Pushing Gov. Cuomo aka Governor 5% to go #OffFossilFuels

Governor Cuomo calls himself a leader on climate change but New York State is failing: only 5% of the electricity on the grid comes from wind and solar; only about 15,000 zero emission cars are on the road out of the roughly 15 million owned by New Yorkers; and Governor Cuomo’s been approving massive new fracked gas projects such as the CPV and Cricket Valley power plants that lock in decades on climate pollution. As a result, New York’s climate pollution has barely changed under the Cuomo Administration at a time when we need radical cuts and a transformative push for good jobs to go #OffFossilFuels.

In 2018, we dogged Governor Cuomo on this issue. We were core to organizing the biggest protest on climate change in Albany ever, with about 1,500 people marching and rallying on the Capital. This video gives a sense of the energy and excitement at the event.

Along with our partners at Food & Water Watch, we organized 24 pickets of the Governor’s public appearances in 2018, typically on just a few hours of notice because the Governor cowardly hides his schedule from the public. On rare occasions, he announces an event, often with just a few hours of notice… and then we scramble to get there and catch him in person with a protest. It’s clear from his affect that he’s very aware of these protests – and his staff do everything they can to avoid our picket lines, often playing a game of cat and mouse as we stake out entrances to an event and his security tries to get him in and out through an alternative where he doesn’t face us. Despite their efforts, we’ve been able to catch him several times in person. Check out this video to get a sense of these direct actions to demand results in person from the Governor.

Over the summer, we got extra-creative, when we took to the water as the Governor held a fundraiser at Billy Joel’s waterfront mansion on Long Island’s North Shore. Since Joel’s mansion is hard to reach on land, we decided to rent kayaks and paddle over with our banners, as pictured.

Of course, pickets are only one of our activities in this effort: along with our allies across the state we generated over 10,000 calls to the executive office. Every week, we select a different infrastructure fight from across the state and collectively mobilize an average of 200 people to call the Governor’s office. We are pretty sure that going #OffFossilFuels and moving to 100% renewable energy was the top subject of calls to the Governor in 2018.

We’re particularly proud of this effort because it’s an attempt to build solidarity between groups across the state that don’t automatically work together. We’re now working with local leaders across the state who are battling local proposals for new fracked gas infrastructure such as pipelines and power plants, which Cuomo has the power to stop.

Along with Food & Water Watch, Sane Energy Project, 350.org, Mothers Out Front, and NYPIRG, we’ve formed a statewide network that says NO to each individual fossil fuel infrastructure proposal in individual communities and to ALL the proposed projects across the state – and pushes Cuomo to stop them all while moving rapidly to 100% renewable energy. By elevating the issue statewide beyond any individual local battle, we think we’re helping to build a whole movement that’s greater than the sum of its individual parts.