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Documentary: Why Weatherization Assistance Is So Important For America
First published on ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which was recently named one of Time magazine’s Top 25 blogs of 2010.
Over the last 36 years, the government’s Weatherization Assistance Program has helped millions of low-income Americans make their homes more energy efficient and reduce energy costs. In some cases, those improvements were the reason recipients could afford to stay in their homes.
But this vital, common-sense program is now under threat. As part of the bizarre push back against smart clean energy and energy efficiency investments, WAP has become a political target. Funding for the program has dwindled, and it’s very likely that Congress will minimally fund it for a second year in a row. That could be devastating.
The 50-minute documentary below, put together by filmmaker Joshua Wolfe, chronicles how WAP began and why it’s so economically important. The program once had very strong bipartisan support. But it’s now a victim of politics. This film illustrates just how sad the conversation around energy in this country as become. Watch it:
Here’s what the filmmaker, Josh Wolfe, wrote to Andy Revkin of the New York Times:
What we often forget is that in those 36 years, the program has not just made peoples’ lives better but it has accumulated knowledge, talent and resources that make it better each year than the year before. If the program’s budget gets cut dramatically, much of those 36 years of investment will be lost. We can’t rebuild it overnight if we decide to increase program funding two years from now. It is also probable that if the continuing resolution passes at the $68 million funding level many of the people you meet in this film will lose their jobs in the near future. I hope that this film can help lawmakers realize the value of WAP and preserve the work of the last 36 years.
Are we really going to let politics destroy such a vital tool?
2012-09-06 15:21:03
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