So… yeah, I joined the Sierra Club today. The UNC chapter of the Sierra Club. Basically, our goal is to replace the coal plant on campus with one that’s… not coal. I dunno. The specifics are a bit gray and non-specific. In essence, the goal of the club is to get rid of the coal plant (one of many that emits copious amounts of CO2, arsenic, and other bad shit into the environment) and replace it with clean energy. Natural gas has been proposed as an alternative for the now, hopefully followed up with a renewable energy source, which in my opinion should be one of the primary goals for the US regardless of other shit that’s going on. However, the feasibility of such a task is… questionable. I’d like some more specifics on what we’re going to replace it with and a cost estimate, but we haven’t got any at the moment.
To a certain extent, I’d like to keep the fervor of student organizations but also temper it with some numbers. In general, people with money and power are more likely to listen to you if you have some numbers, like a cost estimate, the difference in power, new jobs that would be generate, a timetable, etc. Otherwise, most of them kind of just tell you to fuck off.
But, maybe that’s not the point of a student organization. Maybe the point is to galvanize the student body, raise awareness for projects and initiatives like this, and maybe eventually, when those students have money and power, they will keep those sentiments in mind.
On an entirely separate note, I found this song about pandas.
