Murdoch '09.5 cleans up her act Student researches solutions to the coal crisis

Author: Grace Duggan

Most people probably would not take their last semester off from Middlebury to spend several months working in West Virginia to promote the nationwide prioritizing of alternatives to clean coal technology, but Sierra Murdoch - now a member of the Class of 2009.5 - is doing just that. Following an internship she will complete on campus with seven other Middlebury students this Winter Term, Murdoch, who has been hired in part by Project 350, expects to remain in West Virginia through July facilitating continued discussion of the issues surrounding the ominous consequences of the continued use of coal as an energy source.

The impetus for this internship - as well as the continuation of Murdoch's efforts through the spring - grew out of a fruitful conference held this past April and attended by Luce Professor of International Environmental Economics Jon Isham at the Garrison Institute. These three inspiring days looked to the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and prompted Isham to consider how Gandhi - whose grandson attended the conference - may have approached the current climate crisis. Following his return to campus, Isham continued the dialogue started at the Garrison Institute with other Middlebury faculty, including Associate Professor of Religion Rebecca Gould, Professor of English and American Literatures John Elder and Scholar-in-Residence in Environmental Studies Bill McKibben, along with a number of Middlebury students who showed interest in participating in what is already an important national and global issue.

Though still in the preliminary planning stages, the internship marks a collaborative effort between Murdoch, Eleanor Horowitz '11, Michaela O'Connor '11, Lois Parshley '11, Katelyn Romanov '11, Peter Spyrou '10.5, Matt Vaughan '09 and Ben Wessel '11, each of whom brings to the table varying levels of familiarity with this particular component of the overall climate movement. The students will tackle the complex web of issues surrounding coal, one that includes learning about mountain top removal, alternative energy sources and the possibility of facilitating the development of a green economy in coal country.

Given the magnitude of success Middlebury students have had participating in past initiatives, both locally and nationally, standards for Murdoch and the other interns are high. Isham hopes that efforts from environmentalists, including Middlebury students, will also feed into legislative measures, both in the United States and abroad. Once in West Virginia, Murdoch will build off of her internship by working with organizations like the Alliance For Appalachia and iLoveMountains. Following successful models from history as well as recent initiatives like Step It Up and an internship 10 Middlebury students had with 1Sky last Winter Term, at least one meeting has been set before January to plan for the upcoming internship and Murdoch's continued involvement through the spring.

The issue of coal is already on the national radar, having received attention from a number of activists, including Al Gore and both 2008 presidential candidates. As recently as Nov. 9, Gore published an op-ed in the New York Times emphasizing how unrealistic "clean coal" technology is as a viable component for solving the current climate crisis.

"It's a wonderful idea," said Isham, "but as Al Gore pointed out, it's not yet anywhere close to being valid. 'Clean coal' is just hype right now."

The term "clean coal" obscures the magnitude of the issue, as the technology does not currently exist. Both Isham and Murdoch cited a profound lack of research into the idea and asserted that it cannot be viewed as a sensible option given the current speed of climate change.

"Clean coal is not a possibility within the timeline we have to act on global warming," said Murdoch. "We have to do something else. We need to look to wind, solar and innovative technologies we've already developed, and integrate these into an economic system that creates new jobs and lifts a lot of communities out of poverty."

Noah Brautigam '12, who recently wrote a piece on carbon capture and storage for Isham's first-year seminar - titled "Can We Really Do This? Finding Global Warming Solutions" - had similarly mixed feelings about clean coal.

"The way I see it is that clean coal is a political construction. Politicians need to appeal to Appalachia, and to do that they can't say, 'Moratorium on coal' to get elected. I don't think [clean coal] is the most viable option right now. It's not a permanent solution … it's a band-aid until there are better solutions found."

Isham emphasized the urgency and importance of engaging the problems of coal in the United States as well as on the global level. With over half of the electricity produced in the United States coming from coal and a rising number of coal plants opening in China - the origin of approximately 25 percent of all current greenhouse gases - coal's status as a cost-effective, readily available energy source will be hard to change.

"Coal is an exceptionally difficult challenge," he said. "The alternatives are to ban using coal for reasons associated with the injustices of it, figure out some technological fix or move as quickly as you can away from coal. But of course you have to have the clean energy alternatives … By some estimates up to half a million people in China die every year because of the burning of coal. In the United States it's certainly in the tens of thousands."

With language colored by earnest references to other movements, such as abolitionism and Gandhi's movement against British colonial rule, Isham acknowledged the formidable task that lies ahead, one that involves framing coal use as a moral issue.

"If it's not seen as a moral issue, it's just going to be one more in a list of things that we should be doing, and the key is to make it a moral issue that one can't ignore," said Isham. "A great analogy is the abolitionist movement … The reason they succeeded is because they made [slavery] a moral issue. It's hard for us to imagine that slavery wasn't a moral issue, but it wasn't until they came along … We want to use the climate change story to say, just as abolitionists did over 200 years ago, that this core engine of our economy can't be defended because of the injustices associated with it."