Launching Our Clean Energy Campus Tour
I can feel a change in the air when it comes to renewable energy in Kentucky, and it’s pretty damn exciting.
In the three years that I have been working with the KY Student Environmental Coalition we have seen more and more growing support from Kentuckians for renewable energy, green jobs and just transition. I have personally watched hundreds of young people go from feeling like there is nothing that we can do, to truly believing in collective power and our ability to make our futures better. In fact we’ve collected thousands of signature petitions from people, like you, who know that it is high time that our legislators hear our demands for the energy and industries of the future.
And our legislators are hearing us. Earlier this month we hosted a pinwheel planting event, where we planted over 200 pinwheels (each representing 10 petition signatures) out on the State Capitol lawn and then we went inside the capitol to a hearing on clean energy in the house economic development committee.
For the first time, we didn’t hear any push back from our elected officials about the benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy, only questions about how it would work and how agriculture and farmers would be impacted. As the coal industry busts, for perhaps it’s last time, it is getting harder and harder to ignore the tens of thousands of jobs being created in nearby states, the ever growing energy bills from Kentuckians without access to energy efficiency, and the demand for new energy transition coming from their constituents.
That is why now is the time to put even more pressure on our elected officials to move us in the right direction and to build even more support for energy efficiency and renewable energy legislation.
We’ll be hitting the sidewalks (and libraries and cafeterias and classrooms) at five different campuses over the next five days collecting petition signatures so that when we head back to Frankfort on March 9th for our Clean Energy Lobby Day we can plant wayy more pinwheels and show the growing demand of young people. It is our future and we deserve a say in how it’s powered.
Join us at Transy, EKU, Morehead, Centre and UK this week to gather signatures and educate our peers AND THEN JOIN US IN FRANKFORT. Your voice is so important, and we can’t do it without you!
Stay tuned for more updates as the campus tour launches tonight and as we travel around the state in the next five days and follow us on Facebook and Twitter!