Faculty, students further renewable energy cause

By: Chris Boning

Posted: 4/24/08

To James Harmon, professor of art history, it's time Missouri changed its attitude about energy.

He and others at the University currently are involved with a campaign to put a renewable energy standard on the state's November ballot. The standard would require Missouri utility companies to increase their use of renewable energy by the year 2020.

Harmon said he has been interested in environmental activism since he was a graduate student more than 40 years ago.

"Our country was on a very good trajectory for doing environmentally sound things and enacting good policies in the late 1960s," he said. "It looks like we're approaching the place where we were in the late 1960s again now in the early 21st century, and it's high time."

He said he got involved with the recent push for renewable energy in Missouri when PJ Wilson, the executive director of the non-profit corporation Renew Missouri, called him and asked for help.

Harmon said the initiative is important to him because of the consequences climate change will have for future generations.

"It's an urgent survival issue for them, so I'm involved because I think it's the right thing to do," he said. "I'm convinced that the Earth and all of its creatures need to be preserved and in as good shape as possible."

He has been promoting the campaign by educating others about the issue and collecting signatures for the initiative, he added.

Harmon said Missouri could play a role in the national environmental movement.

"[The state] could be another important step in the way to wiser use of energy in larger productions of energy," he said. "At the moment it seems like the responsibility for seeing that the right thing gets done is devolving to the cities and states. There's nothing wrong with states' rights, and I think that's a very healthy grassroots movement for what needs to be done."

Harmon said students are doing the majority of signature collecting at the University, which he commended.

"The project, I believe, represents students' enlightened self-interest," he said. "So what better motivation can people have to do the right thing if it's not enlightened self-interest?"

Wilson said his group initiated the ballot measure, although the coalition Missourians for Cleaner, Cheaper Energy is responsible for campaigning.

He added that the other groups pushing for the measure include the League of Conservation Voters, Missouri Votes Conservation, the Missouri Coalition for the Environment and various chapters of the Sierra Club.

He also said that in Missouri, less than 1 percent of the energy produced is renewable.

"Without this ballot initiative, we don't really have any plans to really accelerate that number at all," Wilson said. "With this policy, we'll have 15 percent renewable by 2020."

Groups associated with the wind and solar power industries have estimated that the initiative could generate 4,100 megawatts of new wind power and 200 new megawatts of solar power, he added.

"This policy has to be in place in order for renewable energy to be taken seriously," Wilson said.

Renew Missouri hasn't publicly spread awareness about the issue of renewable energy so far, but Wilson said it has instead been networking extensively with other environmental organizations.

"It's not real until it's on the ballot," Wilson said.

Nonetheless, the group has successfully gathered enough signatures in time for the May 4 deadline, he said.

"We'll get it on the ballot," Wilson said.

Junior Hannah Hemmelgarn said she is involved with the signature-gathering process for the ballot initiative. She said she became interested in the initiative after attending a conference in St. Louis on the Cool Cities movement, which promotes energy efficiency in urban areas.

Wilson spoke at that conference and trained people to gather signatures for the initiative. Hemmelgarn said she took the information and strategies she learned back to Truman.

"Since Kirksville is one of the cities I would like to see sign on to that Cool Cities agreement, also, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to raise awareness about it," she said.

Hemmelgarn said 86 percent of Missouri's energy comes from coal, a figure that could decrease if the state utilized its capacity for wind and solar power.

"Right now, Missouri has a more lax commitment saying, 'You can buy renewable energy, but it's not required of you,'" she said. "This would really make it so there's that pressure. It's got to happen. I mean, it's sick what we're doing to our environment."

She said she tries to gather signatures and train other people to do the same at events that focus on the environment, such as the wind energy forum last semester. Hemmelgarn added that she also tries to reach out to organizations on campus such as ECO and the Truman Sierra Club.

She said that so far she personally has gathered 150 to 200 signatures, although it's been slow going.

"We have a lot of work to do," she said.