UNC must work to end coal use before year 2050

TO THE EDITOR:

Events this week illustrate that on the issue of coal, Chancellor Holden Thorp is increasingly out of touch with the values of the students, the community and the leadership of the campus’ neighboring towns.

The Daily Tar Heel wrote a strong editorial Wednesday pointing out that the continued use of coal is a luxury we enjoy at the expense of the environment and the less fortunate (“Dependency theory,” March 17).

The Sierra Club’s Coal Free Campus campaign also rallied Wednesday and continues to grow. Two separate community groups have presented petitions to the town of Chapel Hill and Carrboro asking those cities to pass resolutions demanding that UNC cease burning coal by 2015, 35 years before UNC’s current goal.

Tuesday night, Carrboro’s town council passed the resolution unanimously. Alderman Sammy Slade said that the University has an ethical duty to take leadership on this issue. Yet Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine ranked UNC fifth among southeast schools for sustainability — behind Duke and N.C. State — because the University continues to burn coal. Chancellor Thorp has appointed an energy task force, but its mandate is weak.

Rather than being appointed to study the issue, the task force should be charged with immediately formulating a plan that will move UNC off coal as soon as possible, not later than 2015.

For the sake of the school’s reputation and the good will of the community, the University can not afford to be increasingly out of touch on this issue.



Brendan Watson
Graduate Student
Journalism & Mass Communication