(Open) Round Table: Energy Efficiency & The Alliance for Affordable Energy

We celebrated our founders this past Saturday at a 25th anniversary Gala. While everyone was having a good time, we decided to take a minute and ask people what energy efficiency and the Alliance’s mission mean to them. Here’s what some of our guests had to say. ​

Lela Claude Neff: There’s the obvious, that they’re helping the environment. Also I’m real into the idea of taking back the power of energy to the people on an economic level, even more so than an environmental one. I like the original mission of the Alliance which was to get back the power company, power to the people.
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Marvin Neff: I think its important to stop just using energy as if its your right to have this energy, that it’s something that I can just waste because I can afford it, because in truth, we can’t afford it.

Anonymous: Energy efficiency to  means a $50 or less bill every month.

Anonymous: A lower gas bill for my car or my long distance transportation.

Sandra Jenkins (Board member): It means that people that don’t really sit down and think about all of the intricacies and all the issues that really are important for us to have clean energy, affordable energy for everyone, that we are an organization that can speak for those people. And for people that are aware, we are someone that they can come into and join in the forces of fighting for affordable energy.

Andrew Polmer: In New Orleans we see a lot of homes that have been improved since Katrina, we can see how much energy is being saved now in homes that were formerly flooded and now they have better insulation and better windows, more efficient appliances, so we’re doing a lot better than we were. The Alliance’s work has gone a long way toward educating people as to what’s needed and we hope that they will continue for many years.

Jeff Baldwin: The Alliance 4 Affordable Energy is frankly even more about the affordable than about the energy, meaning that the Alliance was founded by Gary to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves, not just to make people energy aware and smart. And Gary reached out to people in the community and came out of an era of politics that were about defending people who couldn’t defend themselves. That’s what the Alliance is to me.
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Julianna Padgett (Board President):It means that we are being smart in the ways that we take care of ourselves and the world.