Among all of the beauty on campus, the tower of coal that decorates Charter Street is extremely out of place. This lump of coal is not only a disgrace to the beauty of campus, but it is the source of some of the dirty, coal-powered energy that we use on campus.
Obviously, the university needs its electricity, I'm not going to argue that. But did you know that coal power plant pollution currently causes 448 premature deaths per year in Wisconsin, according to a study from the Clean Air Task Force? It also causes 9,340 asthma attacks and costs us millions in health costs.
Overall, power plant pollution kills 24,000 people a year in this country-50 percent more than murderers do. Although most of us overlook this problem, pollution levels have gotten bad enough that the Department of Natural Resources issued an air pollution advisory for Dane County Feb. 1 because of dangerous levels of soot pollution.
We need to get this campus to use clean, renewable energy. Make them put our health as the number one priority on this campus.
