Nonviolent leader Rev. James Lawson repeatedly referred to a brilliant bit of dialogue between Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) and Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) in Tombstone.

Wyatt: What makes a man like Ringo to do the things he does?
Doc: A man like Ringo has a great empty hole right through the middle of him. He can never kill enuf or steal enuf or inflict enuf pain to fill it.
Wyatt: what does he need?
Doc: Revenge
Wyatt: For what?
Doc: Being born

Rev. Lawson called this “the hole down the middle of the soul.” He sometimes said Ringo was angry that he was “born human.” I think maybe he meant that the desire for wholeness was lacking in Johnny Ringo.

When Rev. Lawson spoke about God, he sometimes used the term “the Creative Force of the Universe” or soul force. Creative force, soul force, wholeness. What does this have to do with old Johnny Ringo?

Last week was the 57th anniversary of the murder of Dr. King. A friend in our nonviolent group sent a King quotation to us all that day: “Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love.”

On the day of his death, Dr. King was in Memphis supporting the sanitation workers who were seeking better working conditions and a better wage. They marched carrying signs or wearing placards that hung from cords around their necks proclaiming, “I Am a Man.” Photos of their march have always had a strong effect on me, they arouse my compassion and, at the same time, they almost make me shudder–that this should even need to be said.

Dr. King’s philosophy, developed in his doctoral work with philosopher Dr. Edgar Brightman at Boston U, was called “personalism.” He argued that a human personality in its unique constellation of features, an inner spirit and a presence in the world, was what he called “a Shining Present,” a manifestation of being, a phenomenon that shines forth Now.

Sometimes parents especially experience this with their children; a parent sees–what deep joy– the beautiful existence that this child brings into the room, into the world, this presence–it lights up the room and fills the parent’s heart.

But I am also a student of psychodynamic theory, I’m a Freud Fangirl. So I am all too aware of our psychic fractures, the inner splits among our various parts. Instincts and thoughts and beliefs that motivate us to act, sometimes not for the best. And relations with others, where all manner of vexation arises. Well, it’s a Fight Club, isn’t it?

There’s a type of meditation called Preksha that was developed from the Jain tradition– that’s the tradition of Gandhi’s mother, that’s THE Gandhi, the teacher of nonviolent resistance from whose work both Rev. Lawson and Dr. King learned.

This particular meditation has a lot of steps to it, and I don’t know how to practice all of them, but what I do try to practice is this one step, in which the meditator looks with an inward eye and notices, just notices, what emotions he/she is feeling at the moment. Looks at the emotions from the point of view of an observer.

Feelings are one part of heart-mind, and the observing eye is another part, and weirdly, somehow this interaction between the two in a meditative state helps to connect emotions and inner perception and this helps to reconcile fractured parts of the psychic state. I call it “slow mind” in my own self. Somehow it produces a sense of compassion, not sure how. Maybe it helps to create a sense of wholeness.

According to Doc Holliday, Johnny Ringo’s soul did not experience that wholeness, or in the words of Dr. King, maybe Ringo’s darkness lacked that Shining Present.

I can be like Johnny Ringo sometimes, sad to say. Maybe you can be like that, too.

My friend, songwriter Michael Kelsh, offers this:
“When I’m feeling low,
When there’s no place I can go
When my soul is dry and thirsty,
I draw water from the well of mercy.”

Let’s do better. Let’s heal the holes in the middle of our souls. Let’s make an absolute commitment to love. Let’s draw water from the well of mercy.
Or, as Doc Holliday would say, when he won the hand of poker, “Isn’t that a daisy?”

A data center is a physical facility that houses IT infrastructure for building, running and delivering applications and services. Elon Musk’s Colossus data center in Memphis, the biggest of its kind in the world, is drawing massive amounts of power every day, purportedly in order to power and “train” a new version of the Grok AI model. Grok is an AI assistant that completes tasks like answering questions, solving problems, generating images and brainstorming. Musk’s company, xAI, was created for the purpose of AI development and at its center is the powerful supercomputer, Colossus. This enormous computer could radically redefine AI. How radically? According to its mission statement, xAI claims to be “guided by our mission to advance our collective understanding of the universe.”

This was the deal. Colossus requires massive amounts of energy and water. In September 2024, the xAI supercomputer was launched in southwest Memphis. TVA agreed to supply 150 megawatts (MW) via the energy company Memphis Light Gas and Water (MLGW). This is enough electricity to power 100,000 homes. In return, xAI agreed to foot the bill for improvements on Memphis water quality and provide discounted Tesla Megapack battery storage to add stability to the grid.

MLGW is unable to meet the data center’s power needs until an upgrade is completed that will cost taxpayers $760,000. Meanwhile xAI is using mobile gas combustion generators, which the Southern Environmental Law Center says is illegal. xAI pledges to spend $24 million on a new substation, which will supply the data center with 150MW of power. xAI will get monthly rebates until they have recouped their cost and then MLGW will take ownership of the substation.

What are Memphis residents and organizations saying? 

In the prior year, TVA cited the inability to keep up with power demands as their rationale for proposing additional methane gas plants. Groups are pointing to this as evidence that TVA is ill prepared to meet the needs of xAI’s data center.

Citizen rights groups and environmental organizations have raised concerns about the negative impact on air quality, water access, and grid stability in surrounding neighborhoods. KeShaun Pearson, president of Memphis Community Against Pollution, said: “The ongoing policy violence that allows xAI to continue the consistent damaging of our lungs in Southwest Memphis is immoral. We deserve clean air, not silent strangulation.”

Pearson further states the TVA board “must do its job to sustainably serve its community and study the environmental implications of giving xAI an additional 150MW of power in an already energy burdened and over-polluted community of people whose lives have been sacrificed for generations.”

In a letter to TVA, Amanda Garcia, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, expressed alarm that the TVA board rubber stamped xAI’s request for power without studying the impact it will have on local communities. “Last year, TVA questioned power reliability and proposed a new dirty gas plant in South Memphis, and today Board members expressed concern about the impact large industrial energy users have on power bills across the Tennessee Valley. TVA should be prioritizing families over data centers like xAI.” The SELC letter further states: “It seems that over the next few years, ordinary MLGW ratepayers will be subsidizing millions of dollars in infrastructure investments required to serve xAI, both directly and through bill credits to xAI.”

According to the  SELC, the deal with xAI should not have been garnered without the consent of the city council. DataCenterDynamics had previously reported (July 2024) that Memphis city councilors complained that they had been left in the dark about the details of the scheme. Council member, Rhonda Logan, was quoted as saying: “We don’t know anything. This is already here and we don’t know anything.”

Environmental Injustice

The predominantly black communities in Southwest Memphis have long endured a history of environmental injustice.  Developers have followed the patterns of pointing polluting industries to this part of town under the assumption that these communities lack the political power of wealthier neighborhoods. As a result, residents of Southwest Memphis have high rates of asthma, over 4 times the national average of cancer rates, and the water has significant amounts of carcinogenic contaminants. Time and again, Southwest Memphis has shown the resilience and fortitude to organize and stand up in the face of environmental racism.

Climate Action 

The climate actions that exist, seem to be imperiled. The Daily Memphian reports (Feb. 13) that xAI plans to use methane gas turbines to power its data center in Southwest Memphis for the long term. On a permit application to the Shelby County Health Department, a consulting firm employed by xAI stated that the MLGW is unable to meet the eventual expectation of 300MW and additional power generation is needed to cover the shortfall.

A Grist article (Feb.12) describes a national trend where energy providers are responding to an extraordinary spike in demand by delaying the announced retirement of coal plants and proposing new methane gas build outs. The increased demand is attributed to data centers that back up generative AI and cryptocurrency. These data centers are booming across the country, but Georgia was the focus of the Grist article, where utilities are backtracking on their previously announced retirement of coal plants.

In Short

xAI’s Colossus houses the largest supercomputer in the world, it sits in our home state, and it is a venture belonging to Elon Musk. This billionaire oligarch seems to recognize no governance to his actions. In his powerful, albeit undescribed, position in our federal government, Musk has failed to demonstrate the slightest concern for the interests of American citizens. His tentacles have reached Tennessee and pose a threat to our ongoing campaigns for clean energy and the very health of our citizens. We need to be aware and stand united.

Emily Cathcart

Communications Coordinator, Third Act Tennessee

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwerner/2024/11/14/three-big-things-to-know-about-xais-colossus-this-week/

https://www.datacenterfrontier.com/machine-learning/article/55244139/the-colossus-ai-supercomputer-elon-musks-drive-toward-data-center-ai-technology-domination

https://youtu.be/Tw696JVSxJQ?si=EUq3Q8seq5_iokCz

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/xai-colossus-memphis-power-tva/

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/money/business/development/2025/02/03/elon-musk-xai-supercomputer-in-memphis-tennessee/78195954007/#

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/xai-memphis-data-center-elon-musk/

https://grist.org/energy/georgia-was-about-to-retire-coal-plants-then-came-the-data-cen/

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/we-dont-know-anything-councillors-in-the-dark-over-elon-musks-xai-memphis-data-center/

“The hope of this march is to empower people to keep fighting, to educate people on the topics,” said organizer Leann Willmon. Protecting the rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community, standing up to racism and hate, moving forward with solutions to the climate crisis and demanding healthcare reform will be among the issues.

One of us floated the idea of dressing up like oligarchs. Brilliant, right? The concept would address our twin missions of safeguarding our climate and democracy. As a bonus, we emphasize the fact that a few obscenely wealthy oligarchs, assuming control of the country, are muffling the voices of the people, so we would be touching on all the causes – a message in solidarity with all. We dove head first into this idea.

In the days leading up to the march, there was much texting with photos and ideas for our look and message. Thrift store finds, sign ideas, and practicalities such as how to stay warm, were some of the topics. Anyone familiar with the creative process knows how people are stimulated by each other’s energy and that’s what happened. We pulled it off and caused a stir, being photographed, interviewed and coming to know lots of good people.

Hundreds of marchers gathered at Wasioto Park by Cumberland River and marched through Nashville to Public Square to hear speakers and musicians. The crowd size was smaller than in 2017 and some questioned why. Are people weary, fearful or without hope? Important considerations, but soon set aside as the energy of this crowd began to rise. The feelings of connection and understanding were palpable. Perhaps as much as the desire to be heard, this is what people needed. We marched, chanted, sang familiar songs and listened to the speakers tell their truths. It felt just as righteous as it did eight years ago.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. May his wisdom prevail. I’m avoiding the news, choosing instead to write this report on the People’s March in Nashville. To freshen my experience, I spent some time looking through video clips from local news outlets. What a kick it has been to catch glimpses of us, our friends and the faces of people we met along the way. There we are, chanting, singing, faces glowing in the January air.

One of the working principles of Third Act is to boost others. Energizing one another is one way to do this. I’m feeling the good energy rise once more. That’s not something I expected today.

Emily Cathcart

Reporting for Third Act Tennessee

Weather-related damage has always been a foreseeable but fairly remote risk for most people—a perennial progression of wildfires in California, drought and tornadoes in the Central Plains, floods along the Mississippi, hurricanes in Florida. Even though these events have become more extreme, residents living outside climate danger zones have tended to consider themselves relatively safe from these seasonal weather disasters. However, as Asheville learned, the costs of coping with increased climate change risks are starting to ripple beyond the traditionally hardest-hit areas. The first waves are already being felt by those who make their living by taking on property risks–insurance companies.

Across the insurance industry, alarms are being sounded about the financial costs of climate change. Storms, wind, hail, and wildfires are generating a spike in property insurance claims nationwide. Crop losses due to heat waves, droughts, and floods are leading to increased costs for crop insurers and their federal subsidizers. As insurers seek to protect themselves against the price of doing business in their increasingly volatile industry, the cost to reinsurers–the companies who insure the insurers against catastrophic loss–is also rising.

Insurance companies, though vested with matters of deep public concern, operate without federal oversight. Instead, they are subject to varying regulations across each state that restrict premium prices and affect laws on coverage options and payments of claims. This patchwork of regulations allows insurance companies to recoup the costs of operating in states with pricing restrictions or more extreme weather events by raising premiums or limiting coverage in states with fewer regulations. Thus, the storms that lash coastal areas and the fires that rage in drought-prone forests are affecting everyone.

In addition to raising premiums, some insurers are refusing coverage to property owners in areas most vulnerable to climate-change risk. Property insurers have become especially cautious about betting against flood damage, the costliest of all climate-related property claims. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has stepped in to fill this gap for more than five million policyholders. It charges increased premiums to homeowners seeking protection of their investments in flood zones (which are often poorly identified) and discourages further development. But the NFIP is stressed by overuse and must rely on federal funding that lawmakers are increasingly skeptical of providing. Some states have also stepped in to provide their own flood insurance programs. The expensive premiums charged by these programs cover only part of their costs–the rest is borne by taxpayers.

Finally, insurance costs are also affecting home values and prices. Property insurance is required by lenders in order for prospective homeowners to obtain mortgages. As a result, higher premiums may negatively impact a home’s value, especially if expensive flood insurance is also required. Increasingly, online real estate marketplaces are disclosing climate risk to potential buyers, an indication that prospective homeowners and lenders are taking this risk seriously.

Increasingly, people are talking about climate resilience—the sense they can survive these disasters by taking a defensive stance against the consequences of climate change instead of fighting its causes. A resilience mindset may be useful–even necessary–in places that are already feeling the impact of rising sea levels and major fires. But, as the citizens of Asheville learned, even homeowners and business people who managed through luck or forethought to escape severe damage to their own properties found themselves stranded and isolated, lacking access to highways, water and sewage systems, and cell phone service. Spending weeks cut off from vital supply lines, essential infrastructure, and communication networks gave area residents a sobering look into a world in which there is truly nowhere to hide.

Financing disaster recovery has always been more politically popular than supporting measures to halt the climate crisis. But no matter what someone thinks about the science of global warming, the insurance companies who make their money by betting against disasters will have the last word about who will ultimately pay for the damage climate change is causing—and that’s all of us.

Cynthia Holzapfel

Environmental journalist and activist, ThirdAct TN

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2024/home-insurance-climate-change-housing-market/

https://www.thegazette.com/environment-nature/mississippi-river-towns-pilot-new-insurance-model-to-help-with-disaster-response/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/08/climate/home-insurance-climate-change.html

https://www.wlrn.org/business/2024-05-27/as-insurers-around-the-u-s-bleed-cash-from-climate-shocks-homeowners-lose

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/10/hurricane-helene-cost-disasters/680168/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01594-8

https://grist.org/agriculture/nothings-predictable-extreme-weather-is-ruining-farmers-crops-and-their-finances/

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/07/hurricanes-eroding-washingtons-disaster-programs-00182784

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2024/12/10/costs-pile-up-as-climate-change-adds-600-billion-in-insurance-losses

https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2024/02/crop-insurance-costs-projected-to-jump-29/

Recently, Tennessee residents and national environmentalists temporarily won a fight against the installation of a 32-mile methane gas pipeline to TVA’s Cumberland City electrical generation plant northwest of Nashville. Permitting of this project was blocked because of concerns about the damage that construction explosives would do to local waterways. The environmental cost of this damage would also be disproportionately borne by a number of poor or minority communities along the pipeline’s path.

A longer-term concern about converting this plant from coal to gas is the dangerous effects of leaked emissions on climate change. This fossil gas, that has long been branded as “natural gas”, is often promoted as a cleaner alternative to coal because it does indeed burn cleaner. The primary component of this fossil fuel, however, is methane, which is 80 times more powerful at heating the planet 20 years after its release than carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The leaking of methane is a serious issue.

TVA is making an all-out effort to ramp up the number of these polluting gas-fired plants in its portfolio, having proposed the construction of nine plants since 2020 alone (making for a total of 17 sites in Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Alabama.) The company is not convinced that solar, hydro, and wind installations are powerful and reliable enough to meet the increased demand for power in the TVA region.

According to TVA, methane gas plants are the perfect alternative for replacing coal plants. All of TVA’s marketing for new gas plant construction cheerfully promotes how much less carbon would be released into the atmosphere by switching from coal to gas. At the same time, the TVA board seems to conveniently ignore the science about the hazards of methane. 

Methane is released into the atmosphere from leaks and routine venting during the production, processing and transportation of fracked fossil gas. A good share of methane leakage also happens unexpectedly; it’s difficult to ensure a gas well won’t experience leaks. Abandoned wells degrade more rapidly over time than those that are regularly maintained, and there’s no way to ensure the companies that own gas wells will stay in business to care for them. It’s totally possible to build a tight gas generation system from the bottom up, as has been done in Europe, but it’s very hard to fix the leaky system already in place in the U.S. 

Gas plants themselves have already been problematic. Equipment has failed in freezing temperatures. During Winter Storm Elliott in December, 2022, TVA could not operate 10 out of 17 of its gas plants. Cold temps have also affected production wells, gas transportation, fracking sites, and compressor stations. Even if TVA could make these plants more resilient to cold weather, it can’t fix the rest of the supply chain without a lot of industry buy-in.

TVA assures they plan to use proposed methane gas plants mostly as backup for solar, wind, and hydro generation and to supplement the grid in general during peak–use periods. But gas plants used this way are relatively inefficient, and assurances aside, current gas plants are being planned to run 80% of the time. New methane gas plant build-outs could lock TVA into fossil fuel-sourced energy for decades. Why overbuild a hazardous technology that we may not need long term?

Every time the EPA announces more stringent standards to lower emissions, utility companies make dire predictions about their inability to meet these standards. But history shows us that new regulations actually compel utilities to cut costs and spur the innovation needed for better technologies. In other words, the industry is remarkably good at seeing the handwriting on the wall and acting accordingly. Also, there are government incentives to offset implementation costs, and these technologies get cheaper over time.

It’s time for a national energy policy that recognizes the dangerous methane emissions from fracked methane gas power generation and advocates for truly clean alternatives.

Cynthia Holzapfel

Environmental journalist and activist, ThirdAct TN

tennesseelookout.com/2024/05/01/environmental-groups-sue-federal-agency-over-middle-tennessee-pipeline-approval/

https://doi.org/10.1002/ese3.1934

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/09/09/tennessee-valley-authority-natural-gas/

cleantechnica.com/2024/10/06/criticisms-of-lng-export-emissions-study-dont-withstand-scrutiny/

www.ceres.org/resources/reports/case-epas-strong-track-record-forecasts-technological-progress

Several months ago, I heard from local farmers at a TVA board of directors listening session about their concerns with new solar installations on farm land. I share their concerns. Electrical generation from solar is predicted to grow from 4% of the nation’s energy total to 45% over the next twenty-five years and could require almost 11 million acres to install. At this point, flat, open land close to electrical distribution lines is the cheapest option for solar sites, and almost half the land needed may come from our inventory of tillable acreage. We could also lose as much as 18 million acres of farm land from development of all kinds (residential, retail, industrial) by 2040, adding to the loss of valuable land.

Farmers and ranchers are already experiencing the devastating effects of heat waves, drought, and flooding, so slow-walking through solutions is not an option. We need a plan—an alternative-energy Marshall Plan, if you will—to install new solar generation sites where they’ll have the least adverse impact on land needed for food. We cannot continue to install new fossil fuel plants—or continue to operate the ones we have—andhope they’ll tide us over until alternatives can be put in place. This is something we could have done twenty or thirty years ago, but that ship has sailed. We can’t continue to add to carbon pollution and think we can outrace its problematic effect on climate change.

TVA plans to bring on 10,000 megawatts of power generated by solar over the next ten years, development that would take up about 100,000 acres. This build-out would be done throughoutthe seven-state area that TVA services, but even if all of it was done in Tennessee, it would still amount to only 1% of the state’s farmland. Compare that to the 9% of farmland lost to residential development over twenty years starting in 1997.

That said, there are things we can do to reduce the impact of solar installations on food acreage. We need to start by looking at low-quality land that’s suitable for solar installations but not for farming, such as old landfills and strip mines. We all compete for the few shady spots in mall parking lots, so how can we fashion private/public partnerships to cover these lots with solar panels? Large urban installations like these would be closer to where energy is in demand than rural areas are and can reduce demand for transmission infrastructure. Although we need to encourage more small-scale residential power generation, rooftop solar on industrial buildings with large footprints would significantly increase our capability.

Resistance from rural communities is currently the major reason why permitting of new solar installations has stalled. We need to create incentives for people to continue renting acreage to local farmers, so those farmers aren’t outbid by solar contractors.Agricultural education programs can provide information to farmers on how to till and graze under solar arrays.

Rural communities need well-developed plans to ease the burden on quality farm land. They may need funding to develop soil surveys so they can determine what land to use for solar installations and what land to protect. Legislators can support regulations that protect the quality of land beneath solar installations and ensure that it can be farmed again in the future.

Finally, we need options to ensure some portion of generation income will go back into the rural communities who are hosting the future source of power that will serve us all.

Cynthia Holzapfel

Environmental journalist and activist, ThirdAct TN

https://www.agrivoltaics-conference.org/fileadmin/data/AgriVoltaics/2024/Catalog/AFT_Smart-Solar-Handout-General-D-combined-compressed.pdf

https://farmland.org/new-report-smarter-land-use-planning-is-urgently-needed-to-safeguard-the-land-that-grows-our-food/

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-solar-expansion-stalled-by-rural-land-use-protests-2022-04-07/

https://www.siliconranch.com/stories/tn-commission-finds-solar-no-threat-to-farmland

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/nyregion/solar-energy-farms-ny.html

https://dailyyonder.com/agrovoltaics-offer-dual-use-on-land-used-for-solar-energy-development/2023/07/19/

The coalition is CleanUpTVA. Coalition members include: Appalachian Voices, Center for Biological Diversity, Energy Alabama, Knoxville Democratic Socialists of America, Memphis Community Against Pollution, Memphis NAACP, Mississippi Rising Coalition, One Knox Legacy Coalition, One Voice, Preserve Cheatham County, Protect Our Aquifer, Sierra Club, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Sowing Justice, Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment, Sunrise Movement Knoxville, Sunrise Movement Nashville, Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light, The Climate Reality Project, Third Act Tennessee, and Young Gifted & Green.

The event is The Rally for the Valley which will take place this Saturday, Sept. 21, at the bandshell in Nashville’s Centennial Park. The event will consist of knowledgeable speakers and live music, with the intention of shining a bright spotlight on a problem that has been growing in the dark for too long.

The problem is the lack of oversight and transparency with the Tennessee Valley Authority, specifically in regard to it’s current plans for a massive expansion of methane gas plants across the region.

The TVA is a federally owned electric utility corporation with a service area that reaches seven states and 10 million customers. The CEO, Jeff Lyash, is the highest paid federal employee, raking in $10.5 million a year. That’s 25 times the President’s salary. While in a position to be a leader in the  transition to clean energy, TVA has instead made plans for eight gas plant projects, the largest fossil gas expansion of any utility in the nation this decade. The TVA demonstrates a total lack of regard for the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. While much of the nation is making strides toward renewable energy sources, the TVA is headed in the wrong direction.

What should we know about “natural gas?” It’s a fossil fuel consisting primarily of methane gas. It’s branded “natural gas” to make it sound safe and clean. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, leaks into the atmosphere when the gas is extracted. The extraction process, called “fracking,” results in a large amount of toxic wastewater. The gas is then moved through pipelines to gas plants which emit nitrogen oxides, which are linked to childhood asthma. Building new gas plants locks us into this source of energy for decades.

What can be done?

#1 Learn as much as you can. It doesn’t require an advanced degree in chemistry to learn the basics on energy sources and their consequences. However it does require the ability to assess the sources of information. A lot of effort is put into forwarding the interests of those who acquire wealth from avoiding the transition from fossil fuels. Here’s one example:

On April 12, 2023, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a bill into law that redefines natural gas as one of 17 sources of “clean energy.” The bill forces municipalities, government entities, and other political subdivisions that have clean energy requirements to consider natural gas alongside wind, solar, hydroelectric, and other sources of power.

An informed citizen would find this outrageous.

#2 Plug into an organization. Speaking truth to power is most effective when our voices rise in unison. Individuals find power in groups and groups find power in coalitions. The list of organizations that have created the CleanUpTVA coalition is a good place to start.

#3 Take action. Here’s a quick one. Sign an electronic letter to the Senate EPW (Environment and Public Works) Committee and call for them to vet and approve clean energy champions to the TVA’s Board. You can do that here.

#4 Attend the Rally for the Valley.  Saturday, Sept. 21 from 1-5pm CT at Centennial Park in Nashville. This event is perfect for all of the above. The Rally is a place to learn more, to witness a movement, and possibly find a place there. In so doing, an individual’s actions are amplified. Additionally, the larger the Rally, the brighter the spotlight on the TVA, so please be a part of that.

Third Act Tennessee sending a clear message to the Tennessee Valley Authority