Guevara: We should be investing in clean solar and wind energy

From reading his April 3 guest column, it’s apparent that Mr. Pedro Salazar hasn’t spent much time in Brownsville, which is home to many local advocates.

Emma Guevara

Despite having fond childhood memories of shrimping boats, Salazar supports the industries that are contributing to shrimping’s demise in the Rio Grande Valley. How can fishing or any eco-tourism business thrive if the coast is full of LNG tankers and polluting industrial mega-facilities?

Ask any Texan what’s special about living here or visiting, and so many will tell you: our pristine coast and vibrant culture and food. Our home should not become the next Cancer Alley, yet the industries Salazar is propping up – LNG and steel – are some of the most harmful. Why invest in dirty energy, when we could instead invest in clean solar and wind energy?

When our workers and our families breathe in dirty air from LNG, the expensive and life-changing health impacts will far outweigh the claim of jobs, which evidence shows us will vanish once the brief construction period has ended.

I urge locals to wake up to these false promises. If companies like global LNG corporation Glenfarne really cared about improving our lives, they wouldn’t be seeking tax breaks to take away money from our health care services, roads, and other Cameron County programs.

When wealthy industry comes to town claiming they care about us, something isn’t right. And Mr. Salazar, for some reason, has taken the bait.

Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Emma Guevara, a lifelong, generational Brownsville resident and Brownsville Organizer with the Sierra Club. The column appears in The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service with the permission of the author. Guevara can be reached by email via: emma.guevara@sierraclub.org.

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