Students at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT wasted no time using their new found energy post-Powershift 2009 and hosted a “Freeze on Coal” action earlier this afternoon. The students at Middlebury, a school that earned an “A” on the 2009 “College Sustainability Report Card” in every category but “endowment transparency,” planned the action to launch a campaign compelling the administration to green the endowment. At 12:30pm, close to fifty students froze in place while getting lunch in the campus’s busiest dining hall. Each held a piece of charcoal in his or her hand and, when two minutes had passed, they continued on with their meal, explaining to their befuddled peers what had just happened.
“It was exciting to be part of an action that was so much fun and so relevant to a college campus that is doing so much on its own to become more sustainable, but has many hidden contributions that could possibly be linked to the coal industry in ways that are not easily apparent,” said Nate Blumenshine, a senior at Middlebury who helped to plan the action. For the rest of the day, students wore green armbands and answered questions from curious students who had heard about the freeze. “I think this action was pretty powerful and definitely sparked the interest of kids on campus who don’t know much about the endowment or sustainability,” added Shannon Engelman, a sophomore at the College.
The action comes at the midway point of the Power Past Coal campaign. Middlebury students are motivated to make sure that their campus is not helping to support dirty industry practices like mountaintop-removal mining. Encouraged by the stance that College administrators have taken so far to make the campus a leader internationally, including a commitment to carbon neutrality, the students hope to work with school officials to make sure that the College’s money is invested in the cleanest possible industries. At a time when private institutions worldwide are feeling a pinch in their pocket, investing in 19th century technology would be a backwards step on the road to a new, green economy.
Yes creativity in the youth climate movement. Let’s keep this kind of energy up. Let’s push ourselves to new and different strategies. I like it.
Great to see this going on after the conference!
http://madrad2002.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/clean-coal-was-never-being-developed-by-bush-admin/