We hope you had a relaxing summer and are ready for an eventful fall!
350 Humboldt will meet this Thursday, September 19, 6 PM at El Chipotle restaurant at 850 Crescent Way in Sunnybrae next to A to Z Eyecare. Come join us!
Three items you’ll want to hear about are:
This Friday’s International Climate Strike and local rallies,
Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) planning our energy future,
350 Humboldt’s campaign to kick the natural gas habit.
First, following Swedish student-activist Greta Thunberg’s lead, local youth and supporters will rally at the Arcata Plaza at noon, with events planned at the HSU Quad all day. 350 Humboldt will hold a companion rally at Eureka’s County Courthouse from 3-7 PM.
We’ll have a sign and banner making party this Wednesday, Sept. 18, 4-6 PM, at Scrap Humboldt, 101 H St., Arcata. Come and make your statement in style!
Next, just months ago RCEA’s board voted unanimously for 100% “clean and renewable electricity” by 2025. Now RCEA is updating its plans through the “Comprehensive Action Plan for Energy” (CAPE) process. Some 350 Humboldt activists are concerned that RCEA relies heavily on local woodwaste biomass electricity, which they view as a major climate change agent (see the Climate 911 website). Others say the science isn’t clear on this issue, even though the plants certainly emit air pollutants that may endanger local residents (see the first paper listed in the text on 350 Humboldt’s website here).
We’ll discuss this and the opportunities people have for learning more and giving RCEA the benefit of their thoughts, which you can relay by emailing to: EnergyPlan2019@redwoodenergy.
Local biomass may present troubling uncertainties, but one thing we know for sure about climate change is we need to abandon fossil fuels. That’s why Arcata City Councilman Michael Winkler’s proposal to end natural gas use in the city is so important.
The plan follows three other California cities — Berkeley, Menlo Park, and San Luis Obispo — that recently voted to eliminate natural gas in new houses or other buildings. Michael’s plan would require all new buildings to be gas-free. But it would go beyond that to require retrofitting existing buildings by 2035, with some financial assistance available to help. No other city in the country has proposed this!
Natural gas in furnaces, water heaters, and stoves and ovens generates nearly a tenth of Humboldt’s Greenhouse Gas emissions, so we’d like to expand this kind of action to other cities in the county.
Maybe you can help with that?
We hope to see you this Thursday, 6 PM, at El Chipotle in Sunnybrae! — Pat Carr
