CES does a lot on those little individual actions that you, Dear Reader, can take to lessen your carbon burden. And when the clean energy plan was in city council, we tried to get the word out to supporters to contact their aldermen. Other than that, though, we haven't focused too much on policies that can help this carbon shift along.
Well, here's something you can do to help us change that. In March, the Illinois Senate passed the Cool Cities Act, which provides technical assistance for cities that choose to join the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement (and, hey, check out the flashy new site!), which is a commitment by the city to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7% below their 1990 levels by 2012. Several Illinois cities have already joined (see the map at the bottom of this page).
This is important legislation, because it's a useful carrot for getting cities to join. One of the hurdles to making the commitment is knowing exactly what your greenhouse gas emissions are, for example. And what this bill provides assistance for is taking a GHG inventory, and then figuring out how to reach the cuts they need to make.
So, like I said above, this thing passed the Senate in March. It's now in the House Environmental Health committee (whose next hearing is Tuesday). I have no idea how this process works, but I figure now's a good time to start contacting Representatives. So go find out who your rep is or how to contact them (here), and let them know you support the SB1242, the Illinois Cool Cities Act.