Students choose clean energy
Founder of Earth Day visits Auraria to celebrate planet
by Barbara Hernandez
Photos by Steve Stoner
The Metropolitan
Eighty-nine-year-old Earth Day founder John McConnell speaks to people gathered to listen to music and discuss clean energy options at the Clean Energy Concert April 22 in the Tivoli Turnhalle. McConnell first proposed Earth Day in 1969 to celebrate Earth's life and beauty.
By the time the 1,091 ballots were counted on Thursday, members of the Clean Energy campaign knew they had won.
Ninety-five percent of the students at Auraria voted in favor of paying one dollar per student per semester to subsidize the cost of wind and solar energy.
"I feel great and pleased to have worked (with) the people on this campaign," said Joel Sayre, president of Metro State Active Voices of the Environment, or MSAVE.
Clean energy will power the Auraria campus as of the Fall 2004 semester. A cost of one dollar per student per semester will raise at the three schools funds of $83, 604 to pay for one year of 1,451.5 megawatts of solar and wind energy for Auraria.
The total cost for all three years will be $250,812, powering the Auraria campus with 7,602.5 megawatts total.
Money raised for the next three years will be based on enrollment.
By Fall semester of 2004 there will be wind power for the Tivoli and for a new section of the Events Center.
The current cost of wind power from Excel is $2.50 for 100 kilowatts. An expense of .32 cents per student per semester will generate 1,075 megawatts of wind power at the Auraria campus for one year.
The project also includes solar panels, which are expected to cost $54,690 for hardware, shipping, 15 years of maintenance, and installation.
The solar panels will generate .5 megawatts of clean energy per year for the next 15-20 years. An expense of 0.65 cents per student will be used to install the solar panels for the first year.
After the first year, solar energy will be generated for free.
Earth Day founder John McConnell, second from right, addresses people gathered in the Turnhalle for the Clean Energy Concert. Area band Knights of Texas stands at the ready to entertain and was one of several bands which played at the event.
The members MSAVE, Metro student organization Creative Resistance, and EnviroCitizen worked together to promote the positive aspects of clean energy at the Auraria Clean Energy Vote concert event on Thursday.
Members of MSAVE passed out flyers to students at Auraria asking them to vote for the clean energy ballot.
The Auraria Clean Energy vote began at 11 a.m. with a performance by The Mercury Project. The Breaker Mechanics and the Knights of Tethys played until the event ended at 4 p.m.
A truck dubbed the Environmental Science Mobile and powered in part by solar panels and wind power, provided power to all the bands' equipment throughout the event.
LadySpeech, a poet, spoken word performer, and activist whose real name is Quianna Ray, also recited spoken word poetry.
John McConnell, the 89-year-old founder of Earth Day, told a crowd of about 40 that the citizens of Denver should become Earth Trustees by celebrating spring and taking action.
"Denver is an amazing city, it's a mile-high city and has high purpose," McConnell said. "I hope we can get the city to think and act as an Earth Trustee city and they could point the way to cities all over the world to be Earth Trustees."
McConnell said the term "Earth Trustee" came out of the original Earth Day in 1970.
He said he thinks older generations failed the earth because they found they could make more money building devilish weapons of war than helping the environment.
"Maybe we can spread the word and get the contagious feeling that we are Earth Trustees," he said. "We're going to convert every friend we can to be an Earth Trustee in some way, whether you are composting or planting a tree or finding a better way of travel that will cost less energy, all this is contributing."
He urged people to continue their efforts in helping the earth.
According to McConnell, the original idea of Earth Day was to make the first day of spring a great day on Earth.
He recalled one day at the United Nations when all the world leaders came together.
"When we rang the peace bell, at the moment of spring we had different world leaders. McConnell said. "We had an ambassador from the U.S. who was Presbyterian, we had an ambassador from the USSR who was an atheist, and we had the head of the World Muslim League, and together they rang the peace bell, they forgot their differences."
Paul Aldretti, the executive director of the Colorado Environmental Partnership, also spoke in support of clean energy.
"How much will it cost us not to get renewable energy?" Aldretti said.
He urged people to take responsibility in their own actions and said there are hundreds of things people can do to save energy.
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