Panel of Gubernatorial Candidates Discuss Environmental Issues at RIC

The public will have an opportunity to pose questions to those in the running to become the next governor of Rhode Island during a forum about the environment at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 2 in Rhode Island College’s Sapinsley Hall. 

Candidates scheduled to appear during the forum, sponsored by the Environment Council of Rhode Island and Climate Jobs RI, are incumbent Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee, Helena Buonnano Foulkes, Nellie Gorbea, Dr. Luis Daniel Munoz and former Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown, all of whom are Democrats. Ashley Kalus will be the sole Republican candidate represented. Ed Fitzpatrick of the Boston Globe will serve as the moderator at the event, which will also be livestreamed on YouTube. 

RIC Sustainability Coordinator Jim Murphy says training for renewable jobs, plastics in the state’s bodies of water and pollution in neighborhoods are essential issues that a new governor must tackle.

“We’re becoming a state that runs on renewable forms of energy,” Murphy says. “We need people trained in those type of jobs to satisfy the leap we’re trying to make.”

Murphy adds that the increasing amount of plastics in Narragansett Bay and other bodies of water statewide is particularly disturbing.

“Plastics don’t break down in the water; they break up,” he says. “They get into our food systems because fish eat the microplastics and we eat the fish. We need state legislation to limit the number of plastics getting into our waters.”

Murphy acknowledges that making such environmental advancements will come at a cost. 

“A new governor will have to find creative finance mechanisms to institute a tax or levy that will fund these initiatives, whether it’s through finding grants from the EPA or Department of Energy or working with the state’s congressional delegation to secure funding.”

Morgan Bulman, a RIC student who participates in the college’s Environmental Club, says she hopes the forum will highlight that everyone is responsible to be a caretaker for the Earth.

“We may be a blink in the earth’s timeline, however our impact can last longer than us,” Bulman says.