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“Building A Clean Energy Future Film
Fest"— The Sierra Club and other groups
representing faith, youth and labor communities
will host a series of films documenting positive
collective actions against climate change. Stick around
to hear inspiring stories of local campaigns and projects
that you can join — or contribute your own ideas to
spark additional ones!
The Earth Fest-Film Fest will showcase the feature film
“Everything’s Cool,” among other films. “Everything’s
Cool” follows the journeys of global warming messengers
as they reveal the consequences of climate change
and highlight the solutions that will help move
America from laggard
nation to world leader
on global warming.
This Earth Fest Film Fest will be held during the Coop’s
19th Annual Celebrate the Earth Festival on
Sunday, April 27th, across Carlisle at Immanuel
Presbyterian Church, from 11:30am to 5pm. There will
be a schedule of films posted at the Co-op Board of
Directors table and elsewhere around the Festival area.
The Earth Fest Film Fest is a FREE event.
The Sierra Club in New Mexico: Helping Solve
Global Warming
What a momentous year 2007 was in the effort to solve
global warming! From people organizing in their communities
to our representatives at the state and federal
level, there has been a true awakening in this country
that global warming is real and that we must act now
to avoid reaching the tipping point.
Congress raised fuel efficiency standards for the first
time in 30 years. It was the biggest single step towards
reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, while saving us
billions at the pump – $153 million by 2020 here in
New Mexico — and reducing our dependence on oil.
Closer to home, the state legislature established a
Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) to guarantee that
at least 15 percent of our electricity comes from renewable
sources by 2015, increasing to 20 percent by 2020.
These are just a few of the many smart energy solutions
enacted over the course of 2007, thanks to the determination
of countless people and organizations, as well as
the leadership of key lawmakers. No doubt more legislative
battles lie ahead, but we should take great hope
in the progress made over the last year.
2 April 2008
Seizing the momentum from 2007, the Sierra Club and its volunteers
— often in partnership with other community groups — are working
to ensure that we continue moving forward towards a clean energy
future. Less of our hard-earned income would go towards energy costs,
our air would be easier to breathe and our water safer to drink.
LIGHT BULB EXCHANGE
In order to turn this dream of a clean energy future into reality, Sierra
Club volunteers are spearheading a massive light bulb exchange program.
We replace people’s incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient
Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs) that use one-fourth the energy
and last ten times longer. The school-based project is the most innovative
piece of this program. It involves an educational slideshow entitled
“Bright Ideas about Energy” for grades 3-5, and then a light bulb
exchange with the parents, teachers and staff at the school over the next
three days. Sierra Club volunteers have also distributed CFLs through
neighborhood walks and at public events, while a number of churches
that are members of New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light
have organized bulb trades with their parishes. Thanks to
The Stove, a relatively new art studio
at Morningside and Copper, the
incandescent bulbs will become an
art project rather than end up in
our landfills. We will have distributed
40,000 CFLs in Albuquerque
and Santa Fe by the end of May
2008, which will help prevent the
equivalent of about 16,000 tons of
carbon dioxide from being released
into the atmosphere.
Another team comprising our Cool
Cities campaigns in Albuquerque
and Santa Fe is working with the city governments to develop a Climate
Action Plan. The focus of this effort is to set and implement a plan that
will ensure we reduce greenhouse gas emissions 7 percent below 1990
levels by the year 2012. We remain committed to applying this target
to emissions city-wide, not just in terms of city government operations.
Desert Rock
We sometimes shift our focus from solution-oriented programs to
defeating dirty energy projects that would condemn our country
to the worst effects of climate change. Alongside Navajo activists,
Sierra Club volunteers have been fighting the proposed Desert Rock
coal-fired power plant with a clear message: Doodá (which means
"NO" in the language of the Navajo people) Desert Rock, if operational,
would emit an estimated 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide
per year while consuming about 4 million gallons of water per day.
After helping defeat a tax subsidy for Desert Rock at the state legislature
in 2007, we continue to work with Navajo community groups and
other partner organizations in preventing the construction of a third
coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation. Please stay alert for the
next call to action as the Final Environmental Impact Statement is
released and open for comment.
We will seize other opportunities to move towards a clean energy future
as the year progresses. Regardless of the campaign, we need more volunteers
to help us build community power and focus our collective
attention on solving global warming.
BY SHRAYAS JATKAR
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