Heart Free Pham — Candidate for City Council, District 3

Campaign site

Candidate statement:

There is no silver bullet. Hydroelectric works great in Oregon, but it destroys nature and violates Native land. Wind and solar are nice, but they aren’t scalable to meet the needs of the entire state. Realistically, Oregon needs nuclear power, but these facilities are wildly expensive, not to mention the cost of building new transmission lines to connect where energy is produced to where it’s used. We need to think pragmatically, and ethically before jumping headfirst into any future environmental boondoggles, please allow me to elaborate.

Oregon consumes less energy than 66% of the nation; even if the state was 100% renewable, it wouldn’t make a dent in the fight against climate change. Additionally, 62% of residential and commercial energy use comes from renewable sources. We’re already doing a good job, so why recklessly spend tens of millions more fighting a far-and-away battle we can’t solve while residents can barely afford to live, and we step over the homeless and mentally-ill living on the street? Furthermore, spending tens of millions of dollars to electrify our public transportation system makes no sense because, although 62% of our residential energy use comes from renewables, 89% of the energy used for transportation still comes from fossil fuels. Why spend tens of millions to electrify our transportation system when we would be charging those batteries using fossil fuels!? Not to mention the humanitarian cost of transitioning to green energy. Cobalt is the most vital ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, and 70% of it comes from the Congo. Everyone that doggedly wants to fight climate change while we ignore our neighbors, and side-step the mentally-ill and homeless on the sidewalk needs to look up, “Cobalt mining in the Congo” and realize that our green-transition is only possible due to American supremacy, and is built off the blood, sweat, and tears of forsaken souls abroad. Clean energy for us, indentured servitude somewhere else. As a Portlander, I can’t take pride in “going green” when it’s built off the backs of less fortunate souls. This doesn’t mean that we should give up on trying to respect and love Mother Earth, but rather just be more pragmatic and realistic in how we approach the issue. Solar, wind, and everyone riding their bikes aren’t enough for Oregonians to address climate change. The only realistic path we have moving forward is adding nuclear energy to the mix. However, none of these strategies acknowledge the humanitarian cost of going green; any climate action moving forward relies on slave labor abroad. America was built on slavery, and if we are going to use modern day slavery moving forward, we owe it to at least acknowledge this atrocity. That being said, nuclear and wind power are the most ethical and realistic approaches to address our energy consumption. Republican-lead Idaho is already breaking ground on adding nuclear energy to the mix, it would be a shame if Democratic Oregonians fell behind in this regard.

Will you ensure the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) remains climate-focused in line with what voters intended?

Yes