Maryland Sierra Club and Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Marylanders are rightfully proud of their Chesapeake Bay blue crabs, considered by many crab aficionados to be the tastiest in the nation. (Residents of the Carolinas and Florida, the Gulf Coast, and the West Coast, register your strenuous objections in the comments section.) Fully half of the nation's blue crabs are harvested in the Chesapeake Bay.
But most Marylanders probably don't know that the solar industry now surpasses the Old Line State's iconic crab industry in total economic value, with nearly 150 solar companies and over 2,200 jobs in the state today. And this isn't even taking wind power into account.
Over the last several years, Maryland has become a national leader in renewable energy. Two years ago, Governor Martin O'Malley signed into law the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act of 2013, making Maryland the first state in the nation to create a market for offshore wind. And the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard requires that 20 percent of the state's electricity be generated from renewable energy sources by 2020. But Marylanders know they can do even better.
On January 14, the opening day of the legislative session for the Maryland General Assembly, Sierra Club activists and other members of the Maryland Climate Coalition, of which the Club's Maryland Chapter is a charter member, rallied in front of the state capitol in Annapolis to show broad support for the Maryland Clean Energy Advancement Act of 2015, which would double the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard requirement to 40 percent by 2025.
The rally was headlined by a diverse array of social justice, environmental, faith, labor, healthcare, and business leaders, who addressed the crowd with a bullhorn and captured the attention of legislators as they walked by to their swearing-in ceremony. That's Trisha Sheehan of Moms Clean Air Force, above; below, Charly Carter, the Executive Director of Maryland Working Families, addresses the crowd.
"Over 120 people braved the cold and a winter weather advisory to kick off the legislative session amid a flurry of windmills and snow," says Seth Bush, a Baltimore-based organizer with the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign.
The Sierra Club supplied "Forward with Clean Energy" signs, partner organization Oceana provided handheld windmills to all attendees, a local business lent out a set of solar panels, and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network organized a literature drop to every single legislator before the event. "And in case anyone walked by with questions about what was going on, we had a team of student activists passing out flyers," Bush says.
Among the speakers at the rally was State Senator Brian Feldman, below, the chief sponsor of the Maryland Clean Energy Advancement Act, who stressed that in addition to doing the right thing for the environment and public health, passage of the bill would create thousands of good-paying jobs and be a huge boon to the state's economy.
"Now that the General Assembly session is underway, our coalition is gearing up to utilize the capacity we've been building over the past several months to win a victory on this critical climate bill," Bush says. A poll released last week showed that more than two-thirds of Maryland voters support raising the state's clean electricity standard to 40 percent by 2025.
Learn more about what the Maryland Sierra Club and the Beyond Coal campaign are doing to promote clean energy.