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| Union members at fossil fuel moratorium rally in Newark, NJ (photo/Jan Barry) |
New Jersey is in the process of planning its future,
amid a global climate crisis that state residents have yet to grapple with.
The
traffic-jammed corridor of turnpike exits that touts itself as the Garden
State has relentlessly paved over farmlands and clear cut forests to build some
of humanity’s most densely packed population centers; as its public officials
welcomed smog-belching petro-chemical plants and constructed car-and-truck-tangled
highways, while shrugging at lung-burning air pollution and toxic contamination
of water sources. Residents, meanwhile, turned running around shopping at
multiple malls into an Olympic sport.
Now New Jerseyans are suddenly being asked to slow
down, take a deep breath and drastically change our lifestyles.
“Scientists in the state say that without
comprehensive changes, life in the Garden State will be about adapting to a
reality where the Jersey Shore is continually a disaster zone … and inland
river flooding brings floodwaters to the Statehouse steps in Trenton,” NJ.com
reported last fall. Repeated downbursts of heavy rain during heat waves this
summer, punctuated by tornadoes and thunderstorms, flooded local streams and
streets across the state.
Governor Murphy’s response to reports of dire weather
events getting much worse if greenhouse gasses from power plant and vehicle
emissions continue to heat up the planet was to order up an energy master plan for
switching out smog-producing fuel to solar, wind and other
kinds of clean renewable energy. Like many other states and nations, following the
guidance of international climate scientists, the goal is to accomplish this massive
energy makeover by 2050.
Meanwhile, the fracked gas industry is pushing to
build more than a dozen new pipelines, compressor stations and power plants in
New Jersey. Environmental activists say this would dramatically increase
emissions from fossil fuels, just as they should be decreased.
“To meet the Administration’s objective of 100% clean
energy by 2050 … New Jersey needs to aggressively reduce, not increase,
greenhouse gas emissions,” says a report by Empower NJ, a coalition of civic groups
that includes the Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch and NJ Industrial Union
Council. “This requires annual reduction benchmarks and objectives starting
NOW. Approving any new fossil fuel expansion projects will move us further away
from achieving necessary GHG targets and make it virtually impossible to fight
climate change and achieve the Governor’s 100% clean energy goal.”
The activists’ call to reject new fossil fuel projects
“threatens to deepen a rift between the environmental community — that largely
backed Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, in his gubernatorial bid — over the
administration’s reluctance to halt several new natural gas pipelines in New
Jersey as well as four new gas-fired power plants. A huge coalition of
environmentalists wants an immediate moratorium on all new fossil-fuel projects,”
noted statehouse reporter Tom Johnson in NJSpotlight.com.
“This has nothing to do with facts and figures, but
with money and politics,” Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club’s state
chapter, said of the Murphy administration’s reluctance to follow the lead of
California, New York and several other states in enacting legislation to set a
path for promptly reducing fossil fuel use in order to help counter the effects
of global climate oscillations.
At public hearings this summer on the draft energy
master plan presented by the Board of Public Utilities, environmental activists
called for a moratorium on state permits for proposed fossil fuel projects and
a quicker pace of moving utilities, transportation, businesses and homes to
non-polluting sources of energy.
“Act like your child’s life depends on it—because it
does,” Leslie Stevens, a former AT&T vice president who now teaches at
Stevens Institute of Technology and is a volunteer Climate Reality community
leader, said at a recent hearing in Newark.
“The reality of what’s happening now could have a
devastating effect on our future,” Newark City Council President Mildred Crump
said as she joined a rally of environmental activists in front of Seton Hall
Law School, where a draft energy plan hearing was held.
Flanked by union members, Kevin Brown, the state director
of 32BJ SEIU, said emphatically “we
need to end fossil fuels.” His union, he noted, represents more than 13,000 commercial,
residential and public school-contracted cleaners, security officers and
airport service workers in New Jersey. These workers live and work in
communities affected by air pollution. “Many of our members have asthma.”
In testimony before the
Board of Public Utilities energy master plan committee, Brown echoed a
statement he made earlier this year directed at Congress: “it’s more important
than ever that we come together to reduce greenhouse gasses, switch to
renewable energies and create strong, union jobs while ensuring a just
transition for impacted workers.”
“Newark is ground zero for
climate change,” said Kim Gaddy, environmental justice organizer for the South
Ward Environmental Alliance. Port of Newark activities involve 8,000 trucks
emitting diesel fumes daily, on top of constant aircraft and car traffic at one
of the nation’s busiest airports, amid clouds of smoke from a regional trash
incinerator, she stated. “It poisons our children now… We need zero emissions
at the port now.” She noted that technology exists to switch trucks and cars to
electric battery power.
“The draft plan ignores that we are already facing a
climate emergency,” added Paula Rogovin, an organizer of the Don’t Gas the
Meadowlands Coalition. Air quality in northern New Jersey was so bad from
ground-level ozone this summer that the state issued repeated health warnings,
she noted.
In response to the grassroots campaign, state Senator
Loretta Weinberg issued a statement to the news media last week announcing that
she and Assemblyman John McKeon have “introduced a resolution urging the
governor to impose a moratorium on fossil fuel projects in the state. There is
no reason to build new fossil-fuel guzzling infrastructure in 2019. We must
start taking responsibility for our future today—there is no time to waste.”
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