I wasn’t always an environmental activist. I had been a healthcare activist and LGBT activist before being asked to be a trainer at this thing called Power Shift2011. I had no idea what it was. I always picked up trash on the ground and recycled as much as I could, but didn’t know that there was a movement of youth activists around the nation working together to eliminate coal plants oncampuses, ban fracking in their states and working for green fees. I hesitantly said yes to travel to Chicago with people I had never met before.
My name is Drew Stiehl and I wanted to share this video with all of you. It was recently shown at Coal Free Mizzou's semester kickoff event, and has been an effective branding tool for our organization's campaign against our campus' coal plant.
Yesterday, my friend Ken and I attended an Obama Campaign fundraiser in St. Louis. But we didn’t go there with any ordinary mission. We went to make sure our generation’s demand that President Obama reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline was heard.
After waiting over an hour, and with hundreds rallying outside, President Obama took the stage. As he began his speech, Ken and I prepared for our intervention. I unwrapped my shawl, and Ken opened his jacket, which both had our message clearly inscribed “President Obama: Veto the Keystone XL pipeline.”
After President Obama spoke about leaving a better future for our children, we seized the pause and asked “will you veto the Keystone XL pipeline?” Obama didn’t directly respond, but acknowledged us a few minutes later when saying “we’ve got a couple of people here who are concerned about the environment.” Yesterday, we were heard.
St. Louis, Mo. – Yesterday afternoon, a crowd of local students and community members gathered in front of Peabody Energy’s world headquarters to protest the harmful effects the coal industry is having on the health of local communities.
The event was planned in recognition of National Asthma Awareness Month; however enthusiasm for the event quickly grew early Tuesday morning when news spread regarding cyber-hoax Coalcares.org. What later turned out to be the work of techno-pranksters Coal Kills Kids, Coal Cares seemed to be a shockingly-uncharacteristic public health initiative from Peabody, offering free asthma inhalers to children living within a 200 mile radius of a coal plant.
Columbia, Mo. - Concerned students gathered at 12:15 p.m. on MU’s campus to demonstrate their support for asthma sufferers nationwide by coughing and “dying” in a cluster on the pedestrian pathway of Lowry Mall.
The students linked asthma problems to local causes such as the coal-fired power plants on MU’s campus and in the city of Columbia. They held signs saying things like, “Coal = 38,000 heart attacks per year” and “Coal = dirty air”. Passersby walked through Lowry, curiously reading the signs covering the “dead” bodies for several minutes before the group of about 20 people “came back to life” and continued on their way to class.
Many of the students had just come from Power Shift, a conference in D.C. centered on creating a clean energy economy. Power Shift attendee Sarah Johnson said, “We learned a lot about the harmful health effects of dirty energy on surrounding communities, and when we came back we really wanted to do something to convey that awful truth.”
