Schools burning coal ought to feel the heat from parents

Our schools’ burning of coal is harmful to our children’s and planet’s health and should be stopped, writes Prof Ralph Adler. 

New Zealand has been slow to rein in its carbon emissions. It remains one of the highest emitters of climate heating gasses per capita. Now that Donald Trump is president of the United States, leadership on managing climate change is in short supply.

In fact, this urgency for climate change leadership has become even more crucial now that Mr Trump has named Scott Pruitt as his nominee to run the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr Pruitt has no formal scientific or environmental training. He has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions from the fossil fuels industry and testified before Congress last month that he supports his master’s assertion climate change is unproven and a hoax.

The good news is there are precedents of local communities leading the way. California did so in the early 2000s and our innovative neighbour, Hampden, has been doing so as well.

In fact, in many ways a reliance on local action is the preferred route. For as the famed BBC reporter Alistair Cooke once advised, someone who was railing against human rights violations in China should first correct what was wrong in her own community before chastising people in other places for their supposed wrongdoing.

In light of Alistair Cooke’s advice, I encourage those concerned about carbon emissions to look for local opportunities to reduce these. In addition to examining our individual (over)reliance on cars, another area worthy of immediate attention is our local schools.

I point to local schools because of their size (and therefore potential for climate impact), as well as the role modelling they can and should be providing. In particular, if your school burns coal, petition it to stop.

Coal is the worst fossil fuel to burn for greenhouse gasses. It emits twice  the carbon dioxide as natural gas for the same amount of energy produced and cannot by any stretch be classified as clean.

Some schools, like Logan Park High School and Otago Boys’ High School, have converted from coal to wood energy. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) reports that "Modern wood energy technology can produce 80% less particulate (PM10) emissions than coal ... and avoids coal’s discharge [of] heavy metals and/or sulphur to the air — as well as other pollutants that worsen air quality and can be harmful to human health."

In contrast to coal, the EECA states, "Wood energy is sustainable when it comes from plantation forests such as New Zealand’s. It is carbon neutral so does not contribute to climate change (the CO2 released when burning wood is the same as that absorbed by the tree during its lifetime)."

Despite the health risks and increased carbon emissions, more than 30 schools in greater Dunedin  continue to burn coal. Opoho Primary School is one example. I name it because as Dunedin’s only Green-Gold Enviroschool (the highest status a school can achieve for environmental practices)  it deserves to be held to a higher standard of accountability and should be walking the talk.

Opoho School, however, burns between 12 to 14 tonnes of coal a year. In other words, its environmental practices are contributing almost 40 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually to an already over-polluted atmosphere. 

In addition, coal releases nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and mercury. While all have serious negative health effects, the last is further known to stunt intellectual development. The burning of coal is antithetical to any school’s mission. Furthermore, for an Enviroschool like Opoho Primary School (as well as the several other coal-burning Dunedin Envrioschools), its actions are hypocritical, unconscionable and should not be tolerated.

If your local school burns coal and won’t change its practices despite your asking it to, then in the interest of the planet’s and your child’s health, exercise your ultimate right and direct your child to a school that doesn’t burn coal. As the Enviroschool-adapted Henry David Thoreau quotation states, "What is the use of a school if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?" 

- Ralph Adler has lived beside Opoho School for 25 years. He is a professor in the department of accountancy and finance at the University of Otago, and his research publications include environmental sustainability. His children attended Opoho Primary School and his wife chaired the school board of trustees or served as a board member between 2001 and 2012.