boulderganic Courtesy of Shalini Kantayya
Catching the Sun, a new documentary premiering in Denver on April 19, captures the global race to lead the clean energy future through stories of the workers and entrepreneurs building the growing clean energy economy.
“Energy policy is social policy”
‘Catching the Sun’ shines a light on the economic potential of solar energy by Sarah Haas
C
atching the Sun, a new documentary by Shalini Kantayya premiering in Denver on April 19, starts with a bang. Thick clouds of smoke shoot into the air and sirens blare over the bellow of the emergency sound system as graphic images show the mayhem of the August 2012 explosion at the Chevron Refinery in Richmond, California. In the wake of the incident, 15,000 residents went to local hospitals complaining of health problems, making it among the most disastrous in the refinery’s history.
For environmental justice advocates, including Kantayya, the incident serves as a symbol of the externalities of fossil fuels — not just to the environment but also to the health and livelihood of people and communities. Environmental justice issues come in many forms; for instance the co-location of low-income neighborhoods to dirty fuel refineries or their proximity to busy thoroughfares, like those along I-70 in Denver. While solar doesn’t play a direct role in mitigating the effects of factory and vehicle emissions, it is beginning to cre-
ate an energy sector competitive with fossil fuels. Not only does this reduce the need for fossil fuels, but it also bolsters the burgeoning green economy. The solar industry added 35,000 jobs in 2015, up 20 percent from the previous year. More than 200,000 Americans go to work everyday in solar, which now employs more people than the coal industry. Meanwhile, as oil and gas prices continue to plummet, the fossil-fuel industry slashed nearly 17,000 extraction jobs during that same time period. In many ways, solar is already a winning story, but Catching the Sun highlights the often-overlooked economic and social justice solutions offered by the industry. The documentary is also a call to action, for Americans and policy-makers alike, to find the audacity to deploy solar technology, especially on the local level. At the heart of the film is the story of Solar Richmond, a nonprofit hoping to capitalize on the See SOLAR ENERGY Page 20
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