September 27th, 2017
The University of Vermont Alumni Association and UVM Foundation honored outstanding graduates and faculty at its annual Alumni Weekend celebration on Saturday, September 24, 2016. The “Celebrating Excellence” event featured remarks by UVM president Tom Sullivan, with award citations presented by Alumni Association President Penrose Jackson ’70 and UVM Foundation President and CEO Richard Bundy, to the following honorees:
"We need widespread energy education and civic leadership to prepare for a low- carbon energy future. We live during an amazing time in human history, but our society is completely dependent on fossil fuels, and personal energy consumption is the highest it has ever been. It’s easy to forget we live in a finite world with limits to growth–every aspect of our civilization has been structured as though the resources at our disposal are infinite, and this is heartbreakingly unrealistic.
Running the Numbers: A Call for Energy Literacy
Energy is the defining issue of our time, and numbers and data form the backbone of discussions about energy. The problem with this is that there are serious flaws with energy literacy in America. Mathematics and statistics are often misunderstood, and can be easily twisted to suit specific agendas. We also lack the education in rhetoric and logic that is necessary to interpret information accurately. Quite often we get stuck considering the species and size of various trees, and we miss looking at the forest: the big picture of how our energy use has changed dramatically over the past hundred years, and will continue to change over the century to come.
