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On Thursday, the Climate Reality Project Campus Corps at NC State gathered on the Court of North Carolina to present a petition with 4,200 signatures to Chancellor Randy Woodson at their news conference concerning renewable energy.
The news conference was the start of the Reality of Climate Change: National Day of Action, which was a national event hosted by the Climate Reality Project, a nonpartisan national organization founded by Al Gore to raise awareness about growing climate issues across the globe. It is a grassroots organization with more than 5 million people.
Brighton Owen, lead media coordinator for the organization and a sophomore studying mechanical engineering, explained that the Climate Reality Project hopes to see NC State using 100 percent renewable energy by the year 2030.
“Our focus is raising awareness and educating NC State students and people of the greater Raleigh area about the causes, impacts and realistic solutions of climate change,” Owen said. “We wanted to do something that would have the longest long-term impact. This kind of action, with renewable energy including solar, wind and hydroelectric, has a lot of long term benefits and will eventually be more cost effective overtime.”
More than 50 events like this one were held across the country last week as part of the Week of Renewable Energy, a movement organized by the Climate Reality Project, Environment America, the Student PIRGs and other partners.
College campuses across the country participated by delivering petitions to their own respective chancellors. NC State’s event was covered by multiple news outlets, both locally and nationally.
“We had over 20 news stations on our event on Thursday,” Owen said. “Many of them were local, like The News & Observer and WRAL. We even had a professional news team come out all the way from California to record the press conference.”
President and founder Emery Kiefer, a senior studying natural resources, gave the first speech of the morning, expressing that NC State needed to take more action against climate change.
“Together, we urge Chancellor Woodson, the Office of Sustainability and the university to listen to their students and be a leader for schools and across the world,” Kiefer said. “Climate change will not wait for us. In North Carolina it will devastate communities through super storms like Hurricane Matthew, it will destroy our agriculture industry with increased drought and warming temperatures, and it will out millions of North Carolinians at risk with increases in vector-borne diseases and heat stroke.”
However, Kiefer believed achieving environmental sustainability was not an impossible goal, especially not at NC State.
“The good news is that we have the capacity and the resources,” Kiefer said. “North Carolina has one of the fastest growing solar industries in the country with NC State graduates blazing the path. Our graduates are engineers, solar industries in the country with NC State graduates blazing the path. Our graduates are engineers, scientists, sustainable businesses and policy makers being innovative leaders for North Carolina and our country. They are the ‘Do’ in ‘Think and Do,’ and it’s time NC State does the same.”
Following Kiefer, both Nick Justice, the executive director of Power America, and Leon Danielson, a professor of economics, addressed the audience.
“I am delighted to stand with these students today who themselves stand behind the Climate Reality Project here at NC State University,” Danielson said. “The university needs to respect the selfless voices of these students. These students are proud to attend this university, but they also know that the university currently has policies and systems that create harmful environmental impacts on the greater world. In economics, we call these negative externalities.”
Kiefer found the event to be an overall success, and thought the response was positive.
“We are proud that all of our hard work has paid off and to know that NC State’s administration is willing to work with its students to build a bright future together,” Kiefer said. “2030 is a good way away, and I believe through incremental steps we can achieve 100 percent renewable energy at NC State. Now is the sweet spot to start planning for our future, we fully believe NC State has the capacity and the resources to achieve this goal.”