Musicians, Author to Hold ‘Cool City’ Event

Morgantown, WV, March 6, 2006:  Two members of West Virginia University’s Department of English in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences will join with a local musician to urge Morgantown to do all it can to curb global warming.

Mark Brazaitis, associate professor of English, has organized the “Concert for a Cool City.” It will be held at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 8 at the Blue Moose Café on Walnut Street in downtown Morgantown.

The free public event is celebrating the Morgantown City Council’s recent ratification of the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, as well as urging council members to fulfill this voluntary accord by lowering greenhouse gas emissions associated with city vehicles and buildings.

More than 400 mayors representing over 59 million Americans have signed the Mayors’ Agreement. Morgantown is the second city in West Virginia and the first coal-extracting city in the United States to do so.

“The most challenging part of the Mayors’ Agreement isn’t signing it,” said Brazaitis. “The most challenging part is fulfilling its requirements.”

Brazaitis pointed out that by signing the Mayors’ Agreement, Morgantown will benefit both from a cleaner environment and from the savings gained by utilizing green technologies. “Most environmentally-friendly products prove cheaper in the long run than their dirty-energy counterparts,” Brazaitis said. “It’s a classic win-win situation.”

Brazaitis will be master of ceremonies at the “Concert for a Cool City” and will also read some of his poetry and prose that relates to global warming and the environment.

The concert’s headliners are musicians Beth Staley and Brian Porterfield. Staley is in the Department of English’s Ph.D. program and has an M.F.A. in creative writing from WVU. Porterfield is the lead vocalist and guitarist for Morgantown’s alternative band “the love me knots.”

“We hope this concert will show just how committed Morgantown is to solving the extremely serious problem of global warming,” said Brazaitis.

For more information please contact Brazaitis at 304-293-3107 ex. 33402 or Mark.Brazaitis@mail.wvu.edu.

W-V-U