The Barometer Online

Issue date: 2/13/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Molly Whiteside Students sit in the MU Quad on Monday as part of a protest against OSU's use of coal. The protest went from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

ASOSU's environmental affairs task force organized a "Soot In" Monday afternoon in which students gathered to protest the use of coal as an energy source by the university.

Demonstrators were dressed in black and wore masks to symbolize the pollution caused by the utilization of coal and its emissions, said Naomi Tuinstra, a senior in environmental engineering who helped organize the protest.

Childhood asthma, and in extreme cases premature death, are all products of the harmful source, organizers said.

As part of the process of coal formation, methane is released during mining operations. Methane is a greenhouse gas involved in global warming, contributing to acid rain and other acidic aerosols. Coal use has also been linked to dust problems and mercury infected fish, according to worldcoal.org.

Tuinstra is an intern at Northwest Sustainable Energy for Economic Development, an organization stationed in Seattle. She said it is important for environmental groups and individuals who care about the environment to communicate and interact with one another.

The objective of this demonstration was to raise awareness of students.

"We get 70 to 80 percent of our energy from coal. An estimated 22,800 tons of coal is burned for OSU each year," Tuinstra said.

"The biggest problem," said senior Nathan Defrees, "is that coal is not a sustainable source of energy. [We should think about] investing in future generations. [The continued use of coal] will continue to add inverse monitory effects and will continue to cause more health problems, causing detriment to society."

"It would not only be an environmental advance, but an economic one as well," Tuinstra added.

The group will present its petition asking that the university use 100 percent renewable energy in front of the Student/Incidental Fees Committee this Friday from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. in MU room 213.

It then would move to the Undergraduate and Graduate Senates and would have to be passed by majority vote.

Each student pays about $185 per term in incidental fees. The approval of the proposal will charge an additional $8.50 to full time students, which was recently lowered from $8.88 based on an updated count of the number of full-time students.

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