“genCLEO Action is proud to endorse Annette Taddeo as a climate champion because we know she will stand up to (the) state’s largest polluters while advocating for more clean energy and the protection of our natural resources.”
“It gave me the resources to meet the people I need to meet outside the School of the Environment, and it gave me the confidence, academically, to feel like I was capable of taking those positions,” Shenefelt said. “The most meaningful part was becoming president of genCLEO, because that is where I achieved the most hands-on environmental policy work.”
Tracking from the nonprofit group The CLEO Institute found that Donalds has received $1.79 million in campaign contributions from Florida’s major power utilities while in office. He is the state’s second-highest recipient.
Florida is one of only four states where the law expressly prohibits you from buying energy from anyone other than your government-assigned monopoly utility.
"Solar is cheaper, and you're taking out the fuel cost,” Glickman said. “We could be doing so much better if there was a push to take advantage of the sunshine."
“Duke Energy gets 90% of its electricity from burning gas or coal,” Maguire said. “They are an extremely dirty and polluting utility, and they essentially get to do that polluting for free because it’s the young people today that are going to deal with a warmer environment and stronger storms and more flooding in the decades to come.”
“It may just get reported as something different, because some people may want to skirt any attention or having any regulations,” Glickman said. “And then there’s going to be other times where people just don’t realize what the cause of death was.”
“It’s about weakening the foundation that informs emergency management, that informs local planning, that informs infrastructure investment, insurance risk assessments, and quite frankly, public communication,” said Arditi-Rocha. “When research slows, the ability to anticipate future risk also slows. I think when you have fewer resources to tell the public to prepare and to prepare for what you know, the bottom line is we have fewer resources to do so effectively and safely.”
Because some teachers are hesitant to discuss climate change in class because of the possibility of community backlash, "some schools are turning to organizations like the [CLEO] Institute in Florida. This organization trains teachers, provides them with educational resources, and raises students' awareness of the climate crisis."
By rapidly doubling or tripling its solar capacity, OUC could make burning coal unnecessary. Unlike fossil fuels, solar power has no fuel cost, helping protect OUC customers from the price swings that come with natural gas and coal.
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