SB100

Dear California state legislators:
As California faces record-setting heat, longer and more dangerous fire seasons, and the growing impacts from droughts and floods, it’s imperative that the state continue its climate leadership and establish a goal to generate California’s electricity entirely from zero-carbon energy sources by 2045. Recent scientific developments related to climate extremes, health impacts of climate change, and accelerating sea level rise give even greater urgency for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I am a physicist, and an energy and sustainability science researcher, and I live in California because of its penchant for not just setting but actually achieving big goals and adopting bold visions others may consider too ambitious. What California proposes, we research, debate and then accomplish. In fact, we often exceed the goals skeptics have deemed unmeetable.

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — For generations — maybe since the gold rush — California has been where our dreams gather, the Elysian coast where palm trees sway in the ocean breeze and entire industries rise to sate our fantasies and our appetites. A bite of an orange is endless summer.

Just in this last week, we here in Santa Barbara got another reminder of the risks associated with human-caused climate change.

This week, state legislators have the opportunity to make California the largest economy in the world that is committed to 100 percent clean energy.

The “100 Percent Clean Energy for California” legislation, Senate Bill 100, would help the state continue its jobs-creating path toward clean energy and also catalyze the nation (and arguably the world) to follow. That’s why 28 major companies, including Adobe and Salesforce and the sustainability nonprofit Ceres, sent letters to the California Assembly, Senate and governor, urging SB100’s passage.

California lawmakers on Tuesday revived a long-stalled proposal to set a goal of generating 100 percent of the state’s energy from carbon-free sources.

If SB-100 is approved, that would drive further growth construction, more jobs and more openings in apprenticeship programs.

As costs of producing solar power have come down and efficiency has increased, goals that once seemed unattainable have become more realistic, even a figure as lofty as the 100 percent target in SB100.