And the Cool Cities Video Contest Winner Is...

The Sierra Club's Cool Cities Campaign has announced the winners of its 2009 Cool Cities video contest. First prize went to North Hempstead, New York, for the video above. Second and third place were snatched up by two Illinois cities, Gurnee and Naperville.

Cool Cities organizers Colleen Sarna, Cammy Watkins, and Glen Brand announced the contest via e-mail in March. "We wanted people to talk about their experiences and successes in building Cool Cities campaigns," says Sarna. "The entries we received did a great job of showcasing solutions that activists have promoted in making theirs a cool city."

The winning videos were chosen by asking the Cool Cities community, which currently numbers nearly 7,000 resigtered users, to vote for their favorite three videos. You can view all the entries here. And Sarna notes that just because the contest is over doesn't mean new videos shouldn't be submitted for posting to the Cool Cities YouTube site. "We look forward to hearing more successes from activists in the field," she says.

Cool Cities are locales that have made a commitment to stopping global warming by signing the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Begun in 2005, the Cool Cities Campaign empowers residents and local leaders to join together and encourage their cities to implement smart energy solutions that will curb global warming emissions and save money for their communities. There are now upward of 1,100 Cool Cities in the U.S. and Canada.

"It's exciting to see the progress being made all over North America," Sarna says. "When there was no federal leadership on climate change in the U.S., Cool Cites was a real trend-setter in problem-solving and brainstorming solutions—and it continues to be so. Progress happens at the local level first, and Cool Cities represents progress on climate change on the local level."

Learn more about how to get involved and help make yours a Cool City.

New York City to Green Its Building Stock

Photo courtesy of the City of New York

On Earth Day, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced a landmark plan to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the nation's largest city by requiring owners of thousands of older buildings to make their structures more energy-efficient.

Among the speakers atop a green roof at Rockefeller Center was Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, above, the only non-New Yorker at the event, which included city officials, labor leaders, builders, and environmentalists. (Quinn is pictured between Pope and Bloomberg.)

The package of legislative, regulatory, and investment programs will make New York the first major American city to ensure that all of its big buildings become energy efficient over the next ten years. City officials estimate the plan will create 19,000 jobs, save $750 million in annual energy costs, and reduce the city's carbon footprint by 5 percent.

The program would begin in 2013, with more than 2,000 buildings performing audits and starting upgrades each year for a decade. Improvements will be mandatory only if energy audits show that the costs of the improvements could be recouped through declines in energy bills within five years.

"The key factor making this so important is simple: market size," Pope says. "By assuring designers and manufacturers of energy-retrofit technology—efficient windows, insulation, high performance furnaces and air conditioning systems—that as long as their products pay for themselves within five years they will have a huge market, New York City, Bloomberg's program is going to fundamentally change the national marketplace for energy retrofits."

 

Later that day, Bloomberg, Quinn, and Pope appeared on PBS's Charlie Rose show. "We're doing this because it will create cleaner air for our citizens to breathe, it will create jobs, and it will make more money for building owners," Bloomberg told Rose. "Labor unions, developers, building owners are all on board—it's a win win win for everybody, and it's using today's technology."

Pope said the move will "set the template for what buildings in America will be like 30 years from now. Just as New York skyscrapers at the end of the 19th centure became a model for America, New York's energy efficiency at the beginning of the 21st century is going to become a model for America."

Cool Cities Coordinator Among Top Female Eco-Heroes

Photo courtesy of Glamour Magazine

Cammy Watkins, coordinator of the Sierra Club's Cool Cities campaign, was featured in a full-page photo spread of 70 female "eco-achievers" in the latest issue of Glamour Magazine. The shoot, which took place in New York's Central Park last fall, was part of Glamour's Earth Day feature, "70 New Reasons to Live Green." (That's Watkins in the front row, just left of center in the photo spread.)

Based in Omaha, Watkins works with Sierra Club and other campaigns across the country to implement more energy-efficient building codes. Cool Cities "pushes cities and city dwellers to adopt energy-saving solutions," writes Glamour in describing Watkins' work.

Among the people Watkins met at the photo shoot was Kimberly Lewis, vice-president of the U.S. Green Building Council. "It was really opportune to meet her in advance of last November's Greenbuild Conference," Watkins says.

Meeting celebs like Christie Brinkley was fun, she lets on, "but everyone I met was a total mover and shaker. I had a great talk with Leonardo DiCaprio's mom, Irmelin, who serves as CEO of his foundation, and I really enjoyed meeting Q'orianka Kilcher, who played Pocahontas in the 2005 film, The New World. She's very involved with environmental justice efforts and she's worked with indigenous communities both here and abroad."

Watkins also met new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the first African American to hold the post. "Actually, I met the future EPA Administrator, because she was still New Jersey Environmental Quality Commissioner at the time," Watkins laughs.

"One thing I love about the Cool Cities program is that it's positive and solutions-oriented," says Watkins. "It empowers people to get involved."

Hear more of what Watkins has to say about Cool Cities on this YouTube video.

Sierra Club Lights It Up in Las Cruces

They say a picture's worth a thousand words. That's Las Cruces, New Mexico, Mayor Ken Miyagishima above, holding a compact fluorescent light bulb at City Hall, where he signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement on November 20. The photo ran in the Las Cruces Sun-News the following day.

Present at the ceremony was Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter organizer Dan Lorimer, who has been working with the chapter's Southern Group to help the city meet its goal for reducing CO2 emissions. "Thursday's signing helps Las Cruces get on a fast track for its clean energy commitments," Lorimer says. Mayor Miyagishima announced that starting early next year, El Paso Electric Co. and various Las Cruces retailers will exchange their incandescent light bulbs for CFLs.

Photo by Norm Detlaff, courtesy of Las Cruces Sun-News.

Historic Boost In Home Energy Efficiency Standards

The International Code Council (ICC), meeting in Minneapolis in late September, voted to approve a 15 percent increase in energy efficiency building code standards for now homes, townhouses, and some apartment buildings starting in 2009. The boost in energy efficiency will make a significant cut in energy costs, air pollutants, and global warming emissions.

"An estimated 3 million new homes and apartments will be built by 2012," says Sierra Club Cool Cities Campaign Coordinator Cammy Watkins, pictured above at right with "Energy Hog" Emanuel Figueroa of the Club's Energy Program and fellow Cool Cities Campaign Coordinator Colleen Sarna, in Minneapolis. "With this vote, building and fire officials made a great step to move America toward a cleaner and more affordable energy future."

Homes and buildings are the largest consumers of energy in the U.S., accounting for nearly half of all greenhouse gas pollution and using more than 75 percent of the electricity generated from power plants. Implementation of the measures approved at the ICC conference will potentially reduce global warming emissions by more than 200 million metric tons by 2030.

"The greening of residential codes shows the power of the Cool Cities activist network," says Cool Cities Director Glen Brand. "Activists from around the country were successful in getting their Cool City local officials to ask their building code officials to vote yes to energy and cost savings for millions of new homeowners."

Read more about Cool Cities.

Let's Party for a Change

On July 17th, the Sierra Club's Lightbulbs to Leadership campaign culminated with more than 1000 people attending over 300 house parties nationwide. The campaign's message is that in order to solve global climate change, we need to change more than just light bulbs -- we need to change direction. We need strong, serious, and fast action to get the job done. House parties were open to the public, each with a host and attendees listening in on a national conference call featuring Green For All President Van Jones, Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire, and Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. Attendees then wrote letters to their governors to encourage green job development through the transition to a clean energy economy.

Throughout the nation people gathered at their local house party. Jenny Coyle, Sierra Club Website Producer and host of a San Francisco house party commented on the varied nature of the parties, "In Denver it was a festive outdoor affair. In Atlanta and Palo Alto, they were quieter gatherings of half a dozen people in a small living room. In Austin, folks packed the city council chambers, while up the road in Dallas they mingled in a café."

The House parties in Colorado, for example, were a huge success. In Denver, the gathering turned into a block party that closed the street and had live music (above). The 100 plus people in attendance continued to discuss the issues late into the evening. "The success of these parties just proves to me that people are interested in hearing about solutions to high gas prices and the continued addiction to oil evidenced in the Bush administration," said Roger Singer, Colorado's regional representative who attended the Denver block party.

City Councilman Chris Nevitt spoke at the Denver house party about local green jobs and highlighted the accomplishments of the Sierra Club and its role in the Blue-Green Alliance. Many attendees also signed a petition to protest The Bureau of Land Management's plan for Oil and Gas drilling into the wild Roan Plateau. The Enos Mills Group of the Sierra Club expects a large surge in volunteering and leadership following this successful gathering.

Besides Denver, there were around ten other house parties throughout Colorado. In Arvada, host Thomas Acampora entertained his 18 guests by showing them his personal energy costs savings from his Photovoltaic installation and resulting net metering payback. He and his guests, just like Robin Hoek and her party guests in Broomfield and other attendees elsewhere, sent their letters to Governor Ritter supporting green jobs. All in all, it was a fitting culmination to a successful campaign with a critical message.

"People want to get out and talk with their friends and neighbors about what changes in leadership need to occur this year to move us towards a new energy economy," said Singer. "These house parties gave them that opportunity, mixed in with a little social fun too. We ate, we laughed, we talked and we came away with plans before the night was through. This was a great way to spend a summer evening."

"Surely all God's people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play." -John Muir

Carpooling Across America

What if you could instantly create a new form of transportation that greatly reduced resource consumption? That was the idealistic question that led 24-year-old entrepreneurs and Sierra Club members John Zimmer and Logan Green (above) to found Zimride, a social ride-sharing service designed to make ground transportation vastly more efficient.

"The concept is simple," Green says. "Our parents had yearbooks; we have Facebook. Zimride leverages the trust inherent to online social networks to push carpooling to become a mainstream form of transportation."

Using the Facebook platform, riders and drivers can view one another's profiles before deciding to share a ride. Launched a year ago, Zimride now has 300,000 users in its carpool community and has built systems for universities and corporations; ultimately they hope to offer systems to entire municipalities. In June, musician Jack Johnson, who is incorporating a "greening" theme into his summer tour, partnered with Zimride via a carpool link on his website so fans can save gas and money by carpooling to concerts.

On July 16, Zimmer embarked on a Carpool Across America road trip from New York to San Francisco (above) to raise awareness about community-oriented travel options in times of rising gas prices and concerns about global warming. Carpool Across America ties together the themes of energy conservation, the power of social networks, and environmentally conscious business solutions.

"We'll be rotating passengers and blogging about the trip the whole way," Zimmer says, "and we'll also be interviewing young eco-entrepreneurs en route who are making a difference with creative business, art, and non-profit business solutions."

The journey will be documented by filmmaker Trevor White and covered by green consultant and eco-writer Margaret Teich. Below, Zimmer's girlfriend Christina Garcia Rivas is pictured at the start of the trip.

Read more about Zimride and follow the Carpool Across America.

Detroit Decision Makes Way for Greener Garbage

Detroit-area Sierra Club activists cheered on June 30 when Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick announced that the city will not purchase the country's largest waste incinerator, formally known as the Detroit Resource Recovery Facility, and will instead expand city recycling programs and send trash to a landfill.

"Now it's time to shout!" says Rhonda Anderson (below at left), director of the Sierra Club's Detroit Environmental Justice Program. "This announcement by the mayor is a major development and almost a sure indication that the incinerator will close." The battle over the future of the Detroit incinerator, which began operating in 1989, is seen by many industry people as a key to the future of incineration in the United States.

"It's time to retire this dinosaur of a technology that has polluted our city and planet for far too long," Anderson said at a citizen rally in front of the incinerator on June 18. "We are gathering today to say that incineration is a major liability in the context of climate change."

The Sierra Club is part of a coalition of environmental and community groups that worked with the city council's Environmental Justice Task Force to craft a "New Business Model for Garbage." The model includes goals for a future waste system that incorporates monetary incentives for recyclers, green collar jobs, and business and economic development linked to the reuse and sale of recovered materials.

Carol Izant (at right, above), chair of the Sierra Club's Southeast Michigan Group, has been a longtime leader in galvanizing citizen opposition to the incinerator through her involvement with the grassroots group Evergreen Alliance. She is also quick to credit the key roles played by fellow group activists Anna Holden and Ed McArdle (above center).

"Anna hung tough on this issue and cultivated the stakeholders needed to build a broad-based coalition of community activists, environmental experts, and sympathetic elected officials," Izant says. "And Ed's efforts over the years have resulted in the toppling of one incinerator after another."

Holden in turn praises Margaret Weber of Rosedale Recycles, a volunteer neighborhood recycling organization. Weber is coordinator of the New Business Model for Solid Waste coalition and former director of the Ecology Center, highly reputed for its work on incinerators.

The Detroit incinerator was sold to private investors in 1991, but the city, through the fees it pays to burn trash, continues to shoulder the enormous cost of running the facility. By comparison, the city of Ann Arbor, which has the most active recycling program in Michigan, pays $18.75 per ton to landfill its garbage, while Detroit pays $172 a ton to burn its trash and dispose of the ashes. Adding insult to injury, less than half of the trash incinerated at the facility comes from Detroit residents.

Read reporter Curt Guyette's series on the incinerator, The Big Burn, in the Detroit Metro Times.

Incinerator photo by Gyre.

Cool T-Shirt Leads to Green Day In Kentucky

This spring, Kentucky school teacher and Sierra Club volunteer Su-hwa "Winny" Lin organized a "Go Green Day" (above) at Tamarack Elementary School in Owensboro, where she teaches third grade. "It all started when I wore my Sierra Club "Be Cool, Go Green" t-shirt to school," says Lin (below left, in front row). "My assistant principal saw it and said, 'That's cool—where can I get one?'"

Lin had gotten her shirt from Sierra Club organizer and fellow Owensboro resident Aloma Dew, who'd printed them up in connection with her work with the Club's Cool Cities campaign. Armed with a fresh batch, Lin "sold" 20 shirts in one day to fellow faculty and school custodians for a $5 donation, with all proceeds going to the Sierra Club.

"Everybody loved the design, with Owensboro identified in the context of the western hemisphere," she says. "Now nearly the entire school staff has bought the shirt for themselves, their class, or their own kids. And best of all, they bought into the idea of 'Go Green, Tamarack.'"

With Dew's help, Lin organized a daylong program of videos, talks, and demonstrations from community volunteers on a wide range of environmental topics, including a presentation by beekeeper and local Sierra Club member Carol Mark and a talk about bicycling by Pennyrile Group Outings Chair Donnie Mayton. The City of Owensboro brought its new hybrid car, and students held a parade featuring costumes and floats they'd made out of recycled materials.

 

"Go Green, Tamarack" was accompanied by a weeklong focus on the environment at the school. Third graders interviewed custodians about how much trash the school generated; fourth graders planted a cherry tree and flower beds after studying plants; and fifth graders came up with a Top 10 List of ways to go green at Tamarack.

The event ended up promoting environmental awareness not just at the school, but in the broader community as well. "The local newspaper put us on the front page," Lin says. "I think we've started a "Go Green" movement in Owensboro!"

Oregon Counties to Fight Global Warming Regionally

   

A national first was achieved on April 10 when two adjoining counties passed resolutions in tandem to sign the Cool Counties Climate Stabilization Initiative, part of the Sierra Club's Cool Cities program. Clackamas and Multnomah Counties, which include most of Greater Portland, became Oregon's first Cool Counties when they jointly signed a declaration to combat global warming and create new jobs in the green economy.

The two counties, home to just under 30 percent of Oregon's population, announced their declarations at a joint press conference to highlight the importance of regional coordination in creating climate action plans. There are now 30 Cool Counties nationwide, in addition to nearly 1,000 Cool Cities.

 

Clackamas County Chair Lynn Peterson and Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen, pictured at top flanking Sierra Club organizer Christine Caurant, spoke about efforts already underway, like constructing LEED-certified buildings and investing in renewable energy to power county operations, and urged other counties to sign on and make Oregon the nation's first Cool State. Above, Cogan adds Multnomah County to the list. Below, Peterson speaks with reporters. At bottom, Oregon Sierra Club staffers Emily Bartha, Nat Parker, and Ivan Maluski record the event for posterity.

"It's leaders at the local level who are taking decisive action on global warming," says Caurant. "Getting Cool Counties passed in these two counties was a result of efforts by impassioned Sustainability Managers and willingness by new commissioners Cogen and Peterson to move their counties forward. We've still got one more county (Washington) in the Portland metro area that isn't yet ready to sign on, so we'll be working in the coming months to help residents there flex their Cool County grassroots muscles."

Read about what you can do to make yours a Cool County.