Some of you may have taken in, as Susan and I did, Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" while it's been in town this summer. We found the content very powerful and another in a growing list of thought-provoking reports about the environmental issues facing our nation and world.

The university's efforts to tackle tough environment and health issues are supported by world-class expertise in our department of environmental sciences and engineering in the School of Public Health and the Carolina Environmental Program (CEP).

When Carolina leads nationally and internationally, we improve the quality of life here at home, too. I want to share some recent examples.

Last month, Professor Doug Crawford-Brown, representing the United States at an international environmental conference in England, filed the university's pledge committing to a 60 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. We finalized the pledge in conjunction with Doug's appearance in Norwich at the Carbon Connections project conference.

He made it official by posting it on the Web site of the Carbon Reduction, or CRed, program. The voluntary program aims to enlist communities, businesses and other organizations around the world in committing to plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

We have compiled a carbon-dioxide inventory for all emissions sources originating with campus operations. The inventory showed that the university produces between 335,000 and 345,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. About half of those totals come from electricity and steam generated at the campus cogeneration facility, which has pioneered the use of innovative technology and is recognized as one of the nation's cleanest coal-burning energy plants.

Another 36 percent come from electricity purchased from Duke Energy Co. The rest comes from transportation, stationary sources and miscellaneous operations. The inventory found the per capita emissions rate to be approximately nine metric tons per person per year.

Our goal is to reduce the total per capita carbon-dioxide emissions from campus operations by at least 60 percent by 2050, with a timetable as follows, consistent with the repair and replacement cycle of the campus: 10 percent reduction by 2015; 20 percent reduction by 2030; 30 percent reduction by 2040; 45 percent reduction by 2045; 60 percent reduction by 2050.

We plan to detail specific strategies for meeting these reduction goals in a follow-up document submitted to the CRed program later this year. Components will include fare-free transit service via Chapel Hill Transit and Triangle Transit Authority (which the university will bear the full cost of for employees beginning this fall), migrating university vehicles to biodiesel or other biomass options, and strengthening the campus energy conservation program.

Working with the CEP, which Doug Crawford-Brown directs, the university plans to implement a system to accurately record emissions data to monitor progress. CEP will take the lead in developing an innovative education program using the campus as a study site for undergraduate and graduate students that will focus on issues of sustainability, energy, community design and economic development.

The Chapel Hill Town Council has joined Carolina in committing to a 60 percent reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions, making ours the first town-gown duo to take such a step in the world. Our hope is that other campus communities will follows our joint lead.

Carolina is fortunate to have the expertise of a scholar and researcher like Doug Crawford-Brown. And the local community benefits regularly from his input and insights on environmental issues.

Our interest in carbon dioxide emissions builds upon an increasingly strong track record in sustainability. We instituted a formal policy earlier this year and have used innovative practices --stormwater control is just one example -- in our capital construction and renovation program.

These practices continue to garner recognition. Recent honors include the cogeneration facility receiving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Combined Heat and Power Partnership Greenhouse Gas Reduction Award for the second time in four years. Our grounds-services crew was honored with a Grand Award in the Professional Grounds Management Society's Green Star Awards competition co-sponsored by Landscape Management magazine. The university became the first state agency to receive the N.C. State Government Sustainability Award from the N.C. Project Green, in coordination with the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

*On Aug. 19, student and staff volunteers will join Chapel Hill police to visit neighborhoods near campus as part of the Good Neighbor initiative. Good Neighbor is a collaborative effort to welcome students as they move into our historic neighborhoods, provide them with information on town programs and regulations and invite them to be engaged members of their new community.

James Moeser is chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He welcomes readers’ messages at jmoeser@unc.edu