Abstract:

Greta Thunberg, TIME magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year, challenged world leaders to do more to combat climate change by greatly reducing carbon emissions to ensure a better quality of life for future generations, instead of ignoring this issue for the past 30 years (Chow, 2019). The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore if institutions of higher education in the United States are helping to combat climate change through green technology use and social media. Results from the study show that about 100% of the universities in this study use one or more forms of green technology, which shows that higher education in the United States is taking climate change seriously. About 90.9% of employees as well as students use one or more forms of green technology at home, which shows that a green culture is gaining momentum in higher education in the United States. Also, about 63.6% of universities used social media campaigns to promote environmental sustainment, which shows that institutions of higher education could include more social media into their green initiatives. Lastly, 68.2% of universities do not collaborate with their communities to increase the use of green technologies in their homes, transportation, industries, and commercial centers. This shows that the green culture of many universities does not extend to their localities, so their ability to combat climate change and global warming is still limited.