[ [link removed] ]350.org

 

 



John -

I'm Rebecca Beaulieu and I've been fighting fossil fuel power plants since
I was in school. Today, I'm the Communications Director at [ [link removed] ]350 New
Hampshire (350 NH), one of the 21 affiliate groups of 350.org in the
United States.

I grew up in Massachusetts, and while my friends and I played soccer we
could see (and breathe) the smoke coming from a dirty coal power plant
right across the street.

When the state finally closed the plant, the community fought hard for a
transition to clean energy, just to see the big company that bought the
plant transition it to a gas plant.

People like me are still fighting that fossil gas plant. And for me
personally, that collective effort had a huge impact: it taught me that
the climate crisis is intertwined with all aspects of our lives, and that
community power is at the core of all justice fights.

When electricity bills here in New Hampshire [ [link removed] ]suddenly went up 112% a
couple of years ago, we took our fight against fossil fuels one step
further. People couldn't afford to pay those ridiculously pricey bills,
and we realized it was our duty as climate activists to search for
solutions – not only for cleaner energy, but for more affordable and
accessible energy too.

Advocating for our climate and communities takes resilience. Every win is
a step in the right direction, even if it feels small or incomplete – as
it did for me and my community in Massachusetts. But sometimes we have big
breakthroughs too!

We started our new campaign by going door-to-door to get information out
to people about how they could get help from government programs to pay
the energy bills, and we showed up at Eversource (the electricity company
over here) offices exposing how much they were profiting while dumping all
the burden on our communities’ shoulders.

We decided that one way to push Eversource was to take away some of their
income source. We have legislation that allows towns and counties in New
Hampshire to produce or purchase their own energy – their “Community
Choice Aggregation”, or as we prefer to call it, community power. Instead
of Eversource buying energy from a market we have no agency over and
mostly based on fossil fuel sources, towns and counties can buy the energy
for their residents without having wealthy shareholders to answer to. And
what's best: this not only allows people to have more decision-making
power for choosing clean renewable energy, it also lowers the bills!

Our Community Power campaign has already shown that local and affordable
renewable energy is possible. About 30% of the state has already committed
to it: we already have 65 towns and one county with community power in New
Hampshire, and we plan to keep expanding that number! We will have town
votes in March 2025, and we have been very busy organizing info sessions
about what community power means, the benefits of it and how to make it
happen. Our goal is to have at least 10 more towns on board with renewable
community power by March, and present to at least 30 groups to get them
moving towards community power.

Community Power has the potential to be a big breakthrough for energy
justice in the United States and, especially now, but we need your help!

We cannot accept any steps backwards. Together, we can turn the fight for
local, clean and affordable energy into an unstoppable wave of change!

Always onwards and in solidarity,

Rebecca and the 350 NH Team

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