Environmental Justice

From Climate Change to Climate Emergency to Climate Crisis…

Or as someone recently said, “Climate Chaos.” During the years I’ve been writing about the climate, the situation has become more and more dire. When I went to the Climate March in NYC in 2014, workshop speakers, in the days before the march, told us that we had 30-40 years before the effects of “climate change” would become onerous. I traveled to NYC on the People’s Climate Train, with 171 other people, one-quarter of whom—including me—were over 60.

A self-proclaimed nerd, avid reader, and documentary enthusiast growing up, Cureton found inspiration in the pages of inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla’s autobiography. Despite being born worlds away from Tesla—Black and in the home of Black Wall Street—he related to Tesla’s innovative ideas and that he did not fit in with the norm. “A lot of my interests weren’t really mainstream,” Cureton says.

A 2019 energy use study found that the city of Thornton and the community as a whole spent $89 million on energy bills in 2018. Representatives from Thornton, Adams 12 Five Star School District, United Power, and GRID Alternatives worked in collaboration to define the energy vision, goals and strategies that are customized for Thornton’s community values.

By following a plan, Thornton aims to save more than two-million kWh of electricity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 27,000 conventional vehicles off the road by 2022