‘Green wave’ aims to sweep Hispanics into cause

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, June 4, 2008 | 2 a.m.

A pair of uncombed, college-aged Mexican pop singers tonight will usher in the first attempt by a national environmental organization to target Nevada’s Hispanics.

A free concert by Latin Grammy winners Jesse and Joy at the Rio is the hook for la onda verde, or “green wave,” a campaign being launched here by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The idea is to draw a few thousand Hispanics to listen to the wispy duo’s harmonies and then persuade the crowd to dash off notes to Gov. Jim Gibbons protesting three coal power plants planned for rural Nevada.

The hope is the campaign, which is also being promoted in Spanish-language TV and radio spots, will sow the seeds for a groundswell of support for renewable energy among the state’s largest and fastest-growing minority population.

It’s the latest example of Nevada’s more than 600,000 Hispanics’ drawing increasing attention, a phenomenon seen in recent years in advertising and electoral politics.

“This is something that’s spreading, and it’s tied to their numbers,” said Nora Vargas, executive director of the California-based Latino Issues Forum, a policy and advocacy group.

Andres Ramirez, vice president of Hispanic projects at the Washington, D.C.-based NDN, formerly the New Democrat Network, said the green wave campaign is the first full-blown effort by a national environmental group to reach Hispanics in Nevada. Ramirez compared the move to the Democratic Party’s choice of Nevada as an early caucus state. The selection of the state was in part due to its Hispanic population, party leaders said. The campaign also hopes to reverse what experts and its promoters say is a popular misconception: that Hispanics don’t care about the environment.

Last month, the Sierra Club released what it said was the first national survey of Hispanic voters on energy and environmental issues. The main conclusion: 80 percent said those issues have “a lot” or “some” impact on their quality of life, with the same percentage saying that global warming — a focus of la onda verde — is a major problem.

Low-income Hispanics, in particular, are “disproportionately affected by health and environmental concerns” because they often live close to sources of pollution, Oliver Bernstein, spokesman for the Sierra Club, said.

At the same time, however, “for far too long, the Hispanic community has been ignored or not invited to participate in environmental issues,” Bernstein said.

La onda verde may help change that. “We’re going to see more and more of this,” Bernstein said.

Adriana Quintero, spokeswoman for the campaign, said many Hispanics bring from their native countries what she called “a love and connection with the environment” that they lose track of in the day-to-day struggle for survival in the United States.

“We have to begin to communicate with Hispanics about this subject,” she said.

She wouldn’t say how much money is to be spent on the campaign, which hopes to persuade Nevada’s Hispanics to oppose three coal-fired energy plants on the drawing board and to support solar, wind and geothermal energy.

Advocates for the coal plants contend the plants are the only realistic route to ensure the state has enough reliable and affordable electricity in the immediate future.

They plan to court Hispanics, too. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity says it is going to focus on the Hispanic community in an effort to make more people aware of the group and its support for coal.

“Our group is reaching out to anyone interested in keeping electricity prices affordable, and that certainly includes Hispanics,” spokesman Brad Jones said.

The environmentalists are pitching a different economic motive. Quintero said the Hispanic community, which is younger than other ethnic groups, has “an opportunity to be part of a new green economy.”

Tony Sanchez, corporate senior vice president of Nevada Power and former president of the local Latin Chamber of Commerce, seemed less than impressed by the green campaign.

“From our standpoint, it’s another out-of-state special interest group coming in,” he said. “We’re not going to fight with them ... we’re not engaged in a debate.”

“Our No. 1 concern is providing a reasonable, predictable price to our customers.”

He added that his company has increased advertising in Spanish, going from 1 percent of its budget for advertising in 2006 to 6 percent this year, as well as including information in Spanish on its Web site.

Quintero allows that being the first to target Nevada’s Hispanics with an environmental campaign might not be easy. “The community hasn’t been involved in advocacy,” she said.

Vargas said the best way to turn the tide is to get Hispanics to understand the impact that issues such as energy choices have on their lives through, say, global warming.

Having a couple of good-looking pop stars onboard can’t hurt either.

Sun reporter Phoebe Sweet contributed to this story.