KICKING COAL OFF CAMPUS | I LIKE CLEAN AIR | DUNKING IN COAL'S FACE | SAVE THE ALES
Student activists at Michigan State University in East Lansing have tried everything to convince the school's board of trustees to shutter the campus coal burner. They even got author Bill McKibben to speak by video at a Clean Energy forum: "If we're going to break our addiction to fossil fuels," he said, "we need our great educational institutions in the forefront." They criticized the university's "energy transition plan," which lacked a retirement date for the campus coal plant: "How can they say [the plan] is 100 percent clean energy and ignore the fact that they own a coal plant?" asked senior Paul Mooney.
Students also erected a two-story-high inflatable inhaler to emphasize the link between burning coal and respiratory diseases like asthma.
But when the campaigners really wanted to get attention, they ran the above ad in local newspapers. Climate change brought on by the coal industry may disrupt future harvests of hops and barley—two essential ingredients of beer.
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