Students who favor clean energy for the future will show that support when they bike to Rep. Dennis Moore’s office today.

Those students will deliver care packages and petitions encouraging action to prevent climate change to congressman Dennis Moore’s offices in Lawrence and Overland Park.

John Gawin, Abilene senior and Greenpeace business intern in Lawrence, said the organization was not going to Moore’s offices to protest climate change issues, but to show Moore that the people he represented cared about the environment. He said they wanted to provide him with information about the issue.

“We’re riding bikes as a symbol,” Gawin said. “Not as a sign of protest, but just to show we aren’t being hypocritical and polluting the environment while we’re on our way against polluting the environment.”

Greenpeace is an international environmental organization with offices in more than 30 countries. The group bans together to oppose non-renewable energy, commercial whaling, and nuclear testing, and to prevent the threat of global warming. Gawin said the group wanted to see legislation passed in support of renewable energy at the national level.

“The main purpose isn’t just to save the environment,” Gawin said. “But it’s also to create a lot of jobs in Kansas.”

He said Suzanne Graham, Greenpeace field organizer, said that based on statistics from the Political Economy Research Institute, 19,000 jobs would be created for Kansans if Dennis Moore were to push for renewable energy initiatives. These jobs could be building solar panels, wind turbines and transit systems. The transit construction could include building a train to reduce the number of cars on the road.

“That’s actually something we can vote on right now — a mass transit system that goes from Lawrence to Kansas City for students who commute back and forth,” Gawin said.

The care package presented to Moore’s office will contain letters from students and the Lawrence community telling why they care about environmental issues and why Moore should care, too. Gawin said they would also present a petition signed by 40 small businesses.

Gawin said that regardless of whether people believed in global warming, preventing it could benefit everyone, even in an economic sense.

“Global warming isn’t just for environmentalists and hippie tree-huggers,” Gawin said. “If we invest in all of these things like renewable energy, it will create jobs and boost our economy, because we are obviously in an economic crisis right now.”

Matt Boyer, Salina senior and Greenpeace large event coordinator, said that as an evolutionary biology major, he looked at climate change from a scientific angle, too.

“You feel like we, as humans, are responsible for the damages, so we are responsible for fixing it,” Boyer said. “I think it’s the responsibilities of citizens to get involved. There are no party lines or anything. It has more of a scientific basis.”

Boyer said even if the science was proven false, renewable energy and wind turbines would still help the economy and bring safe jobs to Kansans.

“I haven’t been proud of my country’s political process in a long time, and this year I see the political process as a pendulum, and we’re about to swing in a very positive direction,” he said.

Glen Sears, legislative assistant and deputy communications director in Moore’s Washington, D.C., office, said Moore strongly believed free speech was fully protected by the Constitution.

“With the election fast approaching, voting is another proactive way for individuals to make sure their voice is heard,” Sears said.

Sears said Moore encouraged all constituents in Kansas’ 3rd District to exercise their rights and express their opinions.

Boyer said Greenpeace wasn’t necessarily targeting Dennis Moore.

“Like any politician, he’s going to have to play the game,” Boyer said. “It just so happens that he’s our representative right now, and if he doesn’t get re-elected, we will focus on Nick Jordan instead.”

Boyer said that ultimately, renewable energy and global warming were nonpartisan issues for which people could accomplish change as a group.

Gawin and Boyer participated in a Greenpeace event on Sunday at the Lawrence Energy Center, a coal plant outside Lawrence. Boyer said about 40 people from different age groups attended the event to protest coal plants in Kansas.

A large banner read: “Kansas Gets It: Coal Is Dirty.” Gawin said the protest wasn’t intended to shut down the coal plant, but to say Kansas had been the leader in saying “no” to coal and that wind and solar power were the future of energy.

“Both presidential candidates have proposed clean coal solutions,” Gawin said. “That’s impossible to do — it’s something coal companies have put a nice term on to sound like they are environmentally aware.”

Earlier this month, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius rejected a proposal for the additional coal plants in Holcomb.

Gawin said there were six lobbyists for every congressman who supported oil.

“That just tells us they need another voice to tell them we need clean energy,” Gawin said.

— — Edited by Brenna Hawley