In the midst of a dark cloud: oil spill solutions

June 22 - People across the country are saying: “Why can’t New Orleans just get a break?” As we steadily climb back five years after Katrina, the greatest environmental catastrophe of American history suddenly rocks our coast. And what’s worse is that we are at the beginning of what scientists claim to be the most intense hurricane season yet, potentially creating a colossal combination of our two biggest fears: a city flooded by oil.

All that said - speculating the worst is not what we do best in New Orleans and Louisiana—and it is certainly not our strategy at the Alliance for Affordable Energy. Instead of focusing on our inherent problems, the Alliance seeks to focus on our inherent solutions: what we do best in New Orleans is celebrate our culture – ‘who dat’ we are and ‘what dat’ we love. People continue to flock to New Orleans because the city invites you to be fully human, to use all your senses, to experience spontaneous meaningful moments of joy, and yes, pain. Here, we believe we understand what gives life meaning—a keystone of any truly sustainable community.

Where else can you find a city with a festival on nearly every weekend of the year that heightens a local ingredient, song, or shake of the leg? Where else can you find teachers, students, coworkers, Christians, Jews, atheists, elders, children, blacks, whites, Hispanics, uptowns, downtowns, upsidedowns, mid cities, straights, not-so-straights, straight-up-gays, citizens… all dancing in the streets together in a second line? Where else can you find locally grown and loved ingredients that make every dinning experience in the city mouth-watering delicious? Where else can you find the Rebirth Brass Band?

New Orleans will survive this oil spill and any other challenge that comes our way because we are full of too much love and pride to do anything else.

But we also know how to adjust and what it means to WAKE UP—after experiencing tremendous loss we have a better understanding of what it means to be grateful for every day. Right now, we are witnessing a crucial moment in history where not just New Orleans- but Louisiana, our nation, and our global community must face the unsustainable habits that reap environmental degradation and social injustice worldwide, distracting us from what really matters in life: our culture, our coastal ecosystems, and the health and well-being of our community.

Luckily, family and community are bountiful resources in New Orleans that are not going anywhere. It is up to us to come together as a community and ask the question: how do we want to live? And if we want to live with the culture that sustains us through and through—then we need to think about the social, educational, and economic systems that impact what matters most to us in life.

At the Alliance, we encourage you to consider our strengths as a resilient community, and to collectively turn our anger into action by supporting the policy solutions that can prevent such a catastrophe from happening again. While the road ahead is complex and challenging, if we focus on the real needs of our community--we believe we can find the solutions that will make our lives sustainable and more meaningful now and in the future.

A first step we ask you to take is to immediately contact the Louisiana Public Service Commission and request that they pass a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS - Docket NO. R028271 Subdocket B). A mandatory Renewable Portfolio Standard will require Louisiana to diversify its energy sources and increase the use of energy efficiency and production of renewable energy in our state, creating new job opportunities. An RPS is absolutely the most economic, social, and environmentally responsible decision we can make in response to the disaster facing our coastlines.

For more information on how you can support renewable energy and energy efficiency policy, contact us at the Alliance at www.all4energy.org or (504) 208-9761. We all depend upon one another for our own success. Join us on the road to a sustainable future to protect the natural and cultural resources that we depend upon and hold dear in our lives.