NOTE: If you'd like to read Eileen's post first, here's the link. Or you can click the link at the bottom of the page after you've read mine. http://eileenflanagan.com/arrested-for-telling-the-truth/
I don’t know Eileen well but I've met her and heard her speak, and I respect her process in becoming an environmental activist.
After many years of wanting to, I am thrilled to be going solar. The panels to be installed on my roof will generate nearly 120% of my electricity use. My system will feed unneeded energy back into PECO's grid, generating a tiny fraction of the solar energy we would prefer they'd use. I can’t leave PECO completely until battery storage becomes more reliable and less expensive.
When Eileen’s group spoke with people waiting to pay their bills, she told them PECO nets a million dollars every day. Seems like that would go a long way toward reducing the use of fossil fuels that now produce our electricity.
These fossil fuels cause both short and long term illness in the communities near their plants, communities living with a special blend of environmental racism and economic inequality that affects too many Americans. Those same millions could create green jobs, pay for solar installations, and make PECO’s infrastructure stronger to support more clean energy use.
 | Why not make this shift to human health and environmental justice? It’s entirely possible! The sole reason is the $money continuing to line the pockets of corporate management, boards and investors. Take a look at your retirement funds, at the banks and credit cards you use. Find out what they are doing with YOUR money. Our household economies, our individual switch-overs to alternative energy use, and activities that lower energy use (like insulating our houses and modifying our daily behaviors) have the power to add up to a much greater force for change than we currently believe. |
We have the power to change the behavior of corporations by refusing to fund them and by telling them why. Boycotts and divestment have never stopped being effective, and corporations listen when their bottom lines are threatened. And since billionaires and big corporations have more influence with our elected representatives than we citizens do, change can ripple out to government as well.
Please consider these things, and read Eileen’s article. Then make sure you are properly registered to vote and always vote. No excuses.
Participatory Democracy only works when we participate.
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