As a nuclear emergency continues to unfold in Japan, Bay Area grassroots organizations are trying to drum up support for incorporating clean energy into long-range local planning.
Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and other grassroots organizations have declared March 17 a “Green Day of Action,” and they’ll mark it with a rally before the City of Richmond’s Planning Commission meeting to call for a meaningful plan for reducing citywide greenhouse gas emissions.
Richmond’s Chevron oil refinery is one of the worst emitters of greenhouse gases statewide. The Richmond Planning Commission will hear public comment on a Draft Environmental Impact Report for the city’s General Plan, which includes a strategy to curb greenhouse gas emissions in coming years. Yet CBE’s Jessica Guadalupe Tovar noted that the city’s plan for a greener future doesn’t account for how it will limit industrial pollution.
According to a graph produced by CBE, industrial sources make up around 88 percent of the total annual greenhouse gas emissions generated in Richmond. The Chevron refinery is responsible for roughly 4.5 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, out of a citywide total of just under 7 million tons.
“They can’t ignore the elephant in the room,” Tovar said.
“Richmond is already plagued with preventable illnesses and diseases and residents cannot afford for the General Plan to overlook these serious environmental health hazards,” said Richmond resident Tiana Drisker, a member of CBE.
Meanwhile, on March 18, another rally for clean energy is planned outside Oakland City Hall from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Activists from Movement Generation are planning an anti-nuclear rally “to call on PG&E to not extend its nuclear energy production from its Diablo Canyon reactor, and on Oakland to ramp up clean energy alternatives.”
The rally will follow a day-long conference organized by Bay Localize and the Local Clean Energy Alliance to highlight Bay Area clean-energy efforts.
“This nuclear devastation in Japan must never happen in California, or anywhere else,” said Al Weinrub, conference coordinator. “Energy conservation and renewables are the safest forms of energy by far.”