ANSAN
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WALK-ON SELECTED FOR NEXT BASKETBALL SEASON
Hays freshman Jordan Juenemann will join the Jayhawks in Allen Fieldhouse. **SPORTS** | 1B
K-STATE PLAYERS TALKING BIG ABOUT SHOWDOWN
Dean Murphy guarantees a touchdown in Saturday's game. SPORTS | 1B
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KA
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2008
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOLUME 120 ISSUE 50
ENVIRONMENT
Greenpeace protests dirty energy by biking
Student members travel to a representative's office to provide information about renewable energy
BY JESSE TRIMBLE
jtrimble@kansan.com
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."
SEE BIKE ON PAGE 3A
Tyler Waugh/KANSAN
Top, from left: Matthew Boyer, Salina senior, Melissa Pluss, Lincoln, Neb., senior, and John Gawin, Abilene senior, are planning to ride bikes to deliver hundreds of letters and business petitions advocating green jobs and global warming. Boyer, Gayer and Pluss along with fellow members of Greenpeace, protested coal at the Lawrence Energy Center on Sunday.
Tyler Waugh/KANSAN
MEDICINE
Med Center to start using acupunture
The KU Medical Center's Integrative Medicine Clinic will soon begin offering acupuncture in addition to its current roster of alternative therapies.
FULL STORY PAGE 8A
Tax could create jobs, degree options for students
NATIONAL
Prosecutor may decide to file criminal charges
A prosecutor is deciding whether to file criminal charges after an 8-year-old from Connecticut accidentally killed himself with a Uzi submachine gun at a gun fair in Massachusetts.
RESEARCH
BY ANDY GREENHAW agreenhaw@kansan.com
FULL STORY PAGE 8A
A sales tax vote next week in Johnson County could open up degree, research and job options for the University of Kansas and its students for years to come.
The Nov. 4 vote would create a one-eighth cent sales tax in Johnson County that could generate millions of dollars for the University and establish a Kansas-Kansas State partnership called the "Johnson County Education Research Triangle."
The University of Kansas would use the money to establish the KU Cancer Clinical Research Center in Fairway, and the KU Edwards Campus Business, Engineering Science and Technology (BEST) Center in Overland Park.
According to the Triangle's Web site, it would divide the projected $15 million in tax revenue and distribute $5 million each to the KU Cancer Center, the KU Edwards Campus, and the KSU National Food Safety & Animal Health Institute.
The new cancer research center could create thousands of jobs for medical graduates and give medical students the opportunity to work directly with cancer patients. The Edwards Campus BEST Center would
offer 10 new business and engineering degrees and accommodate 1,000 additional students.
Aubrey Heckman, Independence, Kan., senior in the nursing program at the Edwards Campus, said she would vote for the new center because it would improve the University's national prestige.
"The KU Med Center is known nationally for its research." Heckman said. "An additional research facility like this would add to its prestige and probably attract more students."
The new cancer research center would serve 1,000 patients in about 40 trials per year. Amy Jordan, public affairs director for KU Medical Center, said the Hall Family Foundation agreed to donate a recently purchased office building to the University, which she said would save $10 million in construction costs.
David Atkins, vice chancellor for external affairs at the Med Center, said the cancer research center would not only create thousands of new jobs for medical graduates but it would also generate new life science enterprises at the University.
The Johnson County Education and
BY THE NUMBERS
SEE RESEARCH ON PAGE 3A
KU Med Center
70,000 square ft. building
67. 000 square ft.
3,000 square ft. dedicated for office space
$25 million
worth of construction & equipment costs
$750.000
needed annually for operations and maintenance
1,000
patients in approximately 40 trials per year
KU Edwards Campus
75,000 square ft.
75,000 square ft. facility, dedicated to classrooms and offices
$23.3 million
worth of construction & equipment costs
$2.5 million for bond & debt
$650,000
needed annually for operations and maintenance
$1.85 million
for degree programs
10 degree programs
new degrees offered
4,4,2
Undergraduate, Masters and Professional Science Masters
additional students per year
1,000
index
Source: Johnson County Education Research Triangle Web site
Source: Johnson County Education Research Triangle Web site
Classifieds...5B Opinion...7A
Crossword...6A Sports...1B
Horoscopes...6A Sudoku...6A
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2008 The University Daily Kansan
PLOT TO KILL OBAMA FOILED
Authorities said the group probably couldn't have completed the act. NATIONAL|4A
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