age. Everywhere you turn in Beirut, the region, and increasingly, the world, green initiatives are sprouting up. We thought it was time that MainGate take stock of what’s happening with the environment in Lebanon, and evaluate AUB’s role as a consumer, educator, and advocate for environmental issues.
We found that graduates from AUB’s Interfaculty Graduate Environmental Sciences Program (IGESP) are heading straight into the not-so-green world to make a difference. Professors from just about every faculty are examining the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we cultivate, and the bugs that are eating our trees. And while it’s true that we don’t yet know the full extent of the environmental damage caused by the July 2006 war, AUB professors are able to provide an initial assessment based on two years of research (see “It’s War on the Environment”).

So—is AUB green? Well, we recycle. We’re cutting waste. We’re constructing environmentally sensitive buildings. We have a beautifully landscaped campus that prioritizes native, low maintenance plants. We’ve even experimented with an electric truck that does its best to make it up the steep slope of middle campus. Now it is up to each of us to learn about our environment and do our part to keep it safe and clean. Just start somewhere.

As always, thanks for your ideas and letters, and stay in touch.

Ada H. Porter and Ibrahim Khoury
Coeditors, MainGate
maingate@aub.edu.lb

Why recycle?
A plastic bag takes 10-20 years to break down in a landfill. Get a reuseable shopping bag.