“Bridge fuel” sham signals confusion about storms hammering communities and repeated warnings by climate scientists
In late December, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein issued a troubling endorsement of plans for a massive expansion of fracked gas – even after prominent climate scientists have repeatedly urged him to lead a genuine transition off fossil fuels.
In a video post, Stein supports state regulators’ approval of an expanded fracked gas pipeline between Guilford and Davidson counties despite clear threats to water and air quality. He refers to climate-wrecking methane gas as a “bridge” to a clean energy future – an industry deception discredited 15 years ago.
It’s truly Orwellian that the Governor also boasts of this state’s “clean energy leadership” even though Duke Energy recently filed plans for the nation’s largest buildout of both gas-fired and nuclear generation in the Carolinas.
Why is Stein promoting the deceptive message of the Charlotte-based polluter? Why does he continue to ignore the prominent scientists who have been telling him for 7 years that Duke Energy is dragging this state in the wrong direction? That includes Duke leaders’ suppression of renewable power solutions that are far cheaper than gas or nukes – and which could help avert runaway climate and social chaos.
Stein’s statement was issued shortly after heralded climate scientist James Hansen’s starkest warning ever about the need to stop burning fossil fuels. Hansen’s team warns that holding global heating to 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels is now “implausible” and that heroic measures are needed to avoid the “global irreversible point-of-no-return” for all life on Earth.
Dr. Hansen further clarifies the urgency of our situation: “Policy choices in the next 5-10 years will be crucial for determining the world that today’s young people and their children will live in.” This blows away Duke Energy’s successful deception that we should be working toward a 2050 strategy.
Is Gov. Stein also supporting Nuclear Wonderland?
Stein signaled in October that he’s on board with Duke gambling tens of billions of public dollars – and annual rate hikes – on highly dangerous and failure-prone, experimental nuclear reactors. That’s despite Duke Energy cancelling 18 past reactors prior to completion, thus wasting billions of customer dollars.
So NC WARN will keep working to get even more scientists, business leaders and state residents to press Gov. Stein to side with North Carolinians – especially those hurt by the climate disasters and soaring power bills caused by the world’s worst corporate polluters such as Duke Energy.
As our colleague Shelley Robbins of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy commented in response to Stein’s video post, the expanded gas pipeline “most assuredly WILL harm our water and air … and [the Governor’s Climate and Energy] Taskforce has a particular demographic dominance that does not inspire confidence that anything will change.”
With the ongoing, tragic failure by rich nations and corporations to take any meaningful steps to slow the climate crisis, the US urgently needs state governors to be honest with the public about climate urgency and to challenge corporate polluters, not parrot their climate deceptions.
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Now in its 38th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes.