COLORADO SPRINGS–Colorado College is a liberal arts school situated in Colorado Springs. The school has a block program which lasts three weeks. At the end of each block there is a block break which lasts four days. Students get out on Wednesday and must return on a Sunday. During this period of time a massive number of students travel across the country for vacation. An overwhelming number of students fly to different states to see family. During this recent block break half of the student population in private gas guzzling vehicles went to Moab, Utah. This is a massive carbon footprint. Around one thousand students are transported on a nine-hour drive which equates to a total of eighteen hours of driving round trip they are traveling 800 miles in an estimated 250 vehicles.

“I’m intentionally unaware of the full scope of my impact on the environment and tend to live of my life outside the responsibilities of my actions” said Olivia Humphreys a student at CC. This is a mindset which prevails throughout our entire nation. Although this may be the words of one person there are countless others who live under this same mindset. A mindset which is unaware of their impacts on the environment accelerating the effects of climate change.

Colorado College may be great but does not put into account the carbon footprint made by students during block break. At the moment Colorado College has failed to lessen the carbon footprint for travel during block break.