The Facts: The University directly emits 30 percent of its greenhouse gases. The remainder is a result of indirect transportation and power generation emissions.

Our Opinion: The University has effectively eliminated a large portion of its direct GHG emissions. The rest is either out of the University’s control or is caused by student necessity; the Office of Sustainability has little else it can influence in these regards.

The Office of Sustainability hosted a meeting Wednesday to discuss the University’s climate neutrality goals.

Its sustainability plans are noble and surely deserve some time on air, but how do the office’s ongoing plans amount to anything more than complaining?

By its own reporting, the Office of Sustainability has shown that only 30 percent or so of the University’s emissions are directly contributed by N.C. State. For comparison, over 68 percent of the University’s greenhouse gas emissions are a result of indirect commuting and electricity.

Unless students are prepared to fundamentally change the way they commute to school and use their electricity, very little will change in regard to that piece of the puzzle.

The reason these emissions are considered indirect is because the University’s electricity providers contribute them on its behalf. Theoretically that would mean that these emissions are absolutely alterable.

The University certainly isn’t setting the example if that’s the case. For years, students and faculty have made suggestions indicating that many campus buildings are inappropriately heated and cooled. Students really wouldn’t mind if the building temperatures in the summer months were kept a couple degrees warmer.

On a similar note, NCSU continues to celebrate a sort of perverse festival of lights where the goal is to show how much brighter the campus can be lit compared to its rivals during the night. Surely, students wouldn’t mind if the lighting schemes accommodated some limited lighting hours during the middle of the night.

The University’s significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to Chapel Hill is and should be a source of pride. A large portion of this burden was borne by students though, whilst the University maintained the status quo.

The University’s Climate Action Plan, available on the Office of Sustainability’s Web site, contains links to charts and tables of notable sustainability “successes” but fails to present any real methods to further reduce the University’s emissions.

The office is vague and simply claims that it “need[s] the help of our entire campus community to develop solutions that sustain North Carolina State University well into the future.”

This means nothing. Students cannot adjust the temperature of the academic buildings any more than they can change the distance of their commutes. Student suggestions have been cast aside as irrelevant, and honestly they are.

The University’s sustainability essentially hinges on alternative power development and transit. Until these become reality the Office of Sustainability has done its job for the small aspects it has purview over, the rest is simply fixed.