Welcome to 350 Roaring Fork
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To volunteer or learn how to get involved in 350 Roaring Fork, fill out our volunteer sign-up form or email Will Hodges: will@350colorado.org.
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Take Action
Close Xcel’s newest, dirtiest, broken coal plant!
Call or email the Public Utilities Commission, Governor Polis and Xcel Energy and demand Xcel close its Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant by 2025! Unit 3 (Xcel insultingly calls it “Comanche 3”—insulting given the appalling legacy of energy extraction in native communities).
The good news is the PUC has indicated it favors an earlier closure of Unit 3. Xcel proposed to run Unit 3 until 2034 as part of its Energy Resource Plan, which the PUC only reviews every 10 years.
The PUC was influenced by yet another plant outage in January. Unit 3 has been shut down a total of two years since it opened in 2010, resulting in 45% higher electricity rates. In 2020, the PUC agreed to let Xcel squeeze $11.7 million from customers to repair their faulty plant.
Unit 3 is the state’s largest point-source of global warming gases. Xcel’s coal plants have poisoned the air for low income communities in Pueblo for decades. According to a report by five environmental and energy organizations, Colorado must cut emissions from electric utilities by 98% to meet climate targets of reducing statewide emissions by half by 2030.
The worst part is, Xcel probably never needed to build the plant in the first place. Now Xcel wants to leave its customers, and Coloradans, with the financial and climate costs of a stranded asset.
Contact the PUC, the Governor and Xcel Energy Colorado’s CEO today. Then post to social media and educate everyone you know that Xcel could do more to slow carbon emissions in the near-term than any entity in the state. Use the hashtags below:
Public Utilities Commission: 303-894-2000, dora_puc_website@state.co.us
Governor Jared Polis: Governorpolis@state.co.us
Constituent Services: (303) 866-2885
Office: (303) 866-2471
Alice Jackson, CEO, Xcel Colorado: alice.jackson@xcelenergy.com
Xcel’s Board of Directors: boardofdirectors@xcelenergy.com
Xcel Residential Customer Service: 800-895-4999
Hashtags:
Governor Polis: @GovofCO (Twitter, Instagram), @jaredpolis (Facebook)
Dept of Regulatory Agencies (oversees the PUC): @DORAColorado
Xcel Energy: @XcelEnergy
Include #PuebloUnit3, and #EndCoal in your posts.
Stop Wells Fargo’s Money Pipeline
Wells Fargo has loaned coal, oil and gas companies $272 BILLION since the Paris Climate Accords, when the world’s countries agreed they had to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. Wells Fargo is the third leading financier of fossil fuels in the world, after Chase and Citigroup.
Shocking, but maybe not surprising. Wall Street banks are, after all, in the business of making money. Well, consider that the fossil fuel industry has successfully blocked action to address the climate crisis for decades. The industry is still leveraging key members of Congress to make sure nothing is done. And this industry is backed by four household name banks—Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
And if it wasn’t already clear, those billions could go toward renewable energy and other climate solutions. The low-carbon energy transition is going to cost billions of dollars. We can’t afford to finance nor build new fossil fuel projects. Period.
The encouraging thing is these are our banks! Or we know someone with a credit card, account or loan with one of these banks. And the only thing as valuable to a Wall Street bank as profit is name brand. Bad publicity hurts the bottom line.
If you bank with Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo or Bank of America, tell the CEO to stop financing climate destruction and start financing climate solutions. Move your money to a local community bank or credit union. Tell your friends and family.
Visit the Customers for Climate Justice Campaign site here to sign an open letter, call or email your bank CEO:
https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/customers/#letter
Resource on how to move your money out of the banks funding climate chaos:
https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/move-your-money/
No Mow May
A growing chorus of organizations are endorsing a campaign called “No Mow May,” encouraging homeowners not to mow their lawns for the entire month, for the sake of bees and other insects, as well as our air quality.
350 Roaring Fork is partnering with the Roaring Fork Food Alliance in a campaign to promote more gardens and native vegetation over green turf lawns. Lush, green, uniform lawns are pleasing and seem benign. But they require enormous watering, mowing and trimming and application of fertilizer and weed-killer. We can’t afford to grow grass in the drought-stricken West. Two-stroke gas-powered lawn equipment produces an equivalent amount of hydrocarbon pollution as half the cars and trucks in the U.S.
Join our campaign to convert lawns to gardens in Carbondale and beyond here.
Carbondale Climate Strike, September 2019
A few of the major accomplishments of the 350 Roaring Fork Team include:
- Compelling the City of Aspen to divest their $3.1 million in Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company of coal power plants and gas pipeline builders and operators.
- Hosting the Carbondale Youth Climate Strike in September of 2019 which brought hundreds of community members together for climate action.
- Organizing testimony and travel to hearings at the Garfield County Commissioners, COGCC, AQCC, CDPHE, and legislative hearings in Glenwood Springs, Denver, Rifle, and Grand Junction.
- Educating hundreds of community members through documentary screenings, workshops, and tabling at local events, and farmers markets.
- Standing up against fossil fuel projects by gathering thousands of signatures for state ballot initiatives and rallying support to stand with impacted communities in Battlement Mesa & Paonia.
- Publishing dozens of LTE’s/OP-Eds on climate issues in local and state news outlets
- We supported fellow organizations working to protect the Roaring Fork Valley
- We marched, demonstrated, attended meetings, wrote letters and postcards, called our representatives and defended Mother Earth in every way we could think of!