In her on-campus lecture April 11, Neta Crawford, winner of the 2024 , described how in 2018, she began searching for data on the carbon emissions produced by the U.S. military. When she found the data was not readily available, she began calculating it herself. She found that the U.S. military was responsible for 81 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year–more than the total emissions for many entire countries.

Following that work and a related scientific paper, Crawford contributed language to a requirement by Congress that the U.S. military report some segments of its emissions beginning in 2021. In 2022, her ,��“The Pentagon, Climate Change and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of Military Emissions,” was published by MIT Press.

In her writings, Crawford traced how the United States and other military powers became dependent on large amounts of fossil fuel, from the quest for coal stations around the world in the 19^th Century to thousands of U.S. troops defending oil supplies in the Middle East today. She concluded that the legacy mentality requiring vast military presence and activity can and should change in order to reduce military emissions.

“I described how we got here, but the world doesn’t have to be that way. We could decrease the tens of thousands of forces in the Middle East, and then decrease their emissions which will help with climate change and potentially decrease tension.”

Citing reductions in U.S. oil imports from OPEC, Crawford said the need for the oil is lower, so military efforts to protect it also should be reduced.

“The U.S. is poised to defend oil that we cannot and should not burn. So, we are defending access to oil which we decreasingly need,” she said.

Crawford commended emission reduction programs in the military but called for bigger changes.

“The military has very good people looking at incremental ways to reduce their emissions. I’m talking about a much larger restructuring, though, and that’s not happening,” Crawford said.

“What I am arguing in the book is, first of all, count the emissions. Secondly, they don’t have to be as high. The military has shown, in fact, that they can decrease their emissions. They are not doing it very ambitiously, and they can. And this matters.”

The $100,000 Grawemeyer prizes also honor seminal ideas in , ,�������Ի���. Winners visit Louisville to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

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With this ranking, UofL celebrates another milestone in its Sustainability Initiatives program and reaffirms its commitment to going carbon neutral.

Sierra Magazine’s ranking comes on the heels of an documenting that the university has exceeded its 2020 goal and reduced carbon emissions by over 35%. In August, UofL President Neeli Bendapudi re-signed UofL’s Carbon Commitment, pledging that the university is working to become 100% carbon neutral by 2050.

“As we all are reminded how to be more energy efficient on Oct. 6 [Energy Efficiency Day], we also celebrate our continued success in being the most sustainable school in the commonwealth,” Bendapudi said. “We also see how much more work there is to do in order to reduce our university’s carbon footprint to zero by the year 2050. It’s a large task, but we know we have to do it and we will.”

“UofL is committed to integrating sustainability into everything we do, from how we manage our facilities, finances and people to what we teach in the classroom and what we research in the lab,” said Justin Mog, assistant to the provost for sustainability initiatives. “At UofL, everyone has a role to play in making our university more sustainable and tackling the existential threat posed by the global climate crisis.”

Mog said students, faculty, staff and other friends of UofL can play many roles in supporting our Sustainability Initiatives.

“There are a myriad of ways people can help make UofL more sustainable, from individual actions to group activities, from pledging to fulfill your own personal sustainability commitment to donating to offset carbon emissions costs and funding our work at UofL,” Mog said.

Other Kentucky schools making Sierra Magazine’s list were the University of Kentucky at 252^nd; Western Kentucky University at 263^rd; and Eastern Kentucky University at 298^th.