A Renewable Portfolio Standard is a way for states to ensure their electric utilities – and by extension, the states themselves – are making progress on clean energy. The best policies heavily emphasize clean renewables like wind and solar.
In the decade since I’ve moved away from California, I’ve watched the climate there go from a temperate paradise with the occasional fire to a place with scorching summers and yearly infernos. This is climate change, playing out right in front of us. It’s easy to see these and other disasters from afar and not call them climate catastrophes. But that’s exactly what they are.
UPDATE: Temperatures across the Northeast have soared this summer. As emissions rise and climate change worsens, extreme heat becomes more common and more people face these deadly conditions. We need to take action to prevent things from getting even worse — and to help those most affected.
“I like this car because of the gas money it saves me,” says CLF Staff Attorney Elena Mihaly about her plug-in electric hybrid. Elena lives on a dirt road in Vermont and commutes 40 miles each way to the CLF office in Montpelier. To save on gas and reduce her carbon footprint, she’s leasing an electric car.
From more severe storms to prolonged heat waves, climate change is here and it’s happening now. Luckily, clean energy solutions like solar panels can help both our planet and our economy.
Since installing solar panels on their barn, Sean Mahoney and his wife have noticed a huge difference in their energy bills. They’ve also been able to reduce their carbon footprint.
Every winter the gas industry tries to scare us, claiming there isn’t enough gas during cold snaps to heat and power our homes. Their solution? More fracked gas and new, expensive gas pipelines. But we don’t have to buy into their propaganda. We have all the power we need without expensive new pipelines.
“We have many options for heating our homes,” says Greg Cunningham, Director of CLF’s Clean Energy and Climate Change program. “Alternatives like heat pumps avoid the use of oil and natural gas furnaces, which pollute our environment and damage our climate.”
Our electricity grid was designed over 100 years ago. But times have changed. Today, clean, renewable energy can be harnessed right where we live, so electricity doesn’t have to come from polluting power plants miles away. But we have to update our electricity grid to take advantage of it.
CLF’ers Elena Mihaly and Tom Irwin show that you don’t have to live in a major city, or even on a paved road, to benefit from driving an electric car.
