Parker, Abraham. “Creating a “Green” Campus.” American Institute of Biological Sciences. 57.4 (2007): p. 321. Web. 4 Oct. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1641/B570406>.
The author of the article is Abraham Parker, who is AIBS education and outreach program associate. The main thesis that Parker presents is that educational institutions, such as universities should address the issue of sustainability due to possessing the intellectual capacity and resources to do so. He mentions about college campuses’ efforts to become more sustainable, with a major example being Yale University. His intended audience is the target of colleges, especially college students since he views them as our future decision makers of the world’s affairs. By representing the future, Parker believes that college students will help the earth become more sustainable and reduce damaging effects of global warming.
The author has a pro-sustainability bias in his article. The strengths of his article is that he communicates his main point well: that college students should make decisions that would positively affect our world in the future, with one of them being an increased amount of sustainability. Weaknesses include the fact that he does not mention about how local communities could try to make the earth more sustainable, that he does not have a specific method to improve sustainability and that the three pillars of sustainability(economic, environmental, and social) are not really mentioned. This material is still relevant though, and would add plenty of optimism to an introductory paragraph.
Does the author present any data beyond the Yale example?