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by Matt “Ivan” Stiefe |
2006
West Virginia students journey to Glenville State College to discuss energy issues and plan campaigns that will address the injustices that plague our state.
On February 11, 2006, WVU’s Student Sierra Coalition attended the West Virginia Energy Gathering (WVEG) along with other student groups from Shepherd University, Glenville State College, Salem International College and even a Pennsylvania high school. Despite the snow, which blanketed the earth in pure white, six individuals from WVU’s Student Sierra Coalition journeyed to the event held at Glenville State College. The WVEG drew together regional student environmentalists to discuss future plans for energy and environmental justice.
We began with a discussion of the campaigns the separate groups are involved in. Following these introductions came workshops on community organizing, the Campus Climate Challenge and non-violent civil disobedience. All workshops focused on developing tools to effectively achieve energy justice.
In West Virginia energy justice is of great importance. Mountaintop removal coal mining ravages our land, buries our streams, and causes erosion that make our rivers flood. Our air and lungs suffer when coal is burned. The environmental and social costs of energy produced from such a source are very high. But across the country there have been successful campaigns on campuses to achieve energy justice and decrease dependency on dirty energy. The common hope of diminishing energy related injustice within our own communities united all the groups at the WVEG.
We left the WVEG with new ideas and skills to help realize our dreams. But more importantly the WVEG has brought environmentally concerned students of this region together. The personal connections formed at the WVEG will be invaluable in the future campaigns ahead.
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