This letter is a response to Gabi Seltzer’s column, “Moving ‘Beyond Coal’ must be cost efficient for future students” (CT, Nov. 30), which is about a very controversial issue, especially at a traditionally conservative southwest Virginia university. We are, in fact, in the heart of coal country. Your concerns are ones that many students have regarding how switching away from coal will affect their pockets. However, rather than saying moving off our dependency on coal is unrealistic and not cost effective in 10 years, why not see it as a challenge?
Virginia Tech is a leading institute in research and technology. We are smart problem solvers. We work hard. Like I said, we invent the future. In the Environmental Coalition we like to say that Hokies invent the right future. I am optimistic and excited about the new Virginia Tech Beyond Coal campaign. Its goals are ambitious, but its grassroots energy and visibility in a mere six months is phenomenal. It is inspiring to see campus activism on such a pressing energy issue.
Even more respectable, the students in Beyond Coal are not just crazy liberal hippies who are protesting the campus power plant. Beyond Coal is a campaign, and thus a strategic political plan is being formulated to propose to the administration. The proposal will have realistic goals and a timeframe, but will also emphasize that moving off of coal is crucial in the greater global climate change picture.
Yesterday, Beyond Coal student leaders met with Mike Coleman, the facilities manager, to discuss how Tech has the responsibility and capacity to move away from coal. Just think, Tech could lead the way for renewable energy technology with all our engineers. With passage of the Virginia Tech Climate Action Commitment last spring, there is no doubt in my mind that the administration is ready to be a leader in sustainability. Sure there are budget cuts and the economy is unstable, but with great student-led campaigns like the SGA Sustainability Committee’s Green Fee, how could we lose? Wouldn’t you be willing to designate $5 of your Tech tuition toward energy efficiency and conservation? I don’t think this would hurt our pockets. Funds generated from a Green Fee could fuel the transition to change campus energy infrastructure. And that’s only one idea of how to raise money to address our addiction to dirty coal.
Lyndsay McKeever
Humanities science and the enviroment major
Intern, Sierra Club