Thank You
As I recently wrote in my personal reflection article, SACE is a catalytic community: a community of people with a passionate belief that we can shape our future by changing the most fundamental choice society makes – how we produce and consume energy. SACE as we exist today has been shaped by the people who have fought for change and taken action over the years.
Our collective experience has positioned us as leaders in the region, standing ready to oppose dangerous choices that put our environment and public health in peril, and to promote clean energy that not only avoids fossil fuel catastrophes but also solves the existential threat of climate change.
Join me by supporting SACE today.
SACE has also been shaped and molded by acute catalytic historical events that have built our resilience and continue to drive our passion and perseverance today. The Southeast has been disproportionately subjected to environmental trauma: our region has dealt directly with some of the worst fossil fuel related catastrophes on record.
2008: The Kingston Coal Ash Spill Leads SACE to Expand our Decades-Long Fight Against Dirty, Dangerous Coal, Catapulting into Renewable Solutions
In 2008, we watched in horror as 5.4 million cubic yards of sludge spilled in Kingston, TN. This was the largest industrial spill event in history: 1.1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash slurry released into the Emory and Tennessee rivers. I spent many hours bearing witness to this event, walking and photographing this disaster. I also testified for the Environment & Public Works committee, and explained on NBC nightly news, “Clean Coal is an oxymoron.” SACE had been expounding the dangers of coal for decades before the Kingstson spill; and in this critical moment we chose to focus not only on the cleanup of the singular disaster, but on forcing TVA to restart their public integrated resource planning processes, opening the debate on the true costs of coal reliance and ultimately looking at retiring older coal-fired power plants from their fleet and advancing renewables.
The Kingston disaster catapulted SACE from our historical work opposing dirty coal and promoting clean, renewable energy, and charted the course for us to go into Florida – the Sunshine State – and begin a Solar Uprising to advance the most abundant solar resource in the region and to counter utility efforts to stymie this workhorse resource. As a founding member of Floridians for Solar Choice (FSC), SACE worked with a broad and diverse coalition of groups to fight monopoly utilities and educate Floridians about the importance of opening the Sunshine State’s solar market. Together, we changed the conversation in the Sunshine State. Today, Florida has moved to number 3 in solar deployment behind California and Texas; and NextEra has proposed an ambitious decarbonization goal that includes a massive increase in utility scale solar development for Florida Power & Light.
2010: Deepwater Horizon Leads SACE to Focus Critical Efforts on Kicking Gas
On Earth Day 2010, when more than 200 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, I flew members of my staff and board to the source of the disaster offshore, and spent time at impacted beaches of Florida and Alabama. In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, SACE’s focus on clean fuels and transportation and reducing our region’s reliance on dangerous, dirty fossil gas became razor sharp. To support our work opposing drilling and reduce emissions from the transportation sector, we have hosted Hands Against the Sands events on our region’s coastlines annually since 2010, where participants come together to show support for cleaner technologies that offer solutions to drilling and protect our treasured places.
SACE’s long history of work promoting clean fuels and transportation remains impactful today. Our Electrify the South campaign continues the fight to move our region away from gas and promote electric vehicles and support the expansion of accessible charging infrastructure. Electrifying transportation and cleaning the grid, the two highest emitting sectors in the Southeast, are the best opportunity to reach carbon reduction goals and mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis. These complementary efforts represent the fastest way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions.
Today we live in unprecedented times and face challenges we would never have anticipated. SACE remains strong and hopeful.
Four Decades: One Mission
The Kingston Coal Ash Disaster in 2008, followed by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010, didn’t just spur us into action; the work we did coming out of those disasters helped build the foundation for our fight to reduce our region’s dependence on fossil fuels and advance clean energy solutions. Our work has always been guided by one mission: improving the ways our region produces and consumes energy in order to reduce the environmental footprint of the electric sector and reduce carbon emissions. Our guiding star has never dimmed; it continues to shine bright and guide our efforts.
Today’s accelerating climate catastrophes are the ongoing legacies of dangerous energy choices and a long-lived over-reliance on coal, oil, and gas. Coal is dirty, cradle to grave. Fossil fuels are the source of the polluting emissions that are raising sea levels and overheating our planet, resulting in increasingly intense climate disasters that are endangering the people and places we love. The massive destruction and tragic loss of life from Hurricane Helene in the Western mountains of North Carolina is but one more recent example in our own region that will continue to motivate us and shape our work.
We are in this work because we know we can make a difference and shape our collective future. The severity of climate disruption can be overwhelming, and the shortsightedness and misinformation of corporate power, focused solely on financial returns, is maddening. However, clean energy technology is scaling at a pace never seen in human history.
Over the years, this organization has been shaped by the amazing group of people who have brought us to where we are – staff, board, donors, volunteers, allies, friends. Together we can – and will – continue to make progress.
As we close out our 40th year, join me by supporting SACE today. Together we will create a cleaner, safer, healthier future.
For the Earth,
Dr. Stephen A. Smith, SACE Executive Director
