Howdy!
I saw a few of you today, and some of you have seen the post on mine or 350 Triangle’s Facebook page. Happy to say Wake County (FINALLY!!) passed a 100% Clean Renewable Energy by 2050 and 80% by 2035 resolution yesterday! The language is not as strong as I would have liked, but the important thing is the intention is set now, for the REAL work toward a just transition to begin! It was pointed out in the presentation by county staff yesterday that Wake County is the second largest county in NC, and has a larger population than many states.
Spectrum News was there and asked to interview me after I made my comments. Found the link online to the story and video. http://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/triangle-sandhills/news/2018/10/16/wake-county-buildings-will-be-solar-powered-by-2050#I loved John’s comment included: “This is not something our grandchildren have to worry about,” said commissioner John Burns. “This is something you and I need to worry about.“ Great to hear from Cathy and Sally that they saw the segment on TV, that is still running today.
Anna Johnson, an N&O reporter, was there for the press conference and interviewed Commissioner John Burns. Haven’t found the article yet. Let me know if any of you get the paper and saw the article there. Sometimes they don’t post everything on the web unfortunately. The commission also passed a native plant resolution, which is great, since Tom Earnhardt, who Joe and I know, introduced the resolution at the March 2017 Growth, Land Use, and Environment (GLUE) meeting like I did with the 100% resolution.
The City of Durham and Durham County are getting closer to passing their resolutions, now that it has moved out of the joint committee. Raleigh staff are working on it. A few of us will be meeting with a Chapel Hill councilor and environmental advisory committee members to get them going.
I’ve mentioned to you earlier about a new NC coalition of mostly grassroots organizations across the state that formed a couple months before the September Rise for Climate actions. Amy from 350.org connected me with Alexis from People’s Climate Movement, who is facilitating the calls. I joined weekly conference calls leading up to the actions, that are still continuing. One action the NC Climate Jobs and Justice (NC CJJ) coalition took was creating the awesome Petition for a Just Transition to a 100% Renewable Energy & Carbon-Free Economy in NC that we had people beginning to sign at our September events.Hopefully most of you have signed it already, but if you haven’t please do!! Here’s the link again.
**We’re still spreading the word to gather more petitions, so continue to spread the word with your networks and on social media!! On the NC CJJ call yesterday we agreed to convert the petition to an online platform (some of us were also collecting signatures on paper) and have the individual organizations involved with the coalition to officially endorse the petition. Would love to hear from enough of you by email please, by Thursday, so I can be sure to add 350 Triangle as endorsing the petition officially! Logos of the endorsing organizations will be included on the website. We’ll be able to continue using the platform on this petition in our work going forward.
NC CJJ had a conference call last week with Jeremy Tarr, Gov. Cooper’s Energy Policy Advisor, and Sushma Masemore, Director at NCDEQ, talking about climate issues. Jeremy and Sushma are the two NC representatives to the US Climate Alliance that Gov. Cooper joined last summer with other governors after the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. It was mostly listening to them this time, but next time it will be an in person meeting with coalition members doing much more talking!
350.org is working with Our Children’s Trust encouraging 350 groups across the U.S. to organize rallies in support of the 21 youth leaders whose important court case, Juliana v United States, begins October 29th. Joe and I will be in FL visiting my parents again at that time. Maple had started the process for an action on the 29th, but happy to say Maple, Tom, and I are now working with Lily Levin, from a new youth-based group called Triangle People Power, (TPP) who is organizing an action on Sunday. October 28, 3-4 pm at Bicentennial Plazain Raleigh.We’ve connected her with Kathryn at Alliance for Climate Education, (ACE) another youth-based organization that we’ve worked with before. Here’s the link to the Oct. 28th #TrialoftheCentury actionthat will be updated with more details as they become available.
If you check the TPP website link above, you’ll notice they are hoping to bring students by bus from the 8 counties in NC impacted by the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, to a rally and meetings sometime in January. I’ll be connecting Lily to landowner friends that I and others on this team have met through our work to stop the ACP.
Speaking of the ACP, today some of us joined others from the Frack Free NC Alliance (that 350 Triangle has been a part of since 2012) by attending the Oil and Gas Commission meeting this morning, then delivering letters to Gov. Cooper’s office and NCDEQ’s office. If you haven’t called the Governor lately, call him again and ask him to rescind or stay permits for the ACP!!! The letter was signed by over 30 organizations across the state and sent September 4. With no response yet, instead of a hand delivery as originally planned last month, we agreed to wait a few weeks after the devastating impacts from Florence and Michael, and delivered them today after the meeting. An addendum was added to our letter delivery today emphasizing climate change, both hurricanes, forest impacts, the IPCC report and more.
Check out Rebecca Solnit’s most recent excellent article. I love the way she ends it: “I don’t know exactly if or how we’ll get to where we need to go, but I know that we must set out better options with all the passion, power and intelligence we have. A revolution is what we need, and we can begin by imagining and demanding it and doing what we can to try to realize it.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/14/climate-change-taking-action-rebecca-solnit?CMP=share_btn_fb
With sooo much going on now, we’ll wait until after the election to meet again. Don’t forget early voting begins tomorrow!
Peace and love for our beautiful Earth, Karen