Written by Amy Allen, student leader at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Students at the University of Illinois demanded an end to fossil fuel dependence at the Urbana Farmers’ Market on Saturday. They marched through the farmers’ market dressed as BP executives and oil-tainted fish and chanted about the importance of cleaning up the spill and transitioning to renewable energy.
The action came four days after the three-month anniversary of the start of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and just two days after the Senate dropped the push for comprehensive climate change legislation. In light of this, the students also gathered over fifty signatures for a letter to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin demanding a comprehensive climate bill that imposes a cap on carbon emissions and asking him to stand with people not polluters. Senator Durbin, who has taken $9,000 this year from dirty energy corporations, has the opportunity to be a clean energy champion and make sure that climate change legislation is passed.
One woman from New Orleans approached the protesters to thank them for drawing attention to the issue, and numerous people chimed in chanting, “Oil, oil, on the shore, we don’t want you anymore!” and “Zero, one, two, three, get the oil off of me!” Check it out here.
Capping carbon emissions will not stop energy waste. All alternative will be subsumed in growth. The only way to reduce carbon is to stop the waste. Start by ending the subsidies. Take the restraint-of-trade tariff off our public transit investment. Free commerce from the space-hogging private auto.