UO and EWEB’s fossil-fuel pilot project steers Eugene in the wrong direction

The city of Eugene’s largest source of climate-warming emissions isn’t a factory or power plant. It’s the methane gas boilers on the University of Oregon campus. And after a new surprise agreement with our public electric utility, Eugene Water & Electric Board, this pollution could get even worse.

It’s a striking contradiction: UO, a public university with one of the best environmental programs in the country, teaches thousands of students every year about the catastrophic impacts of climate change — in classrooms heated by the city’s largest source of climate pollution. How could the university that taught us about climate impacts be so slow to act on its own emissions?

In 2017, students with the Climate Justice League formed the CAP the Carbon Campaign to push UO officials to come up with plans to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 by, in part, replacing the polluting gas boilers with more efficient electric alternatives. Initially resistant, UO administrators eventually agreed to update its Climate Action Plan and commit to a feasibility study on “low carbon heating.”…

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