Combating climate change starts with us.
On an early September day in 1989, Bruce Marsh, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences here at Johns Hopkins, stood at the front of a classroom in Olin Hall, glancing down at his notes ahead of the first session of a new course: Global Warming Theory.
He expected 15 students, at most, to register. Soon enough, 15 students entered the room. But then, Marsh peered up from his notes as another 15 students filed into the lecture hall. Dozens followed in their wake. Eventually, 145 students, spanning disciplines and backgrounds, packed the lecture hall.
Indeed, Marsh remarked, "now, our students see that being well-rounded means that they see an understanding of the Earth and what we are doing to it as fundamental to their existence."
They were, of course, right.
More than 35 years later, we drew on the spirit of that class as we launched our latest universitywide climate action and sustainability plan among friends, partners, and colleagues—an ambitious framework animated by the input of nearly 2,000 students, staff, faculty, and community partners.
From the moment I began my tenure at Hopkins in 2009, I have been heartened by our capacity to take on the monumental, indeed existential, challenge of climate change. Notably, we met our 2025 goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 51% three years early.
We initiated the largest investment in solar power of any single university in the country at the time it was signed.
We launched new multidisciplinary endeavors like the Ralph O'Connor Sustainable Energy Institute and the Institute for Planetary Health to help spark cutting-edge research and innovation to ensure clean air, water, and energy.
But as we embark on the next chapter of climate action here at Hopkins, the stakes of this crisis have only intensified. And so, we have set forth an ambitious new goal that reflects the urgency of this moment: net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
To realize this aspiration, we must once again draw on the expanse of perspectives and expertise across our One University to embrace commitments that range from a bold multidisciplinary research initiative to an all-electric fleet to new buildings held to the highest environmental standards.
We are also doubling and redoubling our partnerships here in Baltimore to increase local procurement in ways that not only spark economic growth throughout our city but also limit the concentrated impacts of environmental injustice.
Now, a plan only means something if it's acted upon.
And so, it starts with all of us to model what a great university can do in the face of this existential challenge, carrying forward the ethos that emerged in an Olin Hall classroom in 1989—and has endured as a guide for our institution since.
Ronald J. Daniels
President