At least 12 faculty members, from such fields as engineering, biology, architecture and communication, are devoting all or part of an academic course this fall to evaluating options for Cornell to achieve a cleaner, greener campus.

This is part of a universitywide effort to tackle head-on the enormous challenge of creating a plan to make Cornell climate neutral.

President David Skorton signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment in June, pledging that Cornell would work over the next two years to develop a plan for campus operations to reduce to zero the total net emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, that contribute to global warming.

Total emissions include both direct on-campus emissions and indirect off-campus emissions associated with electricity purchases, commuting and air transportation. Skorton signed the agreement with the advice of faculty and staff, who wrote a white paper on how to achieve the goal, as well as at the urging of the student group KyotoNOW!

That led a small, informal committee of faculty and staff, chaired by Tim Fahey, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Natural Resources, to begin discussing how to deal proactively with the mandate. They wanted to immediately marshal Cornell's rich array of resources, including its students.

"Rather than let some options go by the wayside, we decided to mobilize the resources of the university and examine some of the options that might not get looked at otherwise," explained David Weinstein, senior research associate in the Department of Natural Resources and committee coordinator.

Given the wide breadth of expertise at Cornell, the group decided to solicit input from the most diverse group of faculty possible and, by extension, students. The committee canvassed faculty who might be able and willing to devote some of their classes to climate-neutrality issues, Weinstein said.

This fall, for example, a group of six engineering graduate students led by civil and environmental engineering professor Peter Loucks is considering engineering solutions for greenhouse gas emissions as part of an engineering management course (CEE 591). A number of potential topics are being considered, ranging from best practices for carbon sequestration -- removing carbon dioxide from the air -- to a cost-benefit analysis of renewable energy systems.

Also this fall, students in assistant professor Katherine McComas' communication class (Comm 376) are developing a campus survey on climate neutrality and planning a communication campaign.

In still other courses, students are examining options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, ranging from design in landscape and building architecture to energy management in chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The committee is looking for similar commitments from faculty teaching spring courses.

The idea behind recruiting such a broad array of subjects and expertise, Weinstein explained, is to examine as many aspects of the climate neutrality problem as possible, from engineering questions and public opinion to identifying demand- and supply-side solutions.

With this and other efforts on campus, including significant energy initiatives that are aimed at decreasing greenhouse gas emissions well below 1990 levels by 2012, Cornell could emerge as a leader among academic institutions in addressing global warming, according to W.S. (Lanny) Joyce, manager of engineering, planning and energy management for Cornell's Department of Utilities and Energy Management.

The committee, which expects that Cornell's eventual plan could become a template for other institutions to use, will soon begin coordinating efforts with another committee, being formed by Stephen Golding, the Samuel W. Bodman Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration, and Vice President for Planning and Budget Carolyn Ainslie, and co-chaired by Fahey and Vice President for Facilities Services Kyu Whang.

Both groups will interact with the recently created Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future, a universitywide center. Its interim director, Frank DiSalvo, explained that the center is intended to act as an umbrella organization for all aspects of sustainability as it relates to both campus and more far-reaching efforts.