“We need a public alternative which can be democratically controlled… so that we can be guaranteed that it’s a just transition which saves not just frontline communities but also the working class, more broadly.”

Watch the full interview here.

“Energy should be a public good, reliable and accessible to all, regardless of one’s ability to pay. It’s time to take power out of the hands of polluting, for-profit corporations. To decarbonize rapidly, we need to democratize our energy systems. It’s time for public power.”

Read the full article here.

“This summer, two popular bills to democratize New York’s energy system died in the state legislature. A revived campaign will need both sympathetic legislators and the direct action tactics of social movements.”

“New York has a dirty secret. Although our city has boasted about its environmental credentials since the days of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC in 2007, our power mix is far from green: indeed, only 6% of our energy comes from clean sources like solar and wind. And the city is actually slated to burn more fossil fuels in coming years because the last reactor at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which supplies 80% of its non-fossil energy, was shut down at the end of April. With Indian Point closed, the resulting deficit in power is slated to come from so-called peaker plants, which fire up their fossil-fuel-burning generators during times of peak electricity demand. Most of these peaker plants are located in communities of color, which already shoulder a disproportionate burden of deadly pollution. The city and state desperately need a clean, job-creating alternative.”

Read the full article here.

Listen here.

“Ashley Dawson, a professor at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York and a climate activist and writer who founded the CUNY Climate Action Lab, is critical of arguments in favor of market-led climate change strategy. What’s needed, Dawson says, is much stronger, deeper action.”

Read the article here.

“Lessons from Climate/Energy Emergency in Texas”

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“Electric vehicles are the primary element in contemporary green capitalist fantasy.”

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Dec 1, 8, and 15th at 7pm PST

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What Can Planners Do to Promote People’s Power?

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The fight for renewable energy cannot hinge simply on a shift from fossil fuels to solar and wind power. In cities like New York, the fight for democratized clean energy has begun.

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According to the civil rights activist George Lakey, planning to defeat a coup can actually help reduce the chances of attempts to overthrow democracy

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Listen to the interview here.

Ashley Dawson on the Endless Commoditizing of American Energy

Read the excerpt here.

A new book by Ashley Dawson argues that only public control can stop the drift and steer the world towards sustainability

Read the review here.

“The great task of our times is to stop all new fossil fuel infrastructures. All of our other efforts to fight climate change will be useless if the world does not transition away from fossil fuels in the next decade or so.”

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A call to arms for a transformative approach to energy that places collective ownership, democracy and the rights and needs of everyone at the heart of the struggle for a sustainable planet… A really excellent read.

Read the full review here.

Eight-hundred and sixty thousand people lost power when Tropical Storm Isaias hit New York City in early August. It did not have to be this way. Isaias was not a particularly potent storm. The blackout was a product of the decrepit state of the city’s electric grid and the failure of investor-owned electric utility Consolidated Edison, New York’s monopoly power supplier, to put public interest over private profit.

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The compound crises of long-term environmental pollution, decades of economic disinvestment, and a pandemic proving especially deadly for working-class people forced to congregate indoors at home or on the job, make for a deadly intersection in a handful of New York City neighborhoods. The hot city is quite literally a killer.

Read the piece here.