I don’t how you feel. But I’m excited to be in an historic moment in which change is happening, through vibrant, muscular collaboration and advocacy.
Electric buses have a key role in responding to the national cry of “I can’t breathe”.
Consider that people of color are disproportionately bus riders, and victims of coronavirus, and victims of police violence, and they also have the least access to health care. Black children, for example, are six times more likely than other children to die of asthma, due in part to their increased exposure to diesel school bus exhaust.*
Social justice may be newly prominent in headlines, but it’s been a long-time, painful drumbeat for nonprofits of color. The urgency of black and brown lives mattering has driven their work for decades. Below I list key, muscular nonprofits that advocate effectively for electric buses. Let’s support them, learn from them, collaborate with them.
For those new to this Electric Nus newsletter, I’m Alison Wiley here in Portland Oregon, a white lady writing as a public service. (I have no ads or sponsors – though I would welcome some help, I’m a tad lonely, plus I’m prone to errors that a helper would catch.) My last issue on electric buses and the need to overcome racism, including my own drew swift responses. From a Northwest reader: “Extremely powerful stuff . . . keep up the good work.” From a reader in the South: “You’ve gone out on a limb, so I want to support you … I’m happy to follow your leadership.” Both comments were from white men. I didn’t get any negative comments. Though you are welcome to comment in any direction ;).
The nonprofit groups below have in effect put some of the nation’s 425+ ESB’s on the road. One way they’ve done that is by influencing or landing Volkswagen mitigation funds for that purpose, and collaborating with school districts. (There are also more than 100 ESB’s on order – great! – but in a context of about 420,000 diesel school buses in the U.S.). All the below organizations are in the informal, nationwide Electric School Bus Coalition that meets monthly via Zoom to coordinate efforts. All support Black Lives Matter. I’m honored to have recently joined this coalition.
This list is not exhaustive – please tell me what groups you’d like to see added, and/or anything I should correct.
An arm of the League of Conservation Voters, Latinx led, with a motto of Clean Buses | Healthy Ninos (sorry my keyboard has no tilde). Vigorous, effective ESB activism in Arizona, New Mexico, Indiana, Maryland, and now Nevada. Executive Director Johana Vicente just won Forth’s Community Partnership Award (she says it’s really a group award). Chispa convenes the informal nationwide ESB coalition mentioned above.
This nonprofit has the richest set of factoids, links and resources of all types on ESB’s that I have yet found online. Like Chispa, bilingual Spanish and English.
Environmental Policy Law Center
Midwest-based, EPLC has catapulted ESB adoption forward via advocacy for Volkswagen funding in Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota. They organized a four state, six city ESB ride-and-drive tour of a Lion bus in 2017, for one example of muscular advocacy. Michigan now has six ESB’s on the road, with six more to arrive in September.
Clean energy workforce development nonprofit with nationwide focus. Job development is crucial in the COVID 19 era. An in-depth report by Christy Veeder on electric buses includes data such as 5-9 jobs created/supported for every $1 million invested in electric buses and charging infrastructure.
This award-winning nonprofit features an innovative funding model for electric bus purchases. The Pay As You Go system (PAYS) engages utilities around using the projected fuel savings of e-buses to flatten the curve of up-front capital costs. The model is well-proven in the energy efficiency world, newly adapted for the bus world, with a goal of hastening fleet transitions.
Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), Union of Concerned Scientists and Sierra Club’s Climate Parents are all national environmental groups that feature meaty ESB campaigns among their activities. These and 350.org are among the many white enviro nonprofits now embracing Black Lives Matter, seeing that racial justice, climate justice and community health are all intertwined. Which leads us to:
Juneteenth Weekend starts tomorrow – get involved! June 19, 1865 was when Texas finally learned that the nation’s enslaved people were now free. Mastercard, Twitter, Target, Nike and many more companies have now made June 19 a paid holiday. Hundreds of Black Lives Matters rallies and other events nationwide are planned June 19-21. Everyone has worn masks at the protests I’ve attended since May 25th. But at-home social media activism and local signage are also great.
Finally, I am developing my No Whanels (no all-white panels) list. If you are a person of color and would like to be on a list of panelists who can speak on the topic of electric buses or transportation electrification, please ask me to add you. No obligation to speak on any particular panel, similar to my No Manels (no all-male panels) list.
*To clarify, while the air inside a diesel school bus is even more intensely polluting than the air directly outside it, students on school buses are 70x more likely to arrive at school without a fatality than if they arrived via passenger vehicle. School buses have mastered safety — except for the emissions/breathing part.
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
I am on the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Chinook and Cowlitz peoples.
Whose land are you on?