April, 23 2019, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Bronte Payne, director, Campaign for 100% Renewable Campuses, bronte@environmentamerica.org, 617-747-4327
Josh Chetwynd, communications manager, josh.chetwynd@publicinterestnetwork.org, 303-573-5558
Vanderbilt University Commits to 100 Percent Renewable Energy by 2050
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Vanderbilt University added to the Earth Day festivities today by announcing it will power its campus entirely with renewable energy and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
"Vanderbilt University is leading the charge among campuses in the southeast to 100 percent renewable energy," said Bronte Payne, Environment America Research & Policy Center's 100% Renewable Campuses campaign director. "Students at Vanderbilt have been instrumental in building and demonstrating support for 100 percent renewable energy. Now, other colleges and universities need to follow in their footsteps towards a clean energy future."
This wide-ranging commitment includes developing more clean energy on campus, investing in large-scale off campus renewable energy sources, decreasing the carbon footprint from on-campus vehicles and creating more sustainable infrastructure.
"Investing in our shared future matters," said Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos. "These efforts will ensure a vibrant, healthy and welcoming campus for years to come. It is our responsibility to do our part to preserve the environment for our campus community and set a strong example for how to care for our shared home, our planet. With this commitment, we aim to better protect our environment and improve quality of life in Middle Tennessee, and to be a proving ground for innovative technologies and strategies that ensure a more sustainable future for all."
Students Promoting Environmental Awareness and Responsibility (SPEAR), with the support of Environment America Research & Policy Center, led the effort in securing Vanderbilt's commitment to 100 percent renewable energy. SPEAR mobilized thousands of students, worked closely with other student organizations throughout the year and passed a resolution through the Vanderbilt Student Government.
"Vanderbilt's commitment today to 100 percent renewable energy and carbon neutrality marks a culmination of work and passion from students, faculty and staff," said Keegan Campanelli, a junior at Vanderbilt and SPEAR president. "This issue has been incredibly unifying for the Vanderbilt community. The proof comes from the more than 3,000 individuals and 76 organizations who joined with us in showing support for 100 percent renewable energy. I am excited to continue to work alongside Vanderbilt's students, faculty and administrators to ensure we make this commitment a reality and drive meaningful change in our community, region and country."
Across the country, Environment America Research & Policy Center and the Student PIRGs are working with students on more than 50 campuses in 15 states to transition higher education to 100 percent renewable energy. Vanderbilt's commitment comes on the heels of a commitment from the University of California, Berkeley, which was spurred in large part by CALPIRG Students in partnership with Environment America Research & Policy Center.
"Students will be the driving force behind future commitments to clean renewable energy that will lead us to a fossil fuel-free economy," said Payne.
For more information about the campaign to shift America's colleges and universities to 100 percent renewable energy: https://www.go100renewablecampus.org/
With Environment America, you protect the places that all of us love and promote core environmental values, such as clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean energy to power our lives. We're a national network of 29 state environmental groups with members and supporters in every state. Together, we focus on timely, targeted action that wins tangible improvements in the quality of our environment and our lives.
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Trump-Musk Gutting of USAID Could Lead to More Than 14 Million Deaths Over Five Years: Study
"For many low and middle income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict," said the coordinator behind the study.
Jul 01, 2025
A study published Monday by the medical journal The Lancet found that deep funding cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a main target of the Department of Government Efficiency's government-slashing efforts, could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by the year 2030.
For months, humanitarian programs and experts have sounded the alarm on the impact of cutting funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid around the globe, according to the study.
"Our analysis shows that USAID funding has been an essential force in saving lives and improving health outcomes in some of the world's most vulnerable regions over the past two decades," said Daniella Cavalcanti, postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Collective Health and an author of the study, according to a statement published Tuesday. Between 2001 and 2021, an estimated 91 million deaths were prevented in low and middle income countries thanks programs supported by USAID, according to the study.
The study was coordinated by researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health with the help of the Institute of Collective Health of the Federal University of Bahia, the University of California Los Angeles, and the Manhiça Centre for Health Research, as well as others.
To project the future consequences of USAID funding cuts and arrive at the 14 million figure, the researchers used forecasting models to simulate the impact of two scenarios, continuing USAID funding at 2023 levels versus implementing the reductions announced earlier this year, and then comparing the two.
Those estimated 14 million additional deaths include 4.5 million deaths among children younger than five, according to the researchers.
The journalist Jeff Jarvis shared reporting about the study and wrote "murder" on X on Tuesday.
In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the 83% of the programs at USAID were being canceled. In the same post on X, he praised the Department of Government Efficiency, which at that point had already infiltrated the agency. "Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform," he wrote.
Davide Rasella, research professor at Barcelona Institute for Global Health and coordinator of the study, said in a statement Tuesday that "our projections indicate that these cuts could lead to a sharp increase in preventable deaths, particularly in the most fragile countries. They risk abruptly halting—and even reversing—two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations. For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict."
One country where USAID cuts have had a particularly deadly impact is Sudan, according to The Washington Post, which reported on Monday that funding shortages have led to lack of medical supplies and food in the war-torn nation.
"There's a largely unspoken and growing death toll of non-American lives thanks to MAGA," wrote Ishaan Tharoor, a Post columnist, of the paper's reporting on Sudan.
In reference to the reporting on Sudan, others laid blame on billionaire Elon Musk, the billionaire and GOP mega-donor who was initially tapped to lead the Department of Government Efficiency.
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Even after an all-night session of amendment votes and wrangling behind closed doors, Senate Republicans still did not have enough support to pass their reconciliation package as of Tuesday morning, leaving party leaders scrambling to placate GOP holdovers who are purportedly nervous about the legislation's unprecedented cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) argued in a social media post that the reason for the GOP's inability to quickly rally its own members around the legislation is straightforward: "Because it's a moral monstrosity."
"We have been debating amendments for 21 hours and we are still going because through 12 hours of debate and 21 hours of amendment votes, Republicans still don't have 50 votes for their bill," Murphy wrote at roughly 5:30 am ET, as the marathon "vote-a-rama" continued with no end in sight.
With Democrats unanimously opposed to the bill, Senate Republicans can only afford to lose three GOP votes if they are to send the measure back to the House for final approval. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have said they will vote against the bill in its current form, and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) are undecided. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) also suggested he's on the fence.
Republican leaders have been working to bring Murkowski into the yes column with a proposal that would temporarily exempt Alaska and other states from the bill's massive cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, ripped the proposal as "absurd" and said it would reward the states with the highest SNAP error rates.
"Insanity reigns," Klobuchar wrote on social media.
Senate Republicans' margins became more difficult after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced his opposition to the legislation over the weekend, pointing to the Senate version's devastating cuts to Medicaid.
"What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding's not there anymore?" Tillis asked in a floor speech on Sunday, citing an estimate of the number of people in North Carolina who could lose health insurance under the Republican bill.
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"I saw body parts flying everywhere, and bodies cut and burned," said one eyewitness to a strike on the popular al-Baqa Café.
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Israeli forces ramped up their genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip Monday, killing at least 95 Palestinians in attacks including massacres at a seaside café and a humanitarian aid distribution center and bombings of five school shelters housing displaced families and a hospital where refugees were sheltering in tents.
An Israeli strike targeted the al-Baqa Café in western Gaza City, one of the few operating businesses remaining after 633 days of Israel's obliteration of the coastal strip and a popular gathering place for journalists, university students, artists, and others seeking reliable internet service and a respite from nearly 21 months of near-relentless attacks.
Medical sources said at least 33 civilians were killed and nearly 50 others wounded in the massacre, including footballer Mustafa Abu Amira, photojournalist Ismail Abu Hatab—who survived an earlier Israeli airstrike and is reportedly the 227th journalists killed by Israel since October 2023—and prominent artist Frans Al-Salmi, whose final painting depicting a young Palestinian woman killed by Israeli forces resembles photographs of its slain creator posted on social media after her killing.
Warning: Photos shows image of death
Survivor Ali Abu Ateila toldThe Associated Press that the café was crowded with women and children at the time of the attack.
"Without a warning, all of a sudden, a warplane hit the place, shaking it like an earthquake," he said.
Another survivor of the massacre told Britain's Sky News: "All I see is blood... Unbelievable. People come here to take a break from what they see inside Gaza. They come westward to breathe."
Eyewitness Ahmed Al-Nayrab toldAgence France-Presse that a "huge explosion shook the area."
"I saw body parts flying everywhere, and bodies cut and burned," he said. "It was a scene that made your skin crawl."
Witnesses and officials said Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops opened fire on Palestinians seeking food and other humanitarian aid from a U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution point in southern Gaza, killing 15 people amid near-daily massacres of aid-seekers.
"We were targeted by artillery," survivor Monzer Hisham Ismail told The Associated Press. Another survivor, Yousef Mahmoud Mokheimar, told the AP that Israeli troops "fired at us indiscriminately." Mokheimar was shot in the leg, another man who tried to rescue him was also shot.
IDF troops have killed nearly 600 Palestinian aid-seekers and wounded more than 4,000 others over the past month, with Israeli military officers and soldiers saying they were ordered to deliberately fire on civilians in search of food and other necessities amid Israel's weaponized starvation of Gaza.
Another 13 people were reportedly killed Monday when IDF warplanes bombed an aid warehouse in the Zeitoun quarter of southern Gaza City, according to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital officials cited by The Palestine Chronicle. IDF warplanes also reportedly bombed five schools housing displaced families, three of them in Zeitoun. Israeli forces also bombed the courtyard of al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinian families are sheltering in tents. It was reportedly the 12th time the hospital has been bombed since the start of the war.
The World Health Organization has documented more than 700 attacks on Gaza healthcare facilities since October 2023. Most of Gaza's hospitals are out of service due to Israeli attacks, some of which have been called genocidal by United Nations experts.
Israel's overall behavior in the war is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and using starvation as a weapon of war.
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 204,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including over 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried under rubble, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose casualty figures have been found to be generally accurate and even a likely undercount by peer-reviewed studies.
The intensified IDF attacks follow Israel's issuance of new forced evacuation orders amid the ongoing Operation Gideon's Chariots, an ongoing offensive which aims to conquer and indefinitely occupy all of Gaza and ethnically cleanse much of its population, possibly to make way for Jewish recolonization as advocated by many right-wing Israelis.
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