Las Crucens heard how to save money on their energy bills by updating their homes during a town hall Aug. 14 held on the campus of New Mexico State University.
The town hall was sponsored by Sierra Club and The Semillas Project as a way to connect residents with information on rebates, upgrades and other topics related to climate change and the climate crisis.
Camilla Feibelman with Sierra Club told attendees that the 52 days in 2023 where the city saw temperatures hit and soar above 100 degrees meant higher electrical bills, increased costs for medical treatment related to heat stress and other health emergencies, increased risk for mosquito related illnesses and scarcity of water.
“That’s not livable for our most vulnerable community members,” Feibelman said.
Climate change, she said, meant thinking about how renewable energy could positively impact the city and its residents.
A panel of speakers that further tackled the topic of smart response to climate change included Rep. Nathan Small, Rep. Angelica Rubio, NMSU’s VP of Research Luis Cifuentes, Executive Director of Friends of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Patrick Noland and Aline Castelan Gonzalez, campaigns and programs director of The Semilla Project.
Each of the panelist shared with the audiences what their organizations were doing to meet the challenges posed by increasing heat, scarce water supplies and to connect the public ― especially those in the workforce ― with the issues.
Cifuentes pointed to the need to train and certify workers in the technical skills associated with renewable energy production and manufacturing; work already being undertaken at the Arrowhead Center at NMSU and via the university’s new Global Campus.
Noland stressed the needs to connect New Mexicans with public land, saying that creating job opportunities in that sector fits well with conservation efforts.
“If we’re going to mitigate the impact of climate change (then) protecting our public spaces, protecting our public lands, is a key way to do that,” Noland said.
New Mexico’s renewable energy and conservation programs have made strides in the last decade. The state passed the Energy Transition Act in 2019, which called for a strategic move away from coal and oil and gas powered energies to wind and solar while reducing pollution and emissions. The Produced Water Act was passed in 2019 and was meant to preserve the state’s water by regulating how waste water, primarily from the oil and gas industry, is disposed of.
Small said these laws and other efforts has made New Mexico a national leader in producing clean, sustainable energy.
“When we talk about a just transition, it’s increasing economic opportunity, increasing prosperity, increasing jobs … at the same time as we drastically reduce carbon emissions,” Small said.
Rubio seconded that, saying, “We tend to forget the people that it’s impacting every single day.”
The town hall drew 133 attendees according to The Semilla Project, several of which lobbed questions at panel members about water quality in Doña Ana County communities, the encroachment of transmission lines on private lands and protecting the health of farm workers.
Feibelman said finding a just and equitable path forward meant each person asking what compromise was acceptable to them.
“Sometimes it’s ‘yes, in my backyard.’ Yes to solutions. We all give and we all take, and we have to make sure that’s done fairly,” Feibelman told the crowd.