College students to sleep out on common for climate

By DYLAN KLEMPNER Bulletin Contributing Writer

Published on February 19, 2010

Saturday is expected to get down to 20-degrees Fahrenheit overnight. Not exactly hospitable weather for sleeping in a tent. But that's exactly what a contingent of college students from across the state are going to do this weekend on the Amherst common.

Students will join local community members to sleep out on the Amherst Town Common on Saturday to show their unwillingness to stay in homes powered by the burning of coal and natural gas, said Sam Rubin, spokesperson for the Leadership Campaign, a Massachusetts-based, student-run organization that's raising awareness about climate change. The group has previously camped out here and in Boston, said Rubin.

Late last year, the campaign proposed legislation that would require the state to use 100 percent clean electricity by 2020. The group will use Saturday's sleep out to urge state legislators to pass "the bill by April 20, which is Earth Day," said Rubin. "Our government needs to take action to protect its citizens from the effects of climate change."

Said Rubin, "We are asking for the government to investigate how the state is going to reach 100 percent clean electricity. We still want electricity; we just think there are better ways to get it than burning fossil fuels." Clean electricity does not produce any emissions or pollution, said Rubin.

State Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, and state Rep. Will Brownsberger, D-Belmont, introduced the bill, "An Act to Create a Repower Massachusetts Emergency Task Force," last fall before the legislative recess.

The task force created by the bill will come at no cost to taxpayers, said Rubin. It will work within the government's existing resources through the reassignment of current employees, as well as the volunteer time of various community members, he said.

The group will begin their second phase of sleep outs in Amherst "to show state representatives from western Massachusetts, this is the time for action on this issue," said Rubin.

Following Saturday's event in Amherst, two more sleep outs are scheduled prior to Earth Day, Rubin said. One will occur on the Cambridge Common and another on the Boston Common.

The campaign, whose coalition partners include The Massachusetts Council of Churches, Somerville Climate Action Network, Unitarian Universalist Mass Action Network, and Students for a Just and Stable Future launched its first sleep out on Oct. 24, said Rubin.

Climate expert Dr. James Hansen of NASA and environmental author and advocate Bill McKibben demonstrated with the group in Boston last November.