By Sunayana Prabhu
RUMSON – Rumson-based nonprofit Waterspirit is participating in a five-day, 50-mile walk from Newark to Red Bank to highlight the call for an immediate moratorium on all new fossil fuel projects in New Jersey.
“Gov. Murphy: Walk Your Talk on Climate” is organized by Empower NJ, a coalition of more than 50 grassroots nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including Waterspirit, that fights fossil fuel projects in the state. The rally began Tuesday, Aug. 16 in Newark to protest a proposed gas-powered Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission power plant in the Ironbound neighborhood and an NJ Transit fracked-gas power plant in Kearny.
“It is the governor’s birthday today,” said Rachel Dawn Davis, public policy and justice organizer for Waterspirit. “You’re a leader, be it. Be a stronger leader. You got to walk your talk,” Davis said, addressing Murphy. “You can’t just speak the words and have no action to back them up, or have action but then have seven fossil fuel projects also underway. You can’t have both and say that you’re an environmental justice leader.”
The walk and caravan are calling attention to proposed fossil fuel projects in New Jersey, some that local groups have been fighting for years. Empower NJ’s recent report “Fighting climate change in NJ: The urgent case for a moratorium on all fossil fuel projects,” estimates that New Jersey’s “greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 19% from 6 major fossil fuel expansion projects approved by the Murphy Administration over the past 4 years” and have the potential to “increase an additional 38% if 7 pending projects are approved and completed during his 2nd term. This stands in stark contrast to Governor Murphy’s Executive Order (EO) 274 which calls for reducing GHG emissions 50% by 2030,” the report states.
It also notes that the positive steps the administration has taken to tackle climate change are insufficient to address the magnitude of the crisis or the administration’s own goals. Executive Order 28 committed the state to achieving 100% clean energy by 2050 through an updated Energy Master Plan detailing how this goal will be achieved, including meaningful interim benchmarks over the next 10 years.
“Achieving these goals will be challenging enough with the existing fossil fuel infrastructure in New Jersey; it will be impossible to achieve them if the 12 new (and unnecessary) fossil fuel projects (eight pipeline/compressor station projects, four power plants), in various stages of planning and execution, are allowed to go forward,” according to the Empower NJ report.
The walk and rallies are intended to amplify the struggles being waged throughout the state to promote clean air, healthy communities, and a rapid shift away from fossil fuels to jobs-creating clean renewable energy solutions.
Over the course of these five days, NGOs and environmental activists will travel from Newark to Elizabeth, Woodbridge, Old Bridge and finally end the rally Saturday, Aug. 19 at Marine Park in Red Bank, just across the Navesink River from Murphy’s home.
Davis encourages active participation from all residents. “Part of taking responsibility as a waterway resident is to ensure we use our voices when and where we can.”
The article originally appeared in the August 18 – 24, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
