Derek Bayless

Food sovereignty is an idea focused on people having the right to control what they eat and grow and create their own food. Another aspect of food sovereignty is to utilize local food sources and shift away from a global food market. Sustainability and green energy are core ideas to food sovereignty. While there is a focus on being environmentally friendly, this is not to the detriment to marginalized communities. Another important part of food sovereignty is the concentration on social justice and equitable outcomes by creating access to clean water and healthy food through resource markets.

My energy usage is lower than others in my area by about 15%-20%. I have recently been vigilant when family members turn on lights during the day or leave lights on in the bathroom when no one is in there. I have been turning off the lights constantly. I never realized how wasteful my family is with electricity! Not any more though. Another factor may be that we upgraded our old heater that was about 30 years old and extremely inefficient to a new high efficiency low impact heater which has helped to lower our energy bills as well as our carbon footprint.

I live in Monterey County California, and we get our electricity from PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) from the power grid, and we also receive electricity from Central Coast Community Energy (3CE) which is an agency that produces clean and renewable electricity by using solar energy, wind energy, and geothermal energy. Central Coast Community Energy has made a commitment to be 100% clean and renewable energy by 2030. My county is environmentally conscious, and the negative impacts are minimized by carefully selecting locations that are suitable. They also use designs that are friendly to wildlife. Bird safe turbines and solar panels are some of the examples. The also conduct environmental impact assessments to determine the level of impact that would be caused and selecting the best site for any infrastructure.