Featured, Roddenberry Fellowship
Meet A Roddenberry Fellow
Jessica Guadalupe Tovar
June 25, 2019
Meet Jessica, a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow
Jessica Guadalupe Tovar is an organizer for the Local Clean Energy Alliance, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Local Clean Energy Alliance is the Bay Area’s foremost membership organization working at the local, state, and national level to promote a clean energy future through the development and democratization of local renewable energy resources. Jessica grew up in housing projects near an industrial pollution corridor in East Los Angeles. The experience of cancer in her family led her to focus on preventing and reducing local industrial pollution and to advocate for policies to protect vulnerable communities.
Dirty fossil fuel energy is wreaking havoc on low-income people and communities of color: on community health, job safety, living conditions, and climate impacts. Investor-owned utility models do not serve communities’ needs. Most people feel disempowered by energy; they see it as a utility bill—a revolving debt. Those who cannot keep up with the debt are literally kept in the dark through utility shut-offs.
“Our solution is to promote decentralized renewable energy—in opposition to the large, corporate, centralized energy model—and build the political base and new institutions for public and community-based ownership and control of renewable energy resources. We want the benefits of a transition to renewable energy for our communities rather than to the corporate energy establishment.”
During the 2019 Fellowship
During the Fellowship, Jessica will be working on the initiative, the “Clean Power to the People” campaign of the East Bay Clean Power Alliance. It was launched to advocate for the establishment of a county-wide public energy service provider agency (EBCE) committed to the community benefits and to ensure that EBCE’s plan for delivering these benefits is implemented successfully.
This year they are strengthening and empowering their base of community organizations, especially of low-income people and communities of color, to advocate for energy development that meets their needs.
“The vision of this initiative is to contribute to a new decentralized renewable energy model that can bring justice and equity to clean energy solutions. It’s about local communities taking in their own hands the responsibility of building a cleaner and more equitable future.”
How to get involved:
Donate: Support Jessica’s working for clean energy solutions here!
Read the book: Order their book: Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions, a collaboration of energy democracy on the ground throughout the United States.
Subscribe: Sign up for their newsletter here!
Follow/Share: Support Jessica and LCEA on social media:
Facebook: @BayAreaLCE Twitter: @LCEACleanEnergy
Learn more about Jessica and LCEA: http://www.localcleanenergy.org/
