GOOD

Giving Power to the People

An activist advocating for a community's energy rights turns entrepreneur reconceiving a city's power...

 Noella Boudart
07.20.09

An activist advocating for a community's energy rights turns entrepreneur reconceiving a city's power structure.What if you could choose between brewing your morning coffee by burning coal or harnessing solar power? For the past 15 years, Paul Fenn has worked to divert control of the energy supply away from the utility companies and into consumers' hands. His core concept: Community Choice Aggregation, which gives residents in certain districts the legal authority to amass their individual buying power to purchase energy for their households from alternative sources instead of buying individually from the power company's coal plants.In 1994, as the 28-year-old director of the Massachusetts Senate Committee on Energy, Fenn-influenced by Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase's ideas of incorporating economics into environmentalism-penned statewide legislation that would become CCA. His bill passed, and Cape Cod was the first region to enact CCA. Today, more than 1 million Americans receive energy through CCA, from Martha's Vineyard to northeast Ohio.California passed CCA legislation seven years ago. And while cities like San Francisco are still working on alternative energy–provider logistics, the 2002 California bill Fenn authored incorporated unprecedented addendums, such as opening up access to utility meter data. That information allows potential energy distributors to cost-effectively identify and court customers by consumption habits.San Francisco called in Fenn and his energy consultancy firm Local Power to implement its first CCA. The company set an impressive target: to provide 51 percent renewable energy to the city's residences and businesses by 2017. "We set this schedule as our standard because of the severity of the climate crisis," Fenn says. A recently confirmed solar public works project, which combines energy generated largely from San Francisco rooftops with power from heat capture, wind, and batteries, should help in reaching that goal and ensuring that San Franciscans will soon decide where their energy comes from. Says Fenn: "We want to connect people to what they want."Photos by Mike Linksvayer (via Flickr) Return to the interactive site

Infographics

In 2020, the Baltimore Museum of Art will only obtain art made by women

Pixabay

Two years after its opening in 1914, the Baltimore Museum of Art acquired a painting by Sarah Miriam Peale — its first work by a female artist. More than a century later, one might assume that the museum would have a fairly equal mix of male and female artists, right? But as of today, only 4% of the 95,000 pieces in the museum's permanent collection were created by women.

The museum is determined to narrow that gap, and they're taking a drastic step to do so.

Keep Reading Show less
art representation feminism women
Culture

'High Castle' producers destroyed every swastika used on the show and the video is oh-so satisfying

via Chela Horsdal / Twitter

Amazon's "The Man in the High Castle" debuted the first episode of its final season last week.

The show is loosely based on an alternative history novel by Philip K. Dick that postulates what would happen if Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan controlled the United States after being victorious in World War II.

Keep Reading Show less
chela horsdal nazis trump nazi punching nazi shredding nazi memerobilia CNN entertianment weekly Fox News the man in the high castle
Politics

The World Health Organization declares war on the out of control price of insulin

via Alan Levine / Flickr

The World Health Organization is hoping to drive down the cost of insulin by encouraging more generic drug makers to enter the market.

The organization hopes that by increasing competition for insulin, drug manufacturers will be forced to lower their prices.

Currently, only three companies dominate the world insulin market, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi. Over the past three decades they've worked to drastically increase the price of the drug, leading to an insulin availability crisis in some places.

In the United States, the price of insulin has increased from $35 a vial to $275 over the past two decades.

Keep Reading Show less
insulin costs big pahrma bernie sanders pahma greed canada insulin MSNBC Fox News CNN world health organization insulin
Health

Italian council chamber floods—just after council rejected climate change measures

Andrea Zanoni/Facebook

Oh, irony. You are having quite a day.

The Italian region of Veneto, which includes the city of Venice, is currently experiencing historic flooding. Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro has stated that the flooding is a direct result of climate change, with the tide measuring the highest level in 50 years. The city (which is actually a collection of 100 islands in a lagoon—hence its famous canal streets), is no stranger to regular flooding, but is currently on the brink of declaring a state of emergency as waters refuse to recede.

Keep Reading Show less
climate change flooding environment earth disaster
The Planet

All the whales have finally been released from the 'whale jail' in Russia

Since the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, whale populations have been steadily recovering. However, whales in the wild still face other dangers. In the summer of 2018, four Russian companies that supply aquariums with marine animals captured almost 100 beluga whales and killer whales (aka orcas). After a public outcry, those whales are swimming free as the last of the captive whales have been released, the first time this many captured whales have been released back into the wild.

In late 2018 and early 2019, a drone captured footage of 11 orcas and 87 beluga whales crammed into holding pens in the Srednyaya Bay. The so-called "whale jail" made headlines, and authorities began to investigate their potentially illegal capture.

Keep Reading Show less
The Planet