The most interesting environmental group to emerge from South Florida recently is the Palm Beach Environmental Coalition. In Miami, environmental groups are mostly walking-wounded from the beating they took during the housing boom. But it is also a matter of leadership and the seeming inability of groups to recruit new leaders to activism. Given the number of colleges and universities, that is a particular disappointment. It is not as though Miami-Dade lacks issues to build momentum for change.
The PBEC on the other hand grew out of the success in stopping the effort by former Governor Jeb Bush to put Scripps in Everglades wetlands and recently organized and mounted a passive protest outside a proposed FPL power plant in western PB County.
Panagioti Tsolkas, the group's leader, has co-authored a position paper for the Green Party on choices that Governor Crist and the Florida legislature should consider for a sustainable energy future. It is not perfect, and still light on exactly the legislative remedies that are required to put a real green energy future.
But I strongly agree with its key points: mandated conservation and providing for local government to incentivize investment by homeowners to produce energy at the household level. You can read the report, here.
The paper is not perfect nor does it claim to be: it is a work in progress but one that helps readers understand the various and complex processes that Governor Crist put into motion, to come up with new state energy policy. Crist deserves credit: unlike his predecessor or even President Bush, for whom global warming does not fit into preconceived notions about the responsibilities of government, Governor Crist has firmly stated his commitment. The problem is that Florida's big corporations and utilities are still driving the process.
Panagioti writes: "The goal of GHG (greenhouse gas) reduction will not come without a struggle. And that struggle manifests most dramatically, and often most clearly, not in legislative sessions on energy policy, but in city halls, county chambers, and even on the streets, where residents challenge new power projects. Community activists know from experience that the more they stand up to the energy industry and exercise their right to public input over polluting projects, the more interest in conservation and renewable energy is stimulated in the general public."
This is undoubtedly true. In Miami-Dade County, FPL has effectively massaged the communities and interests that will be massively impacted by its two new proposed nuclear units at the edge of Biscayne National Park. But, environmentalists are still talking about what needs to be done, to oppose them and local leaders are sleep walking (see the post below, on Homestead).
I'd also add that utilities should be required to modernize and upgrade transmission technology and the power grid, to cut energy losses. All these key points should be put into effect before a single new power plant is permitted in Florida.
Unfortunately, the big electric utilities have overpowered common sense for so long, public officials are too timid to unite on behalf of voters and taxpayers they represent.
So thanks to the PBEC, for all its work trying to energize people and showing there is a better way for Florida that would be a tremendous boost for the economy, too.
"Today, those of us with a conscience need to step forward and do what we feel to be right in our hearts; the ´practical issues´ of economy and politics can be set to the side. If we lead with compassion and humility and an apologetic sincerity for the damage we have done—to the earth, to our own communities and to ourselves—the people who attempt to hold us back will be compelled to follow our lead into the future. We are all the ones that we’ve been waiting for."
Exactly.
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