So I got an email today from “Chris Bowers, Executive Campaign Director” of something within the Kos corporate structure. In it, I am offered the opportunity to sign up with something called “Arcadia Power, a new kind of power company.” Doing so will supposedly strike a blow of some sort for a Cleaner Future. The email headline reads, “THE 8,000 LB GORILLA IN YOUR ELECTRIC BILL.” Like the many kosmails about “issues,” there are nice places to click (as in signing petitions and donating to candidates in other emails from the Orange Land) to take advantage of this great offer!!!
Here is the text of the email:
(your name here), did you know that an average American household’s electricity supply typically requires the burning of 8,079 pounds of coal each year? Just for your home alone.
But today, that can all change.
That’s right, we’ve set up a program with Arcadia Power to help Daily Kos community members like you quickly make the switch from dirty to clean energy!
Support the clean energy industry and fight climate change. Sign up for renewable energy right here.
Arcadia Power is a new kind of energy company that is committed to giving everyone access to clean energy even if your utility refuses to stop fracking or burning coal. We’re working with Arcadia to give the Daily Kos community an affordable opportunity to switch to renewable energy sources today.
Here's how it works.
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Your utility will still continue to deliver electricity through the same power lines, so there’s no new equipment needed, and you’ll experience the same reliability you’re used to from your current utility.
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You just set up an account online, and Arcadia Power gets to work buying wind power for your home. Better yet, you'll get a discount on your first bill just for being a member of the Daily Kos community!
So instead of purchasing dirty energy produced from coal, fracking and other harmful sources, your electricity bill will begin to support the clean energy industry. You’ll help renewable energy companies compete with the oil, coal and natural gas industries — and their high-powered lobbyists and billion-dollar government subsidies.
Help us move towards a clean energy future by signing up with Arcadia Power today. It’s fast and easy to do — find out more here.
I know many members of the Daily Kos community have been disappointed by corporate polluters and their quest to keep monopolies on our energy supply. That's why we are offering you something you can do now. Something important. In your own home.
By signing up with Arcadia Power today, you can join with other Daily Kos members in backing the renewable energy industry and ensuring there is a growing market for their products. So I hope you’ll check out this great opportunity here, and help us move towards a clean energy future today.
Want to start supporting clean energy? Sign up for renewable energy today in just a couple minutes.
Thanks for all you do,
Chris Bowers
Executive Campaign Director, Daily Kos
Here is what “Arcadia Power” is all about — getting a “Green Certificate” that supposedly allows the corporation to use your participation in their business model to take advantage of certain “laws,” to Arcadia’s owners’ advantage. One little explication, among many, of this “feel-good, at least” business model (and if you read it and are left with a lot of questions, you are hardly alone):
grist.org/...
I have to ask — is it the case that if I sign up for this additional intermediary function, with its costs and overhead that must be serviced out of my utility bills, will that 8.079 pounds of coal NOT be mined and transported and burned this year, or the next, or the next? That’s the implication. But most of my Duke Power comes from nukes and gas and even a set of large solar projects they have bought up (via corruption games) while lobbying the Florida government to kill off the ability of homeowners like me to ever have our own solar PV arrays.
Kos apparently finds some advantage ($$?) in tagging the organization to his brand. One can hope the Kos Label won’t go down like AARP, once a representative organization promoting and lobbying for the actual interests of its members in stuff like Social Security and Medicare, now “an insurance company with a consumer tail attached to it.”) Seems to fit with certain other tendencies one can observe in this site. Is monetization and crapification the only destiny of humankind? Oh, lookie, i got me a nice greeeen REC "Renewable Energy Certificate!” So I’m Dooing My Part To Save What’s Left Of The World!