COLUMBUS, Ohio (WTVN) -- "Energy based on coal and oil products has polluted the land and the water. In order to care about everybody, we need to switch over to clean energy.
"Dr. Eric Brown is Pastor at Woodland Christian Church Disciples of Christ. He contends people will be healthier if Ohioans continue to invest in clean energy. Brown several dozen others gathered outside the Ohio Statehouse Thursday just before their scheduled meetings with state lawmakers to call for less support for coal, and no support for what the groups 'Faith in Public Life' and 'Sierra Club' call massive rate increases to bail out dangerous, outdated power plants.
"The message today was that the state government needs to take seriously the need for clean energy," said Brown. "Clean energy production has a very positive economic impact on our economy."
Jennifer Miller is right now in charge of the Ohio Sierra Club. She told those in attendance, solar power gets cheaper every day, and said activists are mighty. She urged them to not get weary, then sang a moment of a Presbyterian hymnal, "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning". "Investing in clean energy and climate action is a way of standing in solidarity with those facing environmental injustices," said Miller. "Most of our major cities get a failing grade from the American Lung Association. But perhaps most insidious is that the same corporations that pollute our body is the ones that pollute our politics."
Faith in Public Life and Sierra Club are asking legislators to vote no on Senate Bills 155 and 128.