Twenty students from nine campuses across the Midwest gathered in a small room in the Indiana U. Department of Psychology building Sunday to discuss ways for students to get involved in the fight against coal as part of the Sierra Student Coalition Coal Conference.
The conference took place on IU’s campus for the first time in its five-year history, said Kim Teplitzky, coal campaign coordinator for the Sierra Student Coalition, part of the Sierra Club.
“Bloomington is perfect because they’re running a campaign and there’s a coal plant right here,” Teplitzky said. “It’s showing there are young people at the forefront of the clean energy fight.”
Indiana is a coal-intensive state, Teplitzky said, and members of Coal Free IU are leaders of the movement on a national level.
“If they can do this here, it means we can do that anywhere,” she said. “It shows we’re not afraid of taking the big fight.”
The conference brought together students from IU, Washington University in St. Louis, Michigan State University and others to discuss ideas for coal-free campuses and learn about renewable resource options to take the place of coal, she said.
Through the conference, students were able to have conversations about work on their own campuses as well as gather ideas from other campuses’ campaigns, Teplitzky said.
“We can talk about how we connect with other campuses and bring them together to fight coal on a national level,” she said. “Students help make that connection. They have the energy, enthusiasm and creativity.”
In a working group meeting, 20 students discussed actions groups on each of their campuses have taken previously in working toward coal-free universities as well as actions they can take in the future.
Ideas of shutting down coal power plants one at a time were first mentioned, but some students were skeptical, claiming many cities have large numbers of plants and having one shut down would not make a difference.
One student spoke about universities turning the cause to focus on students’ excessive use of resources instead of the campuses’ use. This mention brought the idea of asking students to cut back on electricity and other resources and using the saved money to convert the campus to becoming coal-free.
At the end of the meeting, Teplitzky asked the students in attendance what resources they believe they need to further progress at their campuses. Their responses fell into three main categories: education, organization and network building, including asking for educational videos and direct action training.
“Our goal is to help educate our leaders on the ground,” Teplitzky said, “to support each other if they run into problems and network across the country.”
Sophomore Becca Barhorst, president of the Beyond Coal campaign at the University of Kentucky, said Kentucky is a state hugely centered on coal usage.
“The best thing is just hearing what other students are doing at other schools,” she said, “especially because a lot of the time I felt like I was doing it all on my own.”