Local Opinion: Monsoon damage reveals immediate benefits of ... - Arizona Daily Star
Local Opinion: Monsoon damage reveals immediate benefits of climate action
The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Duane Ediger
Thunderstorms last Friday evening turned lights out across Tucson. TEP crews rushed to make repairs at over 400 locations. Thirty of them were still without power Saturday afternoon.
A youth group visiting the borderlands rode out the storm in a Tucson house of worship equipped with solar and battery storage. When grid power went out around dusk, the battery kept lights on until service was restored. Hundreds of Tucson households also enjoyed this protection.
Record persistent heat bolstered by still-increasing carbon emissions promise more frequent and severe outages. For some, emergency power maintenance is reason enough to justify an investment in battery backup. But most install solar and storage to head off climate impacts before they get out of hand. These Tucsonans are doing what nature is imploring of us all: use renewable energy to end fossil fuel emissions ASAP. Each delay adds to outage frequency and unlivable conditions.
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Building energy resilience is not rocket science. It starts with projects in our own homes and workplaces. But many need support. The Tucson-based nonprofit Sonoran Environmental Research Institute provides education and financial support for low-income families to go solar. Similar nonprofit, public, private, and utility programs need urgent, strategic expansion.
Community-based solar and storage can make expensive transmission upgrades unnecessary. Smart-grid implementation by TEP can facilitate grid management of renewable expansion. Electric vehicles are on the cusp of being able to provide household energy storage, reducing costs. Together with demand management, these advances will facilitate the alignment of renewable production, storage and usage in a greener energy future.
Voters’ rejection last May of the hastily cobbled-together TEP-City of Tucson franchise agreement was a public demand to prioritize climate action. May we all do our part in time to make Tucson a sustainable habitat for generations to come.
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Duane Ediger is Chair of the Energy Transformation Working Group of the nonprofit Sustainable Tucson. See more at www.sustainabletucson.org/energy
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.