Yesterday and over the past week students coast-to-coast demonstrated their demand for a clean energy future with displays of hundreds of paper pinwheels on more than 50 campuses.
With the National Action for a Clean Energy Future students turned their quads, libraries, administration buildings and campus walkways into creative centers demonstrating our demand for cleaner energy to power our campuses and our nation. The colorful pinwheels represent the creative and innovative solutions we need, and will now be sent to Washington, D.C. where local youth are bringing them to members of Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy on December 1st to demonstrate the demands of young people nation-wide.
Here are some of the stories from yesteday...
At Mizzou students set-up 500 pinwheels at their quad. From the Missourian:
"The pinwheels were created by MU students out of recycled paper as a symbol our generation's desire for a clean energy future," said Melissa Vatterott, a spokeswoman for Coal Free Mizzou. "The pinwheel idea is used to symbolize clean energy sources, such as wind power."
University of North Carolina students used the event to focus on their university's broken promise to stop purchasing surface minded coal with their Music Saves Mountain event featuring Ben Sollee who helped them deliver a letter directly to Chancellor Thorp.
Students gave away their pinwheels to passerbys and university community members at Clemson University even engaging their favorite lunch lady as part of their effort to urge the university to expedite the retirement of their campus coal plant.
In Virginia, the story about actions at both Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia reverberated state-wide. Both groups are working to transition off coal burning in plants right on campus. At Virginia Tech students set up hundreds of orange and maroon pinwheels to show that they need a better alternative to their coal plant that is responsible for coal dust accumulation in a nearby dorm and has been blamed for increased asthma attacks. Similarly, at UVA coal dust and acid rain are causing their iconic university rotunda to literally crumble.
At Michigan State University students held a rally with more than 500 pinwheels calling for the school to transition their campus coal plant, the largest in the nation, beyond coal. From the State News:
“The windmill is kind of the easiest representation of clean energy,” [Eric Price, a leader of MSU Beyond Coal] said. “Five hundred of these pinwheels will … push for what we want to do — push for clean energy.”
Students set-up colorful displays at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, beat their goals for pinwheels at schools like Lewis and Clark in Oregon and are still planning big events at the University of Iowa and Indiana University for today and next week.
And many, many more stories are still coming in! Please share yours with us. If you hosted an action, tell us about it and send us your photos. If you missed it, don't worry! You can still be part of the action on December 1. Just sign our national petition to President Obama and we'll be sure you get info on upcoming events.
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