Pledge your allegiance to clean energy: declare your independence from dirty energyPhoto courtesy of NREL
This weekend, we celebrate America’s independence from Britain. Brave people — the fathers and mothers of our country — stood together against the most powerful empire of the time and said, “We will be free.”
But as BP’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf Coast reminds us, a force just as powerful has our country under its thumb today: dependence on dirty, deadly fossil fuels that are polluting our nation and costing Americans their livelihoods.
Once again, we must rise up and fight for America’s independence. This time, the enemy is not a foreign power, but a way of living we have all adopted here at home. Instead of forcing someone else to let us go free, it is we who must let go, we who must change.
Green For All has declared the week July 1 – July 7 as Dirty Energy Independence Week of Action.
Our mission is to get thousands of people to take a stand in solidarity with the people of the Gulf Coast. For more than three months, they have been coping with the worst, most treacherous aspects of our dependence on dirty energy. We must stand with them as we begin to break that dependence.
The images from the Gulf Coast have been heartbreaking: animals drenched in oil; the burning deepwater rig; the ocean swallowed by blackness. The stories have been just as troublesome: families struggling to cope with lost loved ones; fisherfolk who cannot work and are losing their homes; repeated failures and setbacks in the effort to stop the massive leak.
This is the cost, right now, of our dependence on oil and dirty energy. Down the line, it will cost all of us our air, our drinkable water, our seasons, and our planet.
Standing together, we can take the greatest single step ever toward a clean, healthy, and prosperous future for our children and our planet: passing a comprehensive climate and energy bill. Such a bill would make big polluters pay a price for the carbon they put in the air while investing money in clean, renewable energy. This would spur job growth and American innovation in clean-energy sectors while moving our economy from one that hurts the planet to one that heals the planet. Such a bill would be a massive leap forward in the quest for American independence from dirty energy.
We won our first fight for independence. We can win this one, too. Declare your independence by taking a personal pledge to reduce your dependence on oil and coal. And tell your senators to support comprehensive climate and energy legislation. The House has already passed such legislation, but the Senate continues to drag its feet.
Help to ensure that a tragedy like the Gulf spill never happens again.
