Enlight 21

Repair the world with public microgrids, an informed public, and public participation

Is environmental news today all doom and gloom? Fires and floods surround us. Denial and conspiracy theories have stalled policy. Violent white supremacists host a shooting every day. The world is hurting. We can repair the hurt in the world with public independence from monopolies, an informed public, and public participation. Good afternoon.

Imagine yourself in anyplace California- The power has gone out. PG&E calls it a PSPS- a Public Safety power shutdown. What do I do if I need a respirator- because the air outside is bad from the fire? Residents around the state are adding backup power with solar panels and batteries. The system is called a microgrid. Get it, a small grid, the size of your house, that can stay on, when the main grid is down. Microgrids provide independence from what the SF Chronicle calls our mismanaged monopolies. San Jose is taking microgrids to the, next level. They have formed a partnership with Google to create a public microgrid, that will make a neighborhood of 25,000 residents at Diridon Station independent of PG&E.

Public microgrids promise independence in an uncertain world of fires and floods. They are renewable today based on the sun wind water and batteries. More importantly microgrids are resilient providing power when the more dangerous monopoly grid is down. You too can ask for public controlled microgrids. Or build your own… by adding batteries to your solar panels. With microgirds you are independent of monopolies downed by fires and floods.

Before coming here, I asked, and Dorene said, this site would have indoor and outdoor options. After all we found out, only two years ago, that bats… at a live meat market could shutdown the world. COVID, SARS-1, MERS, H1N1, Zika, Ebola- these are symptoms of a degraded environment. Habitat destruction, according to the Washington Post, leads to escaped viruses, once contained within intact biological systems. Two weeks ago comedians were joking about a deadly virus, that was being studied by the Russians after defrosting in Siberia, by climate change.

But denial and conspiracy have stalled policy, in life threatening areas, like gun control, climate change, indoor masking and vaccination. The NYTimes said last week that deaths today indicate we are in a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Denial and conspiracy are used to sell hate by oil companies, billionaires, and social media algorithms. Jan 6th showed that denial can be powered to storm the barricades and threaten Democrats. Every unhooded Klansman, and Republican has now found their hate speech freed. Sowing conspiracy works to deny the humanity and murder, our Black Americans, Jewish, immigrants, and queer+ siblings.

Social media companies by taking away advertising money bankrupted local media. Denial, and conspiracy have filled the vacuum. In San Jose an online newspaper called Spotlight started covering local news like corruption. In fact the Google San Jose partnership on public microgrids was reported on in the Spotlight. Other cities like Palo Alto and Menlo Park also have local online newspapers. But these examples are few and far between allowing corruption and denial to fester. Most cities lack coverage. You can support local online journalism or start your own paper. By informing the public you repair the hurt in the world.

The ability of social media companies to profit from denial and conspiracy is bad news. However the news of white supremacist violence not standing down is truly ugly. A generation ago two supremacists tried to blow up a Calpine Transmission tower in San Jose. Today, according to Spotlight, San Jose has witnessed the most incidents of supremacist attacks, of any Bay Area city, about 15. You may also remember the anthrax attacks following 911? Which targeted democratic politicians… and originated from an Army biolab according to the NYTimes. Given the rise of supremacist violence nationwide we must keep the threats in check. But the bank busting success of the Covid 19 vaccines, has cities chasing after more dangerous biolabs.

Silicon Valley has only level 1 and level 2 biolabs. Level 2 labs look at contaminants no more deadly than the flu virus. Respiratory viruses like Covid are studied in level 3 labs. According to Bloomberg Pfizer this year reported almost a $1B in profits mostly from Covid 19 vaccines, a level 3 lab vaccine. Businesses are hearing the kaching-kaching of vaccine profits. Of course every city is looking to accommodate one. I can just see the promo- Realize your dream, come live next door to the Wuhan lab. Level 4 labs study viruses like Ebola- need I say more? Sierra Club has published a letter on containment and controls necessary for level 3 and 4 labs. They will be hosting a webinar early next year on the topic. Please stay informed by following them. And ask your city to look into safeguards. Take into account white supremacist violence, earthquakes, floods, and… public safety power shutdowns. And you now know what the labs should be doing, about that last one right? With public participation you repair the hurt in the world.

We face many environmental challenges today. The good news is that public microgrids provide safe power in uncertain conditions. The other good news is an informed and participation public can counter denial and hate. Getting your city to account for violent white supremacy is just common sense. It’s clear now that the future of our democracy will rise or fall on how we confront the racism and anti semitism tied up with white supremacy. An independent, informed and participation public are our tools to avoid doom and gloom. At a minimum subscribe to good local online newsletter like actera.org and https://fossilfreebuildings.org Thank you.

Enlight21

Repair the world with public microgrids, an informed public, and public participation

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