What if Energy Justice Network Pulled the Plug…?

What if Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work Pulled the Plug…?

Ill­ness. Loss of a job. Divorce. Three of the most stress­ful things that can hap­pen to you.

Liv­ing near a dirty ener­gy facil­i­ty is also right up there near the top of the list. The shad­ow of uncer­tain­ty, wor­ry, and frus­tra­tion that the pro­pos­al of a pol­lut­ing bio­mass or trash incin­er­a­tor, coal or gas-fired pow­er plant casts over a com­mu­ni­ty can be overwhelming.

Will the pol­lu­tion make my fam­i­ly sick? Will prop­er­ty val­ues plum­met? Will the noise keep me up at night?

The rest of us — those lucky enough not to live any­where near a smoke­stack or cool­ing tow­er —also feel the pain of dirty energy.

We fork over bil­lions of tax dol­lars every year to sub­si­dize these cor­po­rate pol­luters, often under the guise of “clean energy.”

We drink the ground­wa­ter con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by frack­ing for (un)natural gas and moun­tain­top removal coal mining.

We suf­fer the drought, flood­ing, and dis­ease from run­away cli­mate change caused by the com­bus­tion of fos­sil fuels, forests, and trash. 

The dirty ener­gy indus­try is among the nation’s great­est threats to human health and the nat­ur­al world, with the worst impacts forced on low-income fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties of color.

Smoke­stack ener­gy diverts fund­ing and atten­tion away from ener­gy con­ser­va­tion and effi­cien­cy mea­sures, and tru­ly clean, appro­pri­ate­ly-scaled renew­ables such as solar pow­er and ground-source heat pumps. 

Since 1999, thou­sands of peo­ple have turned to Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work  to help them through one of the great­est chal­lenges of their lives — the pro­pos­al of a dirty ener­gy facil­i­ty in their town. Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work pro­vides the expe­ri­ence, research, and tools nec­es­sary to help com­mu­ni­ties take on Big Ener­gy. We con­nect you with hun­dreds of like­mind­ed com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ers, advo­ca­cy pro­fes­sion­als, med­ical doc­tors, and sci­en­tists through the con­tacts we’ve amassed and the rela­tion­ships we’ve built over the past decade.

Over the last two years, Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work has pro­vid­ed orga­niz­ing sup­port for com­mu­ni­ties across the U.S. that have suc­cess­ful­ly beat­en back smoke­stacks in Kla­math Falls, Ore­gon, Peters Town­ship, Penn­syl­va­nia, Port. St. Joe, Flori­da, and Mill­town, Indiana. 

The Ener­gy Jus­tice Map (www.energyjusticenetwork.org/map) helps you track exist­ing and pro­posed dirty ener­gy facil­i­ties. We’re map­ping thou­sands of pow­er plants and in 2014, we’ll add high res­o­lu­tion lay­ers of race and income — so you can see who the dirty cor­po­ra­tions are tar­get­ing for their filth.

Orga­niz­ing, resources, and con­tacts aside, Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work is there when a facil­i­ty fight­er sim­ply needs to talk to some­one who tru­ly under­stands what they’re going through — some­one to inspire hope, lend strength, and some­times just offer a shoul­der to cry on. Thanks to Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work, no one has to be alone dur­ing one of the most trou­bling events of their life.

Now think about how your own fight against a filthy pol­luter would’ve been with­out Ener­gy Jus­tice Network…

We’re con­tact­ing you today to remind you that the pro­grams and ser­vices Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work pro­vides to help com­mu­ni­ties from Flori­da to Wash­ing­ton, from Penn­syl­va­nia to Cal­i­for­nia don’t come free. 

And, with­out your sup­port, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network’s unique and vital work can’t continue.

Our skilled, expe­ri­enced, and ded­i­cat­ed staff is paid only for part time work, some­times for only a few hours a week — con­tribut­ing much of their labor for free. Just like a for­est can’t be inten­sive­ly logged over and over with­out degrad­ing the ecosys­tem, an orga­ni­za­tion can­not sus­tain itself unless its work­ers are able to pay for room and board.

We’re ask­ing those of you who have ben­e­fit­ed from and/or appre­ci­at­ed the work of Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work to con­sid­er mak­ing a finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion of $15-$500 today to ensure we can keep being there for you and your com­mu­ni­ty — and thou­sands of oth­ers like you across the U.S. Just go to http://www.energyjusticenetwork.org/donate

If you care about keep­ing our chil­dren healthy, fend­ing off run­away cli­mate change, pro­tect­ing wildlife, bio­di­verse forests, and clean water­sheds, and mak­ing sure your hard earned tax dol­lars are going to gen­uine clean energy…please sup­port Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work today.

Thank you,

Josh, Saman­tha, Mike, Traci, Aaron and Alex

http://www.energyjusticenetwork.org/donate