Arts

A fight for a clean energy future

In his new book, ‘Gaslight,’ author Jonathan Mingle describes how Goliath met David in the hills of Virginia

GUILFORD-Scientists agree that fossil fuels are wreaking havoc on our planet. Environmental activist and writer Jonathan Mingle can tell you of many ways those fuels cause harm.

Yet in his latest book, Gaslight, he tells a story in which common people stand together and shut down the development of a major fossil fuel freeway: the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Gaslight: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Fight for America's Energy Future describes the coalition of rural Virginians who fought for six years to stop the largest fossil gas pipeline ever planned to come out of Appalachia - and won.

"Around that core narrative, I have woven the long and sordid tale of how natural gas (aka methane, aka fossil gas) was sold by the gas and power industries to the American public as a form of 'clean energy' and a climate 'solution.'" Mingle says. "Gaslight is that rarest kind of climate tale: a hope-filled one in which Davids beat Goliath."

Mingle will speak on Tuesday, July 9, at 7 p.m. at the Broad Brook Community Center, 3940 Guilford Center Rd., in Guilford, at an event presented by the Guilford Energy Committee. All are invited to attend.

"This will be a fascinating conversation," organizers say in a news release. It will include time for questions about what Mingle calls "a key and often overlooked environmental issue: that ordinary citizens hold great power to change the course of climate disaster" when they work in solidarity with one another.

Mingle lives in Lincoln, Vermont, with his wife, Liza Cochran, who grew up in Guilford, and their two children. Gaslight came out in May.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase from Everyone's Books at the event.


This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.

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