At a time when climate scientists are sounding alarm bells around the world, as glaciers melt, severe weather events disrupt cities and farms and earth’s living things face extinction because of global climate change, the MSU Administration and Board of Trustees have shirked their responsibilities.
Last week the MSU Board of Trustees failed to discuss transitioning the largest coal-fired power plant on any American college campus, removing such discussion from their agenda. Yet the trustees did vote on spending $10 million for a new high definition video screen, replete with enhanced audio, for Spartan Stadium. Is there something distorted with that picture?
Generating energy by burning coal is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gases. MSU burns 250,000 tons of coal each year. The T.B. Simon plant also emits heavy metals such as mercury, and small particulate matter, which cause significant health problems not only for the MSU community but for Michigan residents far removed from campus. In Ingham County alone, 37 residents die premature deaths each year due to the emissions of the T.B. Simon plant.
Burning coal is an 18th century technology that must be replaced as soon as possible if the world as we know it is to survive. How can MSU hope to lead the development of green technologies, the engine of the future economy, while still operating the T.B. Simon plant for decades to come?
As a MSU alumni, class of 1972, I will never forget then-MSU President Walter Adams leading a protest march against the Vietnam War all the way down Grand River Avenue to the State Capitol. President Adams’ principled leadership still is a source of pride for me. And as horrible as the Vietnam war was, its misery pales in comparison to the calamities that global climate change has already wrought.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu predicts that global climate change will cause the deaths of 185 million Africans in the coming century. It is time for current MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon and the Board of Trustees to regard climate change as the emergency it is and to commit to moving the university to renewable energy sources.
A new $10 million video screen at Spartan Stadium would be nice. Assuming the vision and leadership to bring MSU to the forefront of energy technologies is urgent, existential and should be delayed no longer. GO GREEN!
Mark Muhich, chairman of the Sierra Club Michigan group and MSU alumnus
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