No more snooze buttons: The time to act is now and the future we envision is possible.
Amy Rawe | April 27, 2022 | All
We no longer have the luxury of claiming to be caught at a crossroads between what we now know about climate versus what we don’t, between taking bold action or not. As Chris Carnevale’s recent blog post EVs Drive Down Oil, Especially In The Face of Tragedies notes, twelve years ago the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill was a wake-up call to the price of our reliance on fossil fuels, with massive economic and environmental damages and loss of human lives.
There have certainly been countless environmental disasters well before and since the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill – plus increasingly mounting evidence sounding the alarm that our reliance on fossil fuels has extraordinarily high costs in terms of the devastation of lives, economies, and the health of our planet – but we’ve continually hit the snooze button. Today, Russia’s attack on Ukraine is another wake-up call to the deadly risks and the financial consequences of basing a global economy on fossil fuels – even for those of us a world apart from the conflict.
Twelve years ago, clean energy solutions existed but it was harder to imagine how we could eliminate fossil fuels from our lives. The hurdles loomed larger than the finish line, so it seems we didn’t push to race faster or harder. But today is a different story. The technology we need to move beyond fossil fuels is here, widely available and affordable.
As Chris noted in the blog mentioned above, the cost of solar has dropped 85% and wind energy 70% in the past twelve years, with wind and solar now often the cheapest new forms of electricity to produce. Advances in battery technologies to store energy have also increased while decreasing in cost, and several expert studies have shown that our utility sector could actually achieve 80% clean electricity by 2030, without compromising reliability or at additional costs while slashing pollution, improving health, and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
So, what’s the hold-up, and what will it take? It will take a collective vision built on each of our individual actions. This is where we at SACE stand, alongside all of you who want to be a part of a clean energy generation that believes a clean energy economy, environment, and future are possible now that we’re wide awake and willing to get to work making this vision a reality.
This is an absolutely critical moment in time for ramping up our work. Please consider making a donation today and supporting SACE’s Annual Campaign to help advance clean renewable energy throughout the Southeast!