Still waiting for Chicago’s Climate Action Plan to fight global warming

(Photo of new blue carts in some neighborhoods from Flickr and photographer Zenia/ee.)

News Update: The long-awaited Chicago Climate Action Plan is still inactive. Expected last fall, it was to have been unveiled in April, Suzanne Malec-McKenna, city director of the environment, told environmental leaders in March. I figured Earth Day would be appropriate. But Earth Day has come and gone, and so has April, and here we are still waiting. Maybe the city is reeling over its (Cook County’s) recent designation as the third most carbon-emitting county in the nation. Or from the flunking grade it got last week from the American Lung Association for ozone and short-term particle pollution. The city’s “green” label is becoming a bit frayed. This would be a good time to release an ambitious master plan to deal with greenhouse gases. To Chicago’s credit, it has finally admitted it’s 13-year-old blue bag recycling program (where newspapers, plastics, glass and cans were packaged together and thrown in the garbage) is a failure and will fast-track expansion of its new cart program despite budget woes.