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RALEIGH, North Carolina, US, 2004-10-20 (Refocus Weekly) Students across the United States are being asked to sign a ‘Declaration of Independence’ that calls on political candidates to detail their plan for a transition to renewable energies.
‘Energy Independence Day’ was planned for October 19, with students presenting the ‘Declaration of Independence from Dirty Energy’ at the Liberty Bell at Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Other demonstrations were staged to demand ‘Separation of Oil and Auto’ at the headquarters of Ford in Dearborn, Michigan and other events at the University of Washington in Seattle, the wind turbine in Middlebury College, Vermont, and a call for the largest university in the United States to embrace clean energy at the office of the chancellor of Cal State in Long Beach, California.
“When, in the course of human events, a nation’s energy policies compromise the health, security and prosperity of its people, and cause global climate disruption, a new path must be taken,” the Declaration explains. “We demand that our nation reject dirty energy sources such as fossil fuels, nuclear and incineration, and make a strong commitment to energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar. As the rest of the industrialized world makes the shift to a clean energy economy, the United States is falling behind and our generation will pay the price.”
The U.S. consumption of fossil fuels causes pollution that causes 24,000 deaths a year (disproportionately higher in low-income communities and communities of colour) and economic stagnation from rising fuel costs and the outsourcing of U.S. energy-sector jobs, it adds. It also increases international conflict and dependence on foreign oil, and global warming that already kills 160,000 people a year from intense hurricanes, severe droughts and floods, heat waves and the spread of infectious diseases.
“The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population yet consumes 25% of the world’s dwindling oil supply,” it continues. It spends billions of dollars every year to subsidize oil, coal and nuclear energy companies and “our nation must shift these investments into energy efficiency and a new generation of clean energy sources such as wind and solar, which will create millions of new jobs and improve our economy.”
All experts are pointing to young voters as the key constituency in this election, says the Energy Action Network that is co-ordinating the declaration, with one poll showing that an “unprecedented” 80% of youth under 30 saying they definitely plan to vote on November 2.
“The most compelling issue for students and young people in this election is energy, which is connected to war, economic swings, public health, corporate power, the environment and global warming,” and the goal is to have 30,000 young people sign the Declaration and to hold 300 smaller presentations in every state to “demonstrate the youth generation’s commitment to a clean energy future with creative and symbolic actions.”
The coalition includes Climate Campaign, Greenpeace, Sierra Student Coalition, Sierra Youth Coalition, National Association of Environmental Law Societies, National Wildlife Federation's Campus Ecology Program, Rainforest Action Network, Energy Justice Network, EnviroCitizen, Student Environmental Action Coalition and others.
Climate Campaign and Greenpeace worked together at the end of the last school year on a 18-campus tour of colleges and universities in the northeastern U.S., using Greenpeace's ‘Rolling Sunlight’ to provide solar power for spring concerts and carnivals. The tour helped campus groups to showcase the viability of clean energy to thousands of students and to build support for campaigns to get more schools to invest in clean energy.
The campaign includes a competition among universities to obtain the highest number of signatures on the declaration, and the ten top schools will receive a donation of wind energy to power their campus for one day. Before the event, California had collected 829 signatures and New York had 466, with the top campuses as Yale, Penn State, New College of Florida, Tufts, UCLA, Skidmore, Colgate, Temple, Boston College and Harvard.
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