Cool Cities is another way you can get involved
Do you live in a Cool City? I don’t mean are the nightspots fun. I mean has your city (or village) signed the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement? More than 500 have and you can find out if yours is among them by going to www.coolcities.us.

By signing on, these cities commit to having their local government meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol goal of 7% cut in greenhouse gases by 2012 (as compared with 1990 levels); to urge the state and feds to meet or beat Kyoto; and to press Congress to pass GHG reduction legislation and establish a national emissions trading system. The program was started by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels in 2005, when Kyoto took effect without U.S. participation. Frustrated by federal inaction, many local leaders decided to act on their own.

The crux of Cool Cities is what the city governments can do locally. They focus on:
• Cleaner vehicles
• Energy efficiency
• Renewable energy.

Cleaner vehicles solutions
1. Green fleets – hybrids and other fuel-efficient autos.
2. Hybrid incentives – free parking, lower registration fees and taxes
3. Clean buses – buses that run on compressed natural Gas (CNG) that emits 25% less GHG or that have hybrid electric/diesel engines.

Best practices include:
* Houston – Converted a substantial portion of its city fleet to hybrids. An estimated 80% of new purchases could be hybrid by 2010.
* Charlotte, N.C. – Bought 2 dozen hybrids by the end of 2006
* Washington, D.C. – Over 4 years the Washington Metro Transit Authority replaced 414 diesel buses with CHG.

Energy efficiency solutions:
1. Making new buildings energy efficient – by changing municipal codes and/or adopting Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) standards.
2. Retrofitting old buildings – modernizing lighting, heating and cooling in public buildings like schools, police and fire stations, and city offices.
3. Street lighting and traffic signals – changing to super-efficient light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs.
4. Combined heat and electric power (CHP) in a single power plant to recover heat that is normally wasted and funnel it to nearby buildings.

Best practices include:
*Salt Lake City – Plans to convert all 1,630 traffic signals to LED. Replaced conventional bulbs with condensed fluorescent lights (CFLs) in city and county office buildings.
*Scottsdale, Ariz. – Requires all new city buildings to meet the LEED Gold Standard.
*Twin Falls, Idaho – Honeywell fronted the money to improving heating, air conditioning and lighting in schools.
*St. Paul, Minn. – Uses combined heating and power in winter in more than 80% of the downtown and adjacent areas, including the State Capitol. The plant is powered by biomass.

Renewable energy solutions
1. Renewable Energy Standards – require a certain percent of renewable power by a certain date.
2. Solar or wind – fund and/or construct wind turbines or put solar panels on public and private buildings, often in partnership.

Best practices include:
*Ft. Collins, Colo. – Plans to have 15% renewables by 2017 and reduce per capita energy consumption 10% by 2012. Expects to reduce total emissions by 472,000 metric tons. 2% rate increase.
*Columbia, Mo. – By wide margin, voters approved 15% by 2022.
*Waverly, Iowa – First municipal utility to install its own wind turbines on land leased from farmers. Goal is 10% wind.

For more details, you can go to www.coolcities.us and download the Cool Cities Guide pdf.


Do something

OK, here’s how you can make a difference. Many cities and villages have not yet signed on. The Sierra Club runs workshops for concerned citizens, one of which was June 9 in Chicago. People came from cities in Illinois and Wisconsin to learn how to organize to make their cities cool. Here’s what they were told:
1. Get a few like-minded people together and decide you are committed to doing this.
2. Forge a coalition of progressive groups, religious institutions, businesses, sympathetic government people and local organizations. Your city council/village board is much more likely to pay attention if you represent a broad spectrum. (You may need to make presentations about Global Warming to persuade some of these groups to join you.)
3. Research what has being done already.
4. Understand your city government.
5. Complete your game plan.
6. Go to the mayor and city council (or president and village board) and ask them to sign on. Make it easy for them by taking the appropriate form. (Again, you may need to make a presentation to educate them.)
7. After they sign, make it public, probably at a news conference with the mayor or villager president.
8. Hold their feet to the fire.
9. Move the mayor or president from talk to action.
10. Help move the campaign forward.

The Sierra Club, which oversees Cool Cities, can be very helpful in providing organizing materials and giving advice. E-mail or call colleen.sarna@sierraclub.org in Chicago (312-236-0059), Brendan.bell@sierraclub.org in Washington, D.C. (202-547-1141), jill.miller@sierraclub.org in St. Louis (314-645-2032) or Glen.brand@sierraclub.org in Portland, Maine (207-761-5616). They can also point you to other resources.

Even if your mayor has already signed the agreement, many of them are moving slowly and need to be pushed. Find out what stage they are at and how you can get involved to make things happen.

Chicago, for example, though one of the first to sign on, is still at the research and planning stage. It has a grant from the Clinton Foundation to assess where greenhouse gases are coming from and what actions would be most effective. The city expects to show a draft plan to environmental groups like Sierra Club this summer to get feedback and then announce a plan in November. Some steps Chicago has already been taken: It bought 20 hybrid buses and more than 50 Ford Escape hybrids and 30 Priuses for the municipal fleet, put more than 20 solar installations on top of museums, schools and other buildings, and passed an energy-efficiency standard derived from LEED, so new construction and renovation needs LEED certification. The city has been praised for its green roofs, but long criticized for it blue-bag recycling program, which is now changing, but slowly. It was recently reported that city government uses 22% more electricity than it did in 1998-2001. The city says climate control systems are being installed. An earlier plan to buy wind energy fell through, as did a plan to buy wind credits this month. So there is still much to do.

Though it's hard, working at the local level can often be most effective. So get involved.
Good luck!


Congressional round-up

*In what may be a pivotal moment for a U.S. reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) pledged this week to draft a bill this fall to establish an economy-wide cap-and-trade system to reduce GHG, with limited negative effect on the economy. While they gave no target, an aide said they would meet the goal endorsed by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which is 60-80% by mid-century. The announcement was applauded by Senate Environment Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who said her committee would take up the bill before the end of the year. Two environmental groups also praised the action. “This is huge,” said a spokesman for Environmental Defense. And the Natural Resources Defense Council called it a “great development.”

* In the House, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), chair of the Energy Committee, said his panel would work on economy-wide curbs on GHG of 60-80% in the fall and would look at both cap-and-trade and carbon taxes, as well as the role of coal and nuclear energy, auto fuel efficiency, expansion of alternative fuels, carbon sequestration and coal-to-liquid. Meanwhile, the committee is marking up a bill for debate after July 4, which will cover less controversial issues – the “low-hanging fruit.” Dingell has been criticized by his fellow Democrats for his failure to bring up corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) legislation this summer, especially after it was passed in the Senate. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said that despite Dingell’s desire to put it off, he would offer a CAFE amendment to the energy package on the floor in an effort to capitalize on the measure passed by the Senate.

* The southern utility lobby apparently made the difference in the failure of a 15% renewable energy mandate to come to a vote in the Senate. According to Greenwire, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Tennessee Valley Power Providers Assn., Southern Company and Duke Energy convinced enough Senators that it would undermine the stability of the electricity market in the South, which doesn’t have much wind or solar capacity. The measure fell 3 votes short of the 60 required to bring it to a vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he plans to revive the measure.
(Sources: E&E Daily, E&E News PM, Greenwire)


News briefs

1. ‘Perfect drought’ conditions now in Southern California
Scarce water and population growth have converged in Southern California to create conditions for extreme drought. It’s rained just 3.2 inches in the year ending June 30, which would make it the driest 12 months on record since 1877. And experts are predicting no more rain until September. “I call it the Incendiary Summer of 2007,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA in Pasadena. The Sierra Nevada, which usually supplies half the area’s water, has the lowest snowpack in 2 decades and the volume of water is down to 20% of its usual flow. At the same time, Southern California’s population has grown 2-4 times faster than the national average in the past half-century, putting much more pressure on scarce water resources. Because of Global Warming, high temperatures and a lack of rain may become the norm in the area, experts say, and that will require much better water management. Potable water shouldn’t be used on golf courses, the head of the water board said. And they need to stop storm drains from channeling rainwater into the sea. "We spend $1 billion to import water and $500,000 to throw local [rain] water into the ocean," said Melanie Winter of the River Project in LA. (Source: The Guardian UK)

2. Heat wave drives temps up to 115 F in Southeast Europe
A heat wave in Southeastern Europe the early part of last week drove temperatures as high as 115 degrees. Greece will see its hottest June ever. By Wednesday, 5 had died from the heat in Greece and least 30 in Romania. In Greece air conditioning pushed energy use to an all-time high. In Western Turkey the mercury hit 111. Forest fires broke out in several of Turkey’s Mediterranean resorts and brush fires started in Southern Italy. Severe heat is expected to last throughout the summer, though temperatures will ease somewhat soon, forecasters said. Bulgaria’s wheat crop is predicted to be down 30% this year from the drought and heat, while in Greece cereal crops and hydropower have been hurt. Meanwhile, England was seeing torrential rain and flooding. The Wimbledon tennis matches were postponed by rain Monday. Extreme weather is an expected byproduct of Global Warming. Is this a preview of what’s to come? (Source: PlanetArk.com)

3. Report: Europe must think about moving ports, coastal cities
The European Commission, which is light years ahead of us in recognizing the threats posed by Global Warming, is urging in a new report that Europe look at such extreme measures as relocating ports and cities on the coast and in flood plains, to protect them from climate change. The report foresees increasing disasters threatening Europe’s social and economic fabric and security. It says EU countries must protecting their power stations, transportation systems and agriculture from the flooding, droughts, landslides and wildfires that will result from Global Warming. "What is tricky about this is that we are going to have to spend billions preparing and adapting, and that is going to compete for money to stop climate change getting worse," said Tom Burke, a visiting professor at Imperial and University Colleges in London. (Source: Greenwire)