Environmental action heats up at Statehouse
We live in exciting times, and an exciting place! Rhode Island is quickly becoming one of the national leaders in environmental action and legislation. This year, our state legislature is considering a couple of really cool bills, all with the aim of preventing runaway climate change, and ushering in the era of renewable energies and sustainability. In the past few weeks, I have gone to a few events associated with this legislation (and more generally, environmental protection) and today, I wanted to give you a quick update on these happenings.
A few weeks ago, I went to a protest in Providence, organized by Save the Bay, Climate Action RI, and a few other local environmental groups, to oppose opening up Rhode Island’s coastline to offshore drilling. This was in response to a recent push by the federal government, to convince/force many of the coastal states to do this.
The risks from this move are obvious and pressing: oil spills and destruction of the fragile ecosystem of the coastline, absolutely. But even more pressing is the prospect of further, high-impact, binding investments in a dying fossil fuel infrastructure, making it that much more difficult to excise dirty fossil fuel energies and shift towards environmentally-neutral renewables.
The protest was magical! We began at the Statehouse, where a press conference was being held by some of the pro-environmental state legislators, and marched down to the Providence Marriott, where the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) was holding an “informational session” intended to convince Rhode Island residents to support opening up our coastlines to the oil companies. After protesting street-side for some time, we went into the conference room at the Marriott, where BOEM was holding their indoctrination session (I mean, “informational session”).
In there, the 200 or so protesters formed (what I came to learn was a) human loudspeaker, wherein we took turns standing on a soapbox and giving short speeches, which were then echoed by everyone in the room. The purpose of this was to “take over” the conference room, and get our point across to the federal and state representatives that were there… and I think we did just that! I, being the super-extrovert that I am, of course took the opportunity to give an ad lib speech.
As a result of that protest, I joined Climate Action RI, the local branch of 350. org, whose basic goal is to end the use of fossil fuels, prevent climate change, and usher in the era of renewable energies and sustainable technologies. It’s an exciting group to be a part of, so if you’re interested in getting involved, their website is http://world.350.org/rhodeisland/.
Next up is the carbon pricing legislation in the Statehouse. The action for this bill hasn’t really started yet, so I’ll just tell you about it quickly. Carbon pricing, which we’ve discussed before in this column, is a basic tax on carbon-dioxide-emitting, fossil fuel products, levied on the distributors of these products and 1) reinvested in renewable energy infrastructure and 2) returned to the taxpayers as tax breaks. The intention of this legislation is to “internalize the externalities” – to
actually create a financial Kincentive NOT to pollute the shared environment with fossil carbon dioxide, thereby financially incentivizing the move to climate-friendly energy sources.
The widespread adoption of this type of bill is absolutely imperative towards the goal of preventing runaway climate change. Rhode Island
seems to be close to passing it, and it seems to have a lot of support in the state legislature. I have gotten involved with the group that is promoting this bill. If you want more information, or want to get involved, shoot me an email.
Finally, I want to tell you about a piece of legislation that I only a learned of a few days ago: the Global Warming Solutions Act. As it stands, Rhode Island has codified targets for the reduction in statewide greenhouse
gas emissions, and the implementation of renewable energy technologies. But these targets are pretty vague, and there is no regulatory framework put in place to make sure they happen.
This bill would change that! A group of forward-thinking representatives are trying to pass a bill that creates concrete targets for GHG emissions over the next few decades, actual steps towards making those goals reality, and a regulatory
framework that ensures their implementation.
This is HUGE! I spoke at a House subcommittee hearing the other day, in favor of the bill (naturally), and it seemed that the subcommittee is looking favorably on it. Like the carbon pricing bill (which is very complementary to this one), the work has only just begun towards the passage of this Global Warming Solutions Act. If you want to get involved, again, shoot me an email.
Climate change is happening, it’s our fault, and we need to fix it. That much is clear. But taking it further, as an engineer, I cannot overstate the importance of setting clear targets, formulating paths to meet those targets, and putting in place regulatory mechanisms to make sure we act appropriately… if we actually want to get anything done. Climate change is the most pressing existential threat that we face as a species and a global community,
so I am deeply heartened to see this type of action being taken in our state. Stay tuned! Alex Kithes is an urban farmer and a lifelong resident of Woonsocket. He studied engineering at Boston University and Brown University, and works as an electrical engineer in Cranston. Email him at agkithes@gmail.com or visit his blog at TheOpinionatedFarmer. wordpress. com. His column runs every other Sunday.