Winds of Change

Interview with Sunni Vargas, from League of Conservation Voters

One of the positive things that I got in the events I attended was meeting amazing people like Sunni Vargas. She Is a Clean Energy Organizer for the League of Conservation Voters, an organization that is educating people from Middlesex County to Cape May County about the Offshore Wind Projects in our state. They want to help people understand the real facts about this project and not become susceptible to the disinformation that has been frequently found on Social Media pages. Sunni and LCV are combating the misinformation circulating throughout New Jersey’s shore communities. As she commented, they stand for clean air and water, and also, for more open green spaces for everyone in New Jersey. This work is focused on the future of children because one of four children in Newark suffers from asthma, which is a preventable disease from the burning of fossil fuels, Sunni has a personal motivation because she and several members of her family have asthma, so she wants to be sure that New Jersey is moving in the right direction.

“Offshore wind is really perfect for the state to meet the clean energy needs and goals by 2035.”

Sunni told me that New Jersey is one of the five states that have the most properties at risk for sea level rise and coastal flooding, actually, our state is sinking and we are risking our barrier islands.
Sunni and the LCV share that our state is densely populated and there is no landmass to do many land-based turbines or be able to create large-scale solar farms, therefore, offshore wind is really perfect for the state to meet the clean energy needs and goals by 2035. Without it is going to be very hard and difficult for us to even be close to meeting that. In addition, she added, that our shore is a perfect spot for offshore wind development because the shore has a shallow wide shelf off of our coast. New Jersey, also, has a great spot for wind speeds, and then the turbines will be several hundred feet high, which are able to capture about 50% of the wind that passes by.

Sunni knows, as well, that there is a certain section of the community that just never will accept or embrace these projects for several reasons, but the more she and the LCV are going into the community, they see more people open to the project and open to find solutions like the clean energy. Young people want to be involved to do something about it.
Sunni is conscious that the world is living in uncertain times, and she doesn’t know what’s happening with the weather and animals leaving their traditional habitats looking for food sources or new places to live, so she calls it “global weirding.” She warns that the world will be experiencing this for decades if we don’t take action.

Offshore Wind will bring wonderful opportunities for our state; as Sunni says, one project alone, Ocean Wind 1, will remove over a hundred million tons of CO2 from the air. That’s equivalent to removing more than 20 million cars off New Jersey roads.

Talking about the industry, Sunni tells me that the state is using a program called OEX with the goal of incentivizing Offshore Wind developers. The state is giving enough funding to be sure that energy costs will not be so high for consumers. We may consider this new industry a bit expensive because bringing energy on shore will be difficult; also, developers and the state must update the whole grid because it hasn’t been updated in many decades.

Finally, Sunni has clear that the transition stage will be a challenge for everyone as the state faces fossil fuel offline and gets offshore wind and other clean energies online; in the end, New Jersians will be able to breathe better, and the air quality will seek to improve with the Offshore Wind projects.