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Attack dogs, rubber bullets and mass arrests. Tear gas too.

November 24, 2016 DReynolds

Attack dogs, rubber bullets and mass arrests. Tear gas too.

Those are some of the weapons being used against innocent Americans in the climate change war right here in the United States as 2016 nears an end. You read that right, good, innocent, unarmed American citizens who care about protecting our environment are being assaulted by attack dogs, rubber bullets and tear gas, as well as being subjected to mass arrests.

Over an environmental concern.

In America.

In 2016.

Before I tell you about these atrocities, I first need to tell you a few things about me that most reading this blog never knew.

Over the last two summers I have been honored to participate in humanitarian efforts to help members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian tribe in South Dakota. I’ve lived among the Cheyenne River Sioux in rather primitive conditions and I’ve seen what’s left of the remnants of a once proud Native American nation.

I’ve learned how these proud people have been abused by our government and forefathers for well over 100 years and, sadly, I have also seen the resulting poverty, ravaged environment and limited resources that have been left behind.

The Cheyenne River Sioux are never far from my thoughts and as we think about Thanksgiving I find myself thinking of how the souls of generations of Native Americans were stolen in the Dakotas (and elsewhere), along with tens of millions of acres of land and the priceless natural resources in and on them. What I’ve seen and learned is, itself, shameful but only gets worse when we consider what is happening in that region today in the global climate change war.

Perhaps calling what’s happening ‘shameful’ is not strong enough. Appalling might be a better word to describe what is happening to the Standing Rock Sioux Indian tribe of North Dakota. As I write this I’m not even sure what is more disturbing:

The fact that local police, along with private security forces likely hired by a Texas based oil company, Energy Transfer Partners, that is intent on building a 1,134-mile long pipeline next to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, have resorted to using attack dogs, rubber bullets, tear gas and mass arrests to fight the peaceful demonstrators trying to stop construction of the pipeline or;

The insane injustice the Sioux face by learning that the pipeline was moved from the state capital closer to the reservation because people in the city had more political influence than the tribe or;

That, in 2016, we are even building another crude oil pipeline in the first place.

Frankly, I don’t even understand why we have to build another pipeline anywhere on the planet when the crude oil it carries will end up being turned into carbon dioxide that will further pollute and warm our planet’s atmosphere. The entire scenario from the pipeline to the location to the bullets, everything, seems like it should come out of a science fiction novel rather than modern-day America.

Sadly, this is not a book.

It is the reality on the front lines of the global warming war and I fear that the weapons and the war are only about to get worse. News that our new national leadership wants to expand the use of coal, install new pipelines and drill new oil rigs should scare every American not working for the fossil fuel oil and utilities industry.

And after it scares you, I hope that it will make you SO very mad that you will stand with me and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We have a world of clean, sustainable, affordable options such as solar power that can help solve the climate change crisis and in the process create new industries and tons of jobs.

So on this eve of Thanksgiving 2016, allow me to suggest that we must stop building new pipelines, drilling for more oil, increasing our fracking, pretending ‘clean coal’ exists or that carbon dioxide does not pollute our atmosphere and oceans. We must put an end to this madness before we destroy our planet and the very soul of America.

We’ve already nearly destroyed Indian nations like the Sioux and their lands and while I would have thought we would have learned lessons from history, I can tell you that I’ve seen with my own eyes that that’s not the case.

But we have another chance to change things and I remain hopeful, ever hopeful, that Americans will put a stop to what’s happening and demand an end to the use of fossil fuel and the pollution that comes with every drop. And while we are at it I need your help in protecting the sacred Sioux. If any of this concerns you then fighting for Standing Rock and helping the Sioux would be a good start. They can’t do it alone, nor should they have to this time around.

As you give thanks this week for what’s important in your life please consider learning more about the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their fight by visiting http://standingrock.org/ or http://standwithstandingrock.net/. I am positive that they will be grateful, thankful, for your care, concern and support.

To learn more about musician Dave Matthews’ benefit concern that will take place later this week in DC click here (or view Dave Matthews’ live stream of his benefit concert by clicking here). To learn more about Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt’s benefit concert from Standing Rock please click here.

I stand with Standing Rock.

And as the Lakota people of the Black Hills say, pilámaya (thank you), and Happy Thanksgiving.

Bonnie Raitt, Cheyenne River Sioux, Climate Change, Climate War, Dave Matthews, Delaney Reynolds, Energy Transfer Partners, Global Warming, I Stand With Standing Rock, Indians, Jackson Browne, Jason Mraz, Miamisearise.com, Native Americans, NoDAPL, North Dakota, Plymouth Rock, Reservation, Simply Smiles, Sioux, South Dakota, Standing Rock, Standing Rock Sioux, Thanksgiving, The Sink or Swim Project

FP&Lies

November 6, 2016 DReynolds

“A wolf in sheep’s clothing…masquerading as a pro-solar initiative”

Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente on Amendment One on Florida’s ballot

I am not yet old enough to vote this year so I desperately need your help. Please. I need you to vote NO ON AMENDMENT ONE to stop the deception Florida utilities are perpetuating on those of us who can vote. I need your help so we can grow solar power in Florida. PLEASE.

You see, my dream is to see solar power everywhere in Florida. It makes NO sense to me what-so-ever that ‘The Sunshine State’ is not already THE Solar State. Florida ranks as the state with the 4^th highest potential to generate power from the sun yet we are 17^th in actual solar production.

Experts concluded that 50% of all of Florida’s power needs could be generated from solar power by 2045, in just 29 years. Can you imagine the businesses and jobs that we can create in Florida, good paying, clean, sustainable jobs? Or how a real commitment to solar power would allow us to dramatically reduce our carbon pollution production? And for the consumer, there is the not so small fact that your solar system generates power from the sun that’s free.

So if you are asking yourself why Florida does not already produce far more power from the sun, you are not alone. But, then again, this year’s election has given us at least 40 Million examples of why Florida ranks so low. $40 Million dollars that is. That’s the estimated amount of money from power company profits (including our very own Florida Power & Light) that have been spent trying to deceive you into thinking that the proposed Amendment One somehow promotes solar. So why is it that the utility industry would spend such a large amount of money promoting Amendment One?

Well, simply stated, solar represents perhaps the only true competition the powerful monopolies that are our power companies have likely ever faced. And they are scared. Really, really scared that free, clean, power from the sun threatens their ridiculous profit margins and polluting ways.

In a few seconds I will prove to you that FP&L has virtually no interest in promoting solar power, but before I do that let me again urge you (beg you really) to please VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT ONE in Tuesday’s election. Do not let yourself be deceived and lied into thinking that Amendment One does anything to promote or expand solar power in our state. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite.

So, now, allow me to share with you what is really happening and why Florida Power & Light and their peers are trying to deceive voters this year.

First, the excellent work by Miami Herald reporter Mary Ellen Klas (click here to read one of her articles) has thankfully exposed their plot. Ms. Klas uncovered the boasts a senior official at something called the James Madison Institute made about how brilliant it is that the utilities and its Political Action Committee, the pro-solar sounding ‘Consumers For Smart Solar’, are in creating and touting Amendment One to deceive voters. Speaking at a power utility association meeting the electrical industry representative called the power companies creating and backing the proposed Amendment ‘incredible savvy maneuvers’. He then went on, she reported, to call the utilities’ deception an ‘act of political jiu-jitsu’ by, as she explained it, ‘attempting to deceive voters into supporting restrictions on the expansion of solar by shrouding it as a pro-solar amendment’. Thank you Ms. Klas for exposing what so many of us who advocate solar know; that the power companies have no interest in actually promoting solar power and, instead, see it as a threat to their profits and businesses.

Amendment One is a sham.

A farce.

A lie and an illusion designed by the electrical power industry to mislead voters. To trick you.

In fact, Floridians can already do everything the proposed Amendment suggests it ‘allows’. That’s right, we don’t need to change our Constitution to have a solar system permitted and installed or to operate safely or even to sell any extra power your solar system generates back to the power company. You can already do all of those things, but the utility industry wants to control and limit solar. That’s exactly the type of thinking that our state, country and world’s society must change if we are to ever change our ways and move away from the fossil fuels that pump carbon pollution into our air and oceans and that are warming our planet at alarming rates.

“This is deceptive in that all the things the advocates could say could happen with this Amendment can happen without this Amendment. You don’t need to have a constitutional amendment to have adequate regulatory power over solar. You don’t have to have a constitutional amendment to have safety.”

Bob Graham, Former Florida U.S. Senator and Governor

So why would Florida Power & Light, our state’s largest utility, spend an outrageous $22.2 Million to limit the use of solar power? Or for that matter Florida’s second largest, Duke Energy, spend $13.3 Million? Or our third largest Florida utility, Tampa Electric, spend $4.7 Million? All told, over $ 40 MILLION is being spent by Florida’s electrical power companies to tout the proposed amendment and when I think that that money comes out of the rates we pay them for power, all of this makes me terribly angry and sad. Yes, Florida electrical power company customers are paying for these companies to deceive us with our own money. That’s just disgusting.

What I have learned (including first hand in how hard my family had to fight to connect our solar home in the Florida Keys to the electrical grid so as to allow our excess solar power to benefit other customers and reduce their carbon footprint through net solar metering) is that the established power companies have little interest in creating, using, promoting or selling solar power. It’s just not what they do, or do well, and that certainly includes Florida Power & Light. FP&L, like the other power companies in their regions, operate as a monopoly. By law, FP&L and their parent, Next Era Energy (how funny is it that their name suggests a new era of power and they don’t even really support solar?) can’t have any competition and are entitled to make a profit by charging rates that the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) approves.

If you are like me, you’ve read and seen a lot about FP&L in the media in recent years as they have;

Lobbied the PSC to receive a significant rate increase to fund two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point in South Miami Dade,
As they have worked to avert a crisis from earths’ rising temperatures and the antiquated system they use to cool their two reactors,
As they have been asked to address the public’s concern over the elevation of their Turkey Point plan’s equipment in a world of rising sea levels and
As the public has learned that their Turkey Point plant has been leaking what we are told are ‘small’ levels of nuclear waste from its canal, water laced with a poisonous, radioactive, chemical called Tritium.

And perhaps you have the sense that FP&L likes to tout how much it loves solar power, yet their own website shows that they generate 3/5^ths of 1%, barely more than 1/2 of 1%, of their power from solar systems. Here is what they say on their website (that’s their chart, note how little is from solar power, or ask yourself where power from the ‘wind’ or hydro power ranks):

FPL uses a diverse mix of fuels at our power plants to generate reliable electricity. Because of our fuel mix, FPL is recognized as a clean energy company, with one of the lowest emissions profiles among U.S. utilities. FPL’s carbon dioxide emissions rate, for example, is 35 percent better than the industry average. FPL currently obtains most of our electricity from clean-burning natural gas. Nuclear power, which produces no greenhouse gas emissions, is responsible for another significant portion of power production. In addition, FPL has begun operation of three commercial-scale, emissions-free solar energy facilities in the Sunshine State.

Need more evidence about how small the state’s largest utility’s commitment is to expanding carbon free power from our sun is? Well, in its 156 Page Annual Report FP&L’s parent company, Next Era Energy, explains FP&L’s sources of power on page 8 with the following chart:

That chart is followed by a footnote that reads as follows; ‘Oil and Solar are collectively less than 1%’.

I don’t know about you, but it sure does bother me that FP&L has lumped fossil fuel (Oil) in with Solar. Somehow they doing this in their own Annual Report helps illustrate the point about how little they value the power of the sun, but if that did not explain their lack of a commitment then page 10 of the same Annual Report’s section on solar power seems to make it clear;

Solar Operations

Solar generation can be provided primarily through two conventions: utility-owned and customer-owned or leased. In utility-owned solar generation, the energy generated goes directly to the electric grid, whereas customer-owned or leased solar generation generally goes directly to the location it is serving with any excess over that local need being fed back to the electric grid. There are two principal solar technologies used for utility-scale projects: PV and thermal. In December 31, 2015, FPL owned and operated two solar PV generation facilities, which provided a total of 35 MW of generating capacity, and a 75 MW solar thermal hybrid facility. FPL supports the advancement of solar generation primarily for its fuel diversity and emissions reduction benefits, and plans to continue to support, study and pursue solar generation that is beneficial for FPL’s customers. FPL is in the process of building three solar PV projects that are expected to provide approximately 74 MW each and be placed into service by the end of 2016.

Yeah, I bet there will be a lot more to ‘study’ before they change their business in a meaningful way and grow solar. The fact is that FP&L generates far less than 1% of its power from solar within a business whose net income in 2015 was $2,750,000,000 ($2.75 Billion!) versus $2,470,000,000 in 2014 or $1,910,000,000. In a place like The Sunshine State I’d think that the supposedly smart people at a ‘power’ company making all of these billions and growing like they have been would have been able to figure out how to generate much more clean (and free) power from the sun but, then again, what do I know?

What I know for certain is that solar power is a threat to FP&L and their peers and this election they have proven this to everyone by resorting to lying to voters. Their industry has given us over $40 Million examples of proof by their overt support of a deceptive, unnecessary amendment to Florida’s constitution that does nothing but protect their old fashioned ways and profits at the expense of our planet and your intelligence, much less your vote.

Please join me in putting a stop to the lies and by showing Florida’s power companies that we demand they shift to sustainable energy from places like the sun, wind and water. Please become informed about this deception and VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT ONE.

2016, 2016 Presidential Election, Amendment 1, Cement, Clean Energy, climate, Climate Change, Coal, Delaney Reynolds, Florida, Florida Power & Light, Floridians for solar, Fossil Fuels, FP&Lies, FPL, Gas, Global Warming, Miami, Miamisearise.com, Next Era Energy, NO on 1, Oil, Politics, Power companies, Sea Level Rise, Sea Rise, Solar, Solar Power, Solar Uprising, The Sink or Swim Project, The Solar State, The Sunshine State, Utilities, Vote NO on 1

Owen Joins Jack Black & ‘The School Of Rock’

November 2, 2016 DReynolds

Owen playing guitar for me in the lobby the morning I filmed with Jack Black

My brother Owen is an amazing person, an excellent student and he is an especially incredible artist. He can sing, act, make all sorts of contraptions, and play different musical instruments, including the guitar. He’s been an inspiration to me in countless ways, is always supportive of all of my endeavors including my sea rise work. It was easy to ask him to join me on South Beach the day that I met Jack Black to film for the Miami Episode of Season 2 of Years of Living Dangerously and he and I had a blast that day.

Before the BIG day arrived Year’s Co-Executive Producer Jon Meyersohn asked me what I initially thought was a strange question; “Do you own a guitar and, if so, can you bring it with you the day we film with Jack?” While Owen packed one of his guitars I introduced him to some videos of Jack’s band, Tenacious D, and that’s when we started to wonder if Jack might actually play the thing for us.

By the time we had finished filming and had eaten a late lunch I’d forgotten that we’d brought the guitar and that’s when I was asked if we had brought one. Before I knew it Jack had it in his hand and began to admire it closely as Owen and I stood on the sand next to him and the most beautiful aqua water you can imagine. And that’s when the sound and music exploded off of the guitar and out of Jack’s mouth as he went into full Tenacious D mode and transported us off to his Land of Kickapoo (look it up) as if we were all on a speedboat. Amazing and fun and hysterical.

Hours earlier Jack could not have been more serious about the most serious environmental issue of our time, yet now we were lost in his world. I guess I should share with you that Jack could not have been nicer to me and my entire family and, well, everyone that was there that day (even people just passing by and learning ‘OMG, it’s Jack Black!).

He was personable and down to earth and talked to me more like a friend than what he is, a major motion picture star and rock musician. And speaking of music, we spent a lot of time talking about his favorite bands (like Slipknot, Courtney Barnett, and others) and mine (like Piece the Veil and Sleeping with Sirens). He also gave me great selfie picture taking advice (click here to learn his expert technique). The best way I can describe him (and I mean this as a total compliment) is that Jack’s just a normal dude. A normal dude that can act like crazy and rock a guitar and sing like the rock star he is.

When he rocked Owen’s guitar it was simply magical to see and hear and in those few minutes we got to see the Jack Black that you see in movies. An explosive, energetic, entertainer who also enjoys having fun no matter what he’s doing.

When he finished his mini-concert by the Bay he announced to all around that Owen’s guitar was properly christened, remarked about the lovely inlay detail on it and insisted that they take pictures together, with the guitar, of course.

To see more of Jack, as well as yours truly, please tune into the Miami Episode (Gathering Storm, Saving Miami) on Wednesday November 2nd on The National Geographic Channel for Years of Living Dangerously. The Years of Living Dangerously has been called “the most important television series ever” for good reason and while Jack does not play guitar in our episode, he goes on an important adventure all over Miami to explain what’s happening to South Florida and why we must all work together to solve the climate change crisis before it is too late.