At this week’s Becker-Rose cafe, professors Shanjun Li, Greg Poe, and David Wolfe answered our questions concerning the environment and gave us insightful opinions. Everybody knows that it is important to protect the environment, but when it comes to how to protect the environment, a lot of problems come about.

One of the problems is energy. People have been debating for years whether nuclear power is a source of “green” energy. It does not cause mass pollution, but treating nuclear waste is still a big problem. Moreover, since the Fukushimi nuclear disaster, the safety of nuclear power has been a huge concern, and countries such as Japan and Germany are rethinking their nuclear policies. I realize how hard it is to make a decision with so many factors to consider.

The professors also mentioned that enforcing environmental tax on firms is a good way to make firms pay for polluting and encourage them to use more eco-friendly means of manufacturing. However, the environment problem is a global problem, and decisions such as imposing tax are made by country. Issues such as climate change and ocean pollution have worldwide impacts, but international collaboration does not seem strong enough. We have not yet reached a global consensus on how we should work together to protect the environment. But as the professors said, no matter in what way we choose to collaborate, we need to collaborate.

Although there are so many problems, I am happy to learn that Cornell is doing a lot to help the environment. Cornell has its own hydroelectric plant, and I was surprised to learn that we cool our building in the summer by using the deep cool water in Cayuga Lake. Now Cornell is planning to use the deep geothermal energy thousands of mile beneath the ground to heat our buildings. I feel this is quite a bold decision to make, since nobody had done this before and it is quite risky. I am proud that Cornell cares about the environment and I believe we as Cornellians should do what we could to help, such as recycling, reusing plastic bags, shortening our shower time and walking instead of driving.