Campus Action & Sustainability

On April 22, 1970, students participated in an massive action declared by Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin. Motivated by the recent Santa Barbara oil spill, teach-ins were held at college and university campus across the United States to protest environmental degradation. "Earth Day," as the event was known, later became a prominent, annual avenue for citizens to discuss important issues affecting both their local communities and the wider world.

Nine months ago today a small group students at the University of Cincinnati sent a letter to President Gregory Williams announcing the official formation of the Beyond Coal Campaign. Now, not even a year later, we have reached the crucial moment, we have made our final ask. Just days ago, the administration formally announced that the first of the two coal fired boilers on our campus is scheduled to be retired by 2015 before the EPA MACT Rules (Maximum Achievable Control Technology) go into effect. On the heels of this good news, we decided to make the final demand: a commitment for the second boiler to be retired no later than 2019.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students amped up the pressure in their coal divestment campaign last week through photo petitions and chalking on campus that called for their school to divest coal!

Join hundreds of students and Bobby Kennedy, Jr in signing UIUC's Divest Coal Petition!

Beyond Coal students at UIUC got 130 photo petitions in just one afternoon - check out all the smiling faces of coal divestment on their flikr.

Cross-posted from the Southern Energy Network blog.

Young people from Florida International University held an “Oil Spill Black Out” action this Friday to mark the second anniversary of the tragic BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Young people and community members gathered to remember the victims of the oil spill by taking personal pledges to reduce their oil consumption and to demand that we end our nation's addiction to oil.

Since the disaster two years ago, the oil that persists in the Gulf continues to threaten the Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems. Out of this disaster, there is an opportunity to transition Florida, and our country to an economy powered by clean, safe energy. At the campus, the activists called for President Obama and Congress to make clean energy a priority now.