The interesting part of the guide is that it doesn’t just focus on one or two environmental concepts. It takes a more systematic, coordinated approach and provides organizational tips on how to build support for sustainability, prioritize opportunities, create an action plan and evaluate results.

It seems like environmental activists in Springfield are working on different pieces of the sustainability puzzle, lobbying city officials to address climate change, make neighborhoods bike friendly, support green building design, improve waste collection services and protect wildlife habitat. This resource guide provides a template on how local officials can address a wide variety of environmental, economic and community equity issues simultaneously, using an open and inclusive decision-making process.

The sustainability resource guide has not only helped put sustainability on the map in Portland area government, but the City of Fort Collins also used the guide to develop a sustainability action plan for its operations. Given the growing interest in advancing different aspects of sustainability in Springfield, perhaps the time is right to try a more holistic environmental planning approach in our community.

Known as GreenandSave.com, the web site was created by an architect with expertise in green home design and remodeling. This site makes it easy to see the up-front costs and long term savings for a variety of products, including programmable thermostats, low-flush toilets, high efficiency windows, greywater systems and even planting trees.

Perhaps CWLP could feature this resource or create something similar to help its customers make more informed choices about energy and water efficiency products that can help reduce utility bills and save money.

After opening statements by Roy Wherle and Diane Hughes, UIS professor Jim Bonacum made a presentation. Dr. Bonacum specializes in genetics and molecular biology and he participated in a training session by Al Gore and the Climate Project based on An Inconvenient Truth. He would like to speak to groups of any size, including skeptics, about the science of global climate change and what we can do about the problem.

(Diane Lopez Hughes opening the meeting. Click to enlarge all photos.)

Next, SJ-R photographer Chris Young showed two beautiful slide presentations, including many pictures of natural Illinois prairies. He brought a blade of the prairie grass that once covered this region and helped create the excellent soil we now use for farmland. He reminded everyone of how much our natural environment has given us.

(Chris Young speaking)

The next part of the town meeting was an open forum for audience members to talk about how to take action both personally and with environmental organizations. For me the most exciting part of this event was the large crowd with about 140 people, (about the same size as Chicago's Step It Up meeting) including many of Springfield's environmental leaders. It drew people who have been active in the local movement for many years, like Alex Casella.

Casella made two points I found myself nodding my head to. One is that elected officials notice that environmental groups are not as active in elections as most other groups who ask for their vote on issues. I've often found myself frustrated by how many environmental activists don't want to get involved in campaigns. As a movement, most environmental organizations are 501-C3 non-profits in order to attain tax-exempt funding, but that also precludes them from engaging in many election activities. That's one reason the environmental agenda often loses legislative battles despite having overwhelming public support.

Another good point he made later during the meeting is that Springfield is showing real leadership in the clean energy agreement between the city and the Sierra Club. This is one area where we aren't ten years behind Chicago. Springfield now has a stronger commitment to using wind power and energy efficiency programs than Chicago and most other cities in America.

During that portion of the meeting someone mentioned Kevin Green's guest editorial in the SJ-R about promoting more bicycle use. I won't try to name all the leaders present or summarize all the comments made because I know I'll miss too much. But, we did have two elected officials present that I know of, Sam Cahman and Mike Ziri. Also speaking from the audience were a State Senate candidate, plus the wife of US Congressional candidate Joe McMenamin.

(A big crowd)

The next portion of the meeting was for local organizations to talk about the work they do related to climate change and how people can get involved. They included Pax Christi Springfield, UIS SAGE, Sustainable Springfield Inc, and others.

I spoke for the Cool Cities initiative and the Sangamon Valley Group of the Sierra Club. Cool Cities is a national drive to encourage cities to sign the US Council of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement to reduce their CO2 emissions. Springfield has already gone a long way toward reaching the goals of Cool Cities because of the clean energy agreement with the Sierra Club, but there is much more to do in areas not related to power generation, such as promoting bicycling, good public transportation, incorporating hybrid vehicles into the citiy's non-emergency fleet and greener building codes.

Leadership is the national theme of this year's Step It Up events so when I put my Sangamon Valley Group hat on I spoke about the national attention Springfield is receiving for the Sierra Club clean energy agreement. I emphasized two ways people can get involved in the follow-up to the agreement to make it reach its full potential.

One, is to participate in the energy efficiency & conservation programs and the planning process to create new programs. CWLP's energy services office is rolling out new rebates and programs people can participate in to reduce their energy usage and carbon emissions. This is a good way for people to help stop global warming while also reducing their monthly utility bill.

CWLP is going to dramatically expand its energy efficiency programs and part of the Sierra Club agreement provides for the public to be involved in shaping those programs. That's why CWLP is holding a series of public energy forums. The forums are an excellent opportunity to tell our utility how you want them to promote more efficient energy use and related environmental programs. Additionally, the Sierra Club would like a citizens advisory board to work with CWLP on developing those programs.

The second way for the public to get involved in the agreement is through a green energy buy-in program. This allows people to pay a little extra on their bill with the money going toward additional clean, renewable power generation. If this is something you're interested in you can let CWLP know that you want them to make the program available soon, and remember to participate when its offered.

Finally, I spoke about the formation of the Sierra Club, Sangamon Valley Group, Energy & Climate Change Committee (ECCC). The ECCC will focus on follow-up to the clean energy agreement and provide a way for people to get involved in other initiatives related to energy and climate change, including Cool Cities, the Clean Car Campaign, and work being done by other area environmental groups. The next meeting is Tuesday, November 27th at 6pm in the Lincoln Library, 3rd Floor, Bicentennial Room. Everyone is welcome to attend, even if you aren't a Sierra Club member.

I realize I wrote about my own portion of the meeting at much greater length than everything else. Well, its my blog, and those are the parts of the meeting I remember most clearly anyway.

After all groups made their presentations there was a shorter period of group discussion and announcements. People also enjoyed tasty home-made snacks made with locally grown ingredients and fair trade coffee. The whole thing lasted about two hours and convinced me that people in Springfield are ready to show more leadership on climate change.

(Cross-posted from thereisaway blog)

I think cities are underappreciated in their potential to be environmental solutions. It's not simply that they allow for more efficient transportation, it's that cities can be, and should be, understood as a social extension of natural phenomena. As their own peculiar kind of ecosystem, they're not living, but they are lifelike (see, for example, urban metabolisms). Understanding these flows of energy and materials through our cities is crucial to minimizing our impact on the earth, but that's just the beginning. Once we've got a better feel for those flows, we can start to imagine our urban systems as more like ecosystems, with one energy input (sunlight) and endless material re-use cycles. We can also start to better understand the interplay of different actors--the varied functions that trees can provide (water purity, material recovery, energy source, energy saver, wind break, climate control, and on), the cycle of food and wastes, the distributed production of energy.

But since they're also fundamentally social, cities are places where memory becomes culture and biographies become histories. Cities are where we're most exposed to one another--where differences can be perceived and overcome, where we have many roles to play, many ways to relate to one another, in many combinations of cooperation and competition, equity and inequity.

A proper understanding of the role of cities doesn't just create respect for them, however. I think it also creates more respect for the role of rural areas. In William Cronon's book on the history of Chicago, Nature's Metropolis, he talks about hinterlands--the non-urban areas that feed raw resources into cities. I think "hinterland" has a perjorative taint to it, which is too bad, because it's an evocative way to reinvigorate how we think about cities and the areas around them. Too often, urban and rural are seen as opposed things--urbanites mock hicks in the sticks, while rural folk mistrust and reject the urbane. Which is bad, because we're not at opposite ends of a spectrum, we're different parts of a whole. This becomes plainly apparent when we look at the metabolism of cities.

Cross-posted.

1. If you decorate with lighting, look for LED holiday lights that use less energy, burn cooler and last longer than traditional incandescent lights.

2. Buy your pumpkin from the local farmer’s market or pumpkin patch, which will help save fuel in the transportation of products.

3. If you have to drive to take your kids trick-or-treating, carpool with family or friends to help reduce traffic and air pollution.

4. Try not to follow your children in the car as they walk from house to house. If the weather is good, join them and have fun while saving gas.

5. Use a canvass tote or pillowcase to collect treats instead of a disposable plastic or paper bag.

6. Make costumes from clothes you already have around the house instead of buying disposable ones from a store.

7. Minimize waste by purchasing candy that uses the least amount of packaging.

8. Start a compost pile and recycle your jack-o-lantern, along with leaves and other organic materials.

9. Purchase durable decorations that you can reuse from year to year.

10. Use this holiday to think about your daily habits and actions to protect the environment every day of the week.

Not only that, if you don't know the business end of a caulking gun, you can attend a low-cost/no-cost energy efficiency workshop (which covers most of the things you'll probably hear about when you get an audit)--the next one is November 3.

My first reaction was not, I confess, very big-hearted: "That's tacky." But my eyes dropped down to the sign on the front of the bin, and I got interested. The faux wood is Trex, a wood and plastic composite molded into beams for use outside. The sign said that Trex is one of the materials made from recovered plastic bags.

This, I thought with the fervor of a convert, is pretty great. Whoever came up with this is pretty brilliant. One of the big problems with non-regulatory approaches to environmentalism is keying people into how the environment and economy interact, the way that individual actions build toward something ecologically sound or ecologically disastrous. Stuff like Fair Trade and Bird-Friendly labels on coffee is one way to work it on the consumer side. This, on the waste management side, is another. One of the problems with recycling is that at the point of disposal recycling and just throwing something away sort of feel the same. The blue bin counteracts it somewhat, but there's little in the way of positive feedback to help keep you going. (Seeing products advertised as made with recycled materials is another way, but that's complex since it's also a selling tool. The Trex box nicely reinforces what you're doing.

[cross posted to The Other Leading Blog]

The program categories covered a wide range of customer types and technologies, including low-income energy assistance; residential lighting and appliance upgrades; commercial motor and HVAC replacement; industrial lighting efficiency; emerging technologies; and small business assistance. Several municipal utilities were recognized, including the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Eugene Water & Electric Board, Long Island Power Authority and Tucson Electric Power.

The profiles of these top quality programs should be a great resource for CWLP’s energy planners. They can be used to benchmark existing energy efficiency efforts and serve as a model for new programs and initiatives.