Charlotte, NC – At 12:30 today, two Warren Wilson College students
dressed as polar bears were arrested while blockading the entrance to
Duke Energy’s headquarters in downtown Charlotte. The students are
demanding that the company stop its plans to build the new Cliffside
coal-fired power plant, and are joined by concerned citizens dressed as
Santa Claus and his Elves. Santa's Elves presented Duke with a
Christmas wish list of clean air, sustainable energy, and energy
efficiency initiatives. "The bad kids get coal in their stockings, and
we're here to say that we don't want any new coal," said Keith
Glendinning, a local resident.
“North Carolina's youth will be living with the impact of dirty energy
and climate change far into the future. We need community-based
alternatives to the fossil fuel empire.†said Nina Otter, a student at
Warren Wilson College who locked herself to the entrance. “Coal has got
to go if we want to solve the climate crisis.â€
Climate scientists around the world agree that immediate actions must
be taken to reduce levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in order
to stop the worst impacts of climate change. Duke's new Cliffside plant
alone would emit 312 million tons of carbon dioxide over its fifty year
lifespan, the equivalent of putting an additional one million cars on
the roads.
The Cliffside plant will also emit pollutants such as mercury, nitrogen
dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Duke's own calculations project a 10-fold
increase in mercury emissions from the proposed plant over 2005 mercury
emissions from the existing units. In addition, much of the coal burned
at Cliffside would be extracted through the highly destructive practice
of mountaintop removal. This practice has destroyed hundreds of square
miles of the southern Appalachian Mountains and devastated thousands of
miles of streams.
“North Carolina and Duke Energy need to follow the lead of other states
such as Oklahoma and Florida that have said no to new coal plants. In
order to avert catastrophic climate change our society must shift
towards sustainable and socially responsible energy sources now. Coal
is not a part of that equationâ€, said student activist Lindsay Popper.Â
