The University Consortium is one of my three aspirational and fictional ideas that are (relatively) cheap, that would make concrete environmental gains, that could be accomplished almost instantaneously by motivated people in positions of power (by phone calls, in two cases), and that would immediately set an agenda for the next election.

The idea is as follows:

In May, 2008 the ‘Ivy Plus’ group of universities announce they will divert ten percent of their generous endowments to the creation of a consortium that will provide the basis for a new ‘Manhattan Project/Marshall Plan.’ The combined project will help to guide the restructuring of the U.S. economy around clean energy, and educate the public to the coming change. The initiative neatly answers critics about the unfair advantage of wealth at a few schools, and restores America’s top universities to the leadership role they have played in the past.

Schools might be skeptical about leading, rather than following, government, and about yielding up some of their wealth, but as the presidents explain to their boards: sometimes it costs money to stay relevant. The big endowments are invested in the world, and have made prominent gains from the world economy. (Harvard: $ 2.7 billion in 1985, grew to $ 34.9 billion in 2007; Yale: $1.3 billion in 1985, $22 billion in 2007; both schools made more than 20% gains in the past year alone.) As a by-product, the world economy released two decades of CO2 into the atmosphere. And, of course, amelioration now will be good for the twenty-fifth reunion of the class of ’08, improving fundraising prospects.

In this wish, corporations and foundations match the universities dollar for dollar. With university contributions totaling about $10 billion, another $10 billion streams in from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and the Gates Foundation.

The new $20 billion fund provides a focus in addressing a problem that only gets harder to solve by the week. The statement of purpose symbolized by the creation of the fund, which opens a path for the next administration, is as important as the fund itself.

Click here for the second idea.

Click here for the third idea.