Out of over 200 schools nationwide, Smith College recently ranked in the top 10 for total signatures collected for a clean energy petition, according to the Smith Web site. The student group Clean Energy for Smith (CES) collected 700 signatures on the Declaration of Independence from Dirty Energy, a petition written by the national environment group, Energy Action, which demands that clean energy solutions be researched and implemented on campus, according to the College's Web site.

High schools and colleges across the country participated in the petition. According to the Web site, CES campaigned for signatures from last September through the Nov. 2 presidential election. The petition drew more than 27,000 signatures in the United States and Canada.

"That Smith, a small liberal arts college, is one of the top colleges and universities for getting signatures in support of renewable energy shows how important this is to our community," said Changxin Fang '05, head of CES, on the Web site. "Global warming is not just a marginal concern for a group of scientists; it has to do with all of us, the way we use our energy, and the ramifications it will have on people everywhere. Students are more aware than ever of the significance of global climate change and at Smith they are willing to do something about it."

Fang hopes that Smith will replace 20 percent of its electricity with renewable energy by next fall and that the Smith community will support the initiative. "For the petition to mean anything, action has to be taken on all fronts," said Fang on the Web site. "We are working on getting 70 percent of the student body to sign the petition in support of getting renewable energy at Smith, talking to faculty and administrators, and implementing conservation efforts to create funding for the initiative."

CES has lobbied this year to expand Smith's use of renewable energy. As a reward for its efforts, the College will receive a donation of 100,000 kilowatt hours of renewable energy from a coalition of energy companies, according to the Web site. "Smith in recent years has pursued a campus-wide effort to promote and implement energy efficiency and environmental responsibility," the Web site said. "Also, perhaps the most prominent of the college's environmentally thoughtful projects, the planned new building for engineering and molecular sciences, scheduled for ground breaking in 2007, will be a model of energy-efficient architecture."