Entering 2010 is a turning point in the debate on global climate change, in which the focus is rapidly moving from a scientific analysis of how human activity affects climate to a political discussion on how best to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions so as to lessen the human and environmental toll of global climatic disruption. Policymakers in many countries are actively engaged in drafting legislation at the local, state province, and federal levels to enact substantial regulatory limits on GHG emissions. Colleges and universities, being swept up in this legislation, will soon have to begin to measure and abate campus GHG emissions or face potential fiscal repercussions. Modifying the current societal use of carbon-based fuels is exceedingly complex, and at-scale experiments on carbon reduction techniques need to be carried out immediately. Since college and university campuses are effectively small cities, they are an ideal scale for exploring innovative approaches to the reduction of carbon footprints. Realizing that this challenge may also be an opportunity, a number of higher education institutions are turning themselves into experimental, living laboratories of the "greener" future. This article features the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the University of California, Irvine (UCI) as examples of the growing efforts of college and university campuses to create more sustainable buildings and to reduce carbon emissions. The authors stress that those who are in higher education have the opportunity to recommit themselves to enabling societal transformation by using each campus "cities" as proofs of concept for the green infrastructure revolution. (Contains 6 figures and 27 notes.)