Sierra Club conference to fight for coal-free campuses

Student activists from all over the Midwest are flocking to IU at the end of the week to participate in the fight against coal for the first-ever Sierra Student Coalition Coal Conference.

Students attending the conference are a part of the Beyond Coal campaigns at their universities, a program started by the Sierra Club. Participants of the campaign work to move beyond coal as an energy source because of its negative effects on the environment.

The conference, which will take place alongside the Sierra Club Coal Activist Conference, will take place June 10-12 on the IU-Bloomington campus. SSC activists from across the Midwest will attend, said Parker Laubach, member of the Beyond Coal campaign at the University of Illinois.

“The Sierra Club conference is a Midwest conference that is trying to stop proposed and shut down current coal-fired power plants,” Laubach said.

On the first day of the conference, students will organize themselves into workshops. The group workshops will focus on media, messaging, recruitment, coalition-building and campaign structure.

“In the workshops, we will talk about what each school is doing in regards to the coal campaign,” Laubach said.

There will also be an opportunity to attend Sierra Club workshops and talks on the national coal campaign, coal ash, climate change and Congress.

“On the first day, we will meet in our student workshops. On the second and third days, we will meet with activists,” Laubach said. “We do not know exactly how it is going to work yet. We will decide the day before on how we are going to collaborate with the activists when all the student groups get there.”

Different student groups attending the conference are working toward different goals. Students from universities such as IU and the University of Illinois are working to reduce the use of coal on their respective campuses.

“At University of Illinois, we are working to shut down the use of coal as energy at the coal-fired power plants at our school,” Laubach said. “We don’t want to shut down the power plant, just shut down the use of coal. We want these plants to switch over to thermal energy, biofuel or another form of clean energy.”

So far the University of Illinois has succeeded.

At IU, the Beyond Coal campaign is called Coal Free IU. The student-run program wanted to brand themselves away from Beyond Coal while still remaining part of the campaign, sophomore and Coal Free IU member Lauren Kastner said.

“IU has a dependency on coal, and we are trying to pull away from that,” Kastner said. “IU is a huge research institution, and we have the ability to take the lead in clean energy.”

Kastner also spoke about the effect of coal on the state of Indiana.

“The state of Indiana is 96 percent dependent on coal,” she said. “Removing coal is a huge step in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Laubach said schools such as Washington University in St. Louis that have very small student populations have been fighting for different goals regarding coal.

“Wash U gets a lot of money from coal companies,” Laubach said. “The students do not like that clean coal is being associated with their university, and they are trying to change that. They have gotten a lot of press because of their campaign.”

The Sierra Student Coalition Coal Conference is an opportunity for students to see how the coal campaign works on a national level.
 
“The conference is an amazing opportunity to network with student activists, share ideas, help fight coal and have a good time,” Laubach said.