Some nice work outta the University of North Carolina (UNC) today. The campus student group, Coal Free-UNC, drew a line in the sand and won their campaign this week. UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp agreed to phase the campus off of coal by 2020.
Pretty exciting to be chiseling away at Big Coal piece by piece.
The North Carolina school is among 60 universities with coal-fired power plants targeted by the San Francisco-based Sierra Club, an environmental group that is campaigning to close existing plants and block new construction. Burning coal is linked to about half of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for global warming.
Big props to the UNC students for moving their campus into a new phase of energy production.
Not only is this a victory for the climate, but also for the Appalachian mountains as UNC burned mountaintop removal (MTR) coal.
North Carolina is 2nd largest non-coal state consumer of MTR coal (after Georgia.) Duke Energy, headquartered in North Carolina, is one of the top corporate consumers of MTR coal.
Can’t wait to see more of these campuses kicking Big Coal’s ass.