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Lately, I’ve been finding strength in the things I’m thankful for and I wanted to share some of those with you for the Thanksgiving weekend. Many of us are carrying sadness, worry and fear in our hearts in the wake of the election, and some are dreading political talk around the Thanksgiving table.
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If you need help with those tense holiday dinner table conversations, check out this great blog of practical tips from my Sierra Club colleagues. And if you need help for your weary spirit, I offer these five things I’m thankful for this season that give me hope for the next four years and beyond:
1. Courageous grassroots leaders are standing strong.
From the water protectors fighting to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline to the community leaders standing up to super polluter coal plants in the heartland, I’m so grateful for the ordinary people who are stepping up to lead the fight for justice and our future.
David can beat Goliath. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times as director of the Beyond Coal Campaign, as I’ve stood with grassroots leaders who have won campaigns to retire 243 polluting coal-fired power plants. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past decade, it’s that people power can overcome impossible odds to win. It’s also what will keep us moving forward over the next four years.
2. Climate pollution keeps falling—and we aren’t going backwards.
Donald Trump may have vowed to try and dismantle our climate policies, including the Clean Power Plan, but he can’t stop our progress in reducing climate pollution. As Politico reported on Nov. 18, the U.S. is already on track to meet the carbon reduction goals of the Clean Power Plan before it has even gone into effect—that’s the policy to reduce climate pollution from power plants that was the centerpiece of the U.S. climate commitment in Paris (an agreement that 71 percent of Americans support, it turns out).
The Clean Power Plan is important and we’ll fight to defend it. But no matter what happens, we can meet its climate targets. We’ll make that progress by phasing out coal and ramping up renewable energy, which was the number one new source of electricity in the U.S. last year. Those trends aren’t going backwards—and neither are we.
3. Coal can’t stop clean energy.
Donald Trump may have promised to bring back the coal industry, but as many news outlets have reported, that was an empty campaign promise he won’t be able to deliver. The industry will have friends in high places, but they won’t be able to stop the market forces and grassroots pressure working against coal. Here’s exhibit A—less than two weeks after the election, Baltimore’s C.P. Crane coal plant became the 243rd U.S. coal plant to announce retirement after 55 years of operating in an urban area without scrubbers, contributing to lots of asthma attacks and other health problems.
Thanks to a decade plus of advocacy that included stopping 184 proposed coal plants, here’s the reality on the ground—we aren’t building any new coal plants in the U.S., almost half of existing U.S. coal plants have announced retirement, more retirements will follow as the remaining plants get older every day, and renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels in many parts of the U.S., for the first time in history. Plus, we’ve created almost 250,000 new solar and wind jobs in the process. These are deep structural changes in how we power America that Donald Trump can’t reverse.
Why Trump, or Anyone for That Matter, Can't End the War on Coal https://t.co/Tzc3zbTNHE @foeeurope @globalactplan
— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) November 18, 2016
4. The fight for justice and our planet are interconnected.
One thing the 2016 election has laid bare is that our work for justice and sustainability are inextricably connected. If we try and address climate change, pollution and land protection without addressing inequality, racism and injustice, we will always end up taking one step forward and two steps back.
I’m thankful that my fellow environmental advocates are increasingly making these connections, which have long been at the heart of the environmental justice movement and that Sierra Club will be standing alongside diverse partners—advocates for women, immigrants, Muslims, people of color, the LGBTQ community and working Americans—in the fight for our future. That includes working to diversify the economy in coal communities and bringing real progress, rather than empty promises, to the places that powered our country for the past century, like my home state of West Virginia.
5. States, cities and communities will keep driving our energy future.
The decisions about where U.S. electricity comes from are made largely in states and cities, not in Washington, DC. From utility commissions to state houses to city councils, these local venues have the final word on how much coal, gas and clean energy we use. These are also the places where the Sierra Club and our allies have built strength for two decades and that’s where we will double down.
Of course we’ll be defending against attacks in Washington, DC on our clean air, water and climate protections, with everything we’ve got. But we’ll also be pushing cities to commit to 100 percent clean energy, campaigning for a clean energy transition in every possible local venue and looking to the states for leadership—and I’m sure we’ll find it there.
More than anything, I’m thankful for my family and friends, for this beautiful planet that sustains us all, and for the opportunity I have, every day, to be a force for good in this world and build a better future for my six-year-old daughter. Take heart, my friends. We are all in this together. And we have so much to be thankful for, it turns out. Happy Thanksgiving.