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| AB 1990 passes! |
I remember at a year and a half of nursing my baby that it
was time to wean. I began to see the signs, him eyeing the solids, me producing
less milk. So I needed a plan: a schedule, an alternative source, and a shift
in relationship. It was going to be a big transition and I wanted to make it as
smooth as possible.
My kids are school-aged now and eating well. Weaning from
milk to table food seemed like ages ago. Now I have different worries for their
development. Both my kids have asthma and we’ve spent too many sleepless nights
in the emergency room. Crying. Gasping for air. Cursing the pollution that
filled their lungs. Why do so many trucks drive by their school? Why are there so
many factories in our neighborhood? Why are the nice parks with big trees
farther away? Having fought for environmental justice for more than a decade, I
knew the answer. If you’re an Asian, Black, Latino or indigenous family in
America, you are more likely to live next to toxic sites than Whites, and projected
to die earlier from those health impacts. This is environmental racism. Our
country is built on dirty energy—the oil fueling our cars, the coal and
uranium powering our lights, the gas firing up our stoves. All this burning of
fossil fuels ends up in our lungs, or in the sky warming our planet.
I growl at the statistics. My blood boils at seeing mostly kids of color wheezing in the emergency room right alongside of us. We need a
big transition.
I am seeing signs of change. Do you? We’re eyeing clean
energy, from solar roofs to electric cars. And we’re hitting peak oil use—the
supplies are getting close to the bottom. It’s time to wean off dirty energy. Like my personal experience with weaning, we need an institutional scale
schedule, alternative source, and shift in relationship.
I am part of a group of women pushing for this transition
with a state policy. Under the California Environmental Justice Alliance, we
wrote a California bill called Solar for All to target solar projects to be
built in environmental justice communities. AB 1990 (Fong) will begin to clean
up our communities by replacing dirty energy with clean energy from the sun.
The Solar for All initiative helps advance California’s plan to generate a
third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, under the Renewables
Portfolio Standard.
Weaning schedule, check. Alternative source, check. Shift in
relationship… well, this is where we need help. We need a culture shift away
from depending on dirty energy. Five years ago, I didn’t think I could get
solar on my roof. Now California has low-income homeowner solar programs, but
funds will run out soon unless we save it. Last year, my nonprofit office
building at the Asian Resource Center got solar through a crowd-funded project.
Folks are getting creative and renewable energy is coming within reach. The Solar
for All initiative wants to make sure the neighborhoods that have the highest
pollution and economic need get clean energy projects too. The California
legislature needs convincing that environmental justice communities are where
we should be installing clean energy. It makes sense, even to my eight year old.
When I told him about my Solar for All project, his eyes lit up. “When are we
going to get solar on our roof?” Soon I hope. Let’s win Solar for All, and beginweaning us off dirty energy.
This blog is part of Strong Families Mama’s Day Our Way blog series. Make and send a custom Mama’s Day e-card at www.mamasday.org. Strong Families is a national initiative led by Forward Together. Our goal is to change the way people think, act and talk about families.
Blog posts represent the opinion of the author, not necessarily Forward Together or Strong Families.