I ran in to some interesting items in the news recently that I thought I’d share. In some ways, they are more of action steps than anything else. If you find any of these compelling, take action.
1) More dirty air? No thanks!
I encourage you to take action right away to tell Salt River Project that they should not go through with plans to build an 840MW (that’s a lot, folks) new, air-polluting, water-wasting, methane gas-fired power plant. Learn more about it from former SRP board member, Paul Hirt, who is speaking out against it. This will add to bad air quality and will add more CO2 to the atmosphere at a time we should be ending use of CO2.
There are a few things to keep in mind here. First, the $1 BILLION price tag does not count the cost of gas fuel, pumped here from Texas, for the next few decades. Remember when methane gas prices jumped when Texas had bad weather? Gas is a volatile fuel in terms of price and its price will only go up as fewer people transition away toward clean renewable energy. Second, Pinal county, where this facility expansion is to take place, is restricting water use and shutting down farms. But somehow sucking millions of gallons up for dirty energy is okay? Third, the price of renewables and storage is coming down so quickly, that this plant will be an expensive stranded asset by the end of the decade, burning an expensive fuel, which SRP customers will continue to pay for. If you want to some easy action steps, have a look at this web link.
2) Bravery from a Local Politician
To celebrate US Constitution Day on September 17th, come see Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer speak about the election process. Richer is best known as the Republican election official who has stood up to conspiracy theorists in his own party, who have been weaving ever-increasingly absurd theories about how the 2020 election was stolen. Richer is the type of elected official who shows the backbone to stand up to people who are abusing our electoral process for personal or political gain. He will be speaking from noon to 1pm at Phoenix College Bulpitt Auditorium.
3) Understanding the Navajo and Hopi Perspective
Imagine you own a beautiful, big plot of land. It has a stream, trees and beautiful views. You notice over just a few years that your stream has dried up, the vegetation looks sad and you can’t feed your animals on it anymore. This is what happened to Navajo and Hopi people over just a few decades of coal mining and coal plant operations in their community — for coal plants that send power hundreds of miles away to Phoenix and Tucson. It is a very real thing to them, which we have heard little about. I’ve been captivated over the last year or so in this story and telling it.
This article in Time Magazine features a woman from the Navajo Nation who can speak to this reality and who has some sage advice for us as we all over the US begin to see the real damage from years of poor planning.
4) Electric Buses
In a similar way, here is an inspiring story about how parents of children with respiratory illnesses banded together to get their school district to purchase electric busses. Electric busses don’t have the pollution problems that diesel buses do and last much longer, with fewer maintenance costs. Here’s an action step. Support Chispa AZ, the group that supported the parents. Just inspiring to see.
