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California power company partnering with immigrant community for energy conservation and first response
 | 06.01.2007 | 09:36:36 | Views: 5734 | ID:

June 1 '07: New American Media, which focuses on minotiry-based issues in the U.S., reported that California electric company Pacific Gas & Electric recently partnered with the ethnic journalist community in San Francisco to hold a roundtable discussion about ways to increase the public education on energy conservation, climate change and the ways in which it will affect those communities' first response.

Organizers of the roundtable told NAM that changes to the weather and climate will directly affect communities' well being and that reaching out to those fringe communities will be important for state and local governments. Sandy Close, executive director for NAM said, "This is part of a broader effort ... to build an informative news beat on energy and environmental issues in the ethnic media sector."

Representatives from PG&E said that local concern over changes to climate and how those changes will affect communities has increased. Wendy Pulling, the director of environmental policy for PG&E told NAM, "We think of climate change as being in the future, but the severe heat waves we saw this summer are what scientists are forecasting for the future of California."

Using ethnic media outlets, minority groups can mobilize first response on a grass-roots level, NAM reported. In 1991 during the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Filipino media broadcast organizations worked with communities in the U.S. and in the Pacific to organize relief efforts.

Ness Ocampo, a radio reporter and news anchor for the "Filipino American Radio Show," told NAM, "In the Philippines, we lost our days as ash from the eruption turned day into night. Filipinos in the Bay Area reacted immediately organizing on a grass-roots level. We reached out to the community groups, provided information and collected donations. We had to do it in 98 different (Philippine) dialects."

 

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