Letter to the Editor: Morris Township should pledge 100-percent renewable energy by 2035

Editor’s note: The opinions below are the author’s, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.

To the Editor:

For most of our adult lives, my husband served on active duty in the Navy as a helicopter pilot. His service commitment meant moving around quite a bit. In just under a decade, he moved from Maryland to Florida to Oklahoma and then back to Florida and, finally, to California.

We’re both patriotic people, and the moving around was fine because we love this country, and we were eager to see more of it. Now that he’s an inactive reservist, we’ve been able to return to our home state of New Jersey, buy a house, and stay in one place for the foreseeable future.

We consider ourselves so lucky to have found Morris Township because, in it, we’ve found the kind of close-knit community that we had in military life in our civilian life as well: Our neighbors are truly our friends.

From summer days at Ginty Pool to waving to Santa coming down our street on a Woodland Firehouse truck, we literally feel like we live in a Norman Rockwell painting.

We’re still patriotic people who love our nation dearly. But, in settling down and getting to become part of our community in Morris Township, we’ve discovered another feeling, one that isn’t quite patriotism — and certainly doesn’t displace patriotism — but is akin to it.

There’s an Italian word — campanilismo — and it translates as “for the love of one’s bell tower.” It’s sort of like patriotism — but a kind of patriotism for one’s hometown.

While “campanilismo” doesn’t have a direct English translation, I think we all know that the sentiment exists. Why else would we see people wear those tee shirts with zip codes on the back?

How else could we explain the small town sports rivalries that have existed for generations? And who among us hasn’t gushed to a friend looking to buy a house about why our own town is the absolute best?

As paradoxical as it may seem to draw on a hyper-local sentiment to address a global threat, in the wake of President Trump’s recent decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement, I think we might need to call on our campanilismo to move us forward in addressing climate change.

It’s likely not a shock that President Trump has decided to withdraw from Paris. (You know, that historically unprecedented global pact in which almost every single nation on Earth agreed to come together to reduce emissions and cap warming at 2 degrees Celsius to prevent total climate catastrophe? Yeah…that one.)

He and his team have been clear from Day One that they are on a dead-end mission to revive the coal industry– a goal that even coal country itself doesn’t believe is possible for the simple economic reason that renewable energy is cheaper and cleaner than traditional fossil fuel energy sources.

(Which is why no corporation that can do math is making new investments in coal, whether it cares about climate change or not).

Even President Trump’s own economic advisor has been clear on the point that “coal doesn’t even make that much sense anymore.”

And still, here we find ourselves in a position in which one man’s wrongheaded, uninformed choice basically has the potential to doom all of us — and all of our children — to inhabit a world that the Pentagon has noted will include national security threats in the form of  “food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe” as a result of climate change.

I, for one, know that my husband and the millions of other veterans like him didn’t put their lives on the line in the service of our country so that this nation could literally and figuratively drown.

And I don’t know about you, but as a mother, I feel very strongly that President Donald Trump — or any D.C. politician, for that matter — does not get to foreclose my child’s future.

As a person of faith, I also feel very strongly that I have a responsibility to do what I can to help other mothers’ children, who are — right now — suffering from devastating effects of climate change in the form of droughts that prevent an adequate food supply, extreme weather events that displace families, the spread of vector-born diseases, worsening asthma and allergies, and a host of other health issues.

As an Independent voter, I believe that local control over governmental decisions is paramount and that, ultimately, I can and must take a stand — not AGAINST President Trump on this issue but AROUND him. He doesn’t want to be part of the solution? Fine. He doesn’t have to be. Cue the campanilismo…

Twenty-nine American cities have already pledged to move to 100 percent renewable energy. Six cities (Aspen, CO; Burlington, VT; Greensburg, KS; Kodiak Island, AK; and Rockport, MO) have already made the switch and hit their targets.

The communities that have passed resolutions to go 100 percent renewable range from Georgetown, TX, a small conservative town, to Boulder, CO (otherwise known as Hippieville USA).

Also on the list are San Diego, CA; Salt Lake City, UT; Madison, WI; Nassau, NY; St. Petersburg, FL; Grand Rapids, MI; Plainfield, NH; Atlanta, GA…and the list goes on.

If you noticed that there doesn’t seem to be any ideological or geographic commonality among these various places, that’s because there isn’t. The reason they’ve all made the switch is economic: As the financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard reports, the levelized, unsubsidized cost of renewable energy is lower than that of traditional fossil fuels.

(In layman’s terms, that means that without any government subsidies and even including the infrastructure build out that would be necessary to transition to 100 percent renewable energy, renewables are STILL cheaper.)

And thanks to the quiet revolution in battery storage capacity that has occurred in the just the last three years, there are no longer issues with supply. (In other words, if the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining…it doesn’t matter anymore.)

So, if you too are a resident of Morris Township, and you want to continue the mission of the Paris Agreement and stave off the worst effects of climate change….or if you just want our municipality to save money, join us in telling the Morris Township Committee to pass a resolution this year to move our town to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035. Sign our petition here.

If you’re a liberal, and you want to stick it to President Trump, join us.

If you’re a conservative, and you want to show all these “big government” liberals why local control is best, join us.

If you’re a person of faith, and you believe, as leaders of faith communities all over the world do, that we have a moral and spiritual duty to protect God’s creation and the most vulnerable among us, join us.

If you’re concerned about national security, and you want to heed the Pentagon’s warnings, join us.

If you’re a parent or a grandparent or a teacher or anyone who feels a deep stake in our children’s future, join us.

If you’re a consumer who just wants to save money on your power bills, join us.

I couldn’t care less about the headline “US Withdraws from Paris Agreement” if I could also see one that read “Morris Township Signs On to the Paris Agreement.”

(And Morristown, and Mendham, and Florham Park, and Chatham Township, and Chatham Borough, and Chester, and Summit, and New Providence, and Maplewood, and Madison, and…you get the idea.)

Because we don’t need Washington. We have the love of our bell tower: Beautiful and powerful in the diversity of views we have here in our small corner of the Earth.

Let’s come together and bring that love to bear on the most pressing issue of our day — and join the growing number of other corners of the Earth to say, “We’re going to be part of the solution.”

Shannon Falkner
Morris Township