Three tornadoes in Springfield within a
matter of days. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Melting polar ice
caps. Such extreme weather events and climate changes are symptoms
of global warming, says Colleen Sarna, the Global Warming
Conservation Organizer for the Illinois Sierra Club — and
it’s going to take local solutions to stop it. On March 22, the Sierra Club — along
with a dozen University of Illinois at Springfield
environmental-studies graduate students — locked horns with Springfield’s City Water, Light & Power
and an auditorium full of electricians to voice their concerns about
the municipal utility’s plans for a new coal-burning power plant. Emissions from plants such as the one
proposed by CWLP, says Sierra Club regional representative Becki
Clayborn, are among the top contributors to global warming despite
the environmental safeguards the new plant will feature. In the view of Clayborn and many other
environmentalists, governmental officials should be
looking to curb overall energy consumption. Adopting city building
codes that require energy efficiency would be one way to do this,
Clayborn says. Although tougher codes might decrease
consumption, they won’t replace the need for the new plant,
CWLP regulatory-affairs manager Bill Murray told Illinois Times in
March. But Sarna prefers an energy-efficiency-based
approach to fossil fuels or nuclear energy — both of which,
she notes, produce waste. “We don’t have to wait for the
White House or Congress to take some kind of action,” Sarna
says. “There hasn’t been much national support, so
mayors across America are doing something.” She points out the solar panels atop the Art
Institute of Chicago, $32,000 in utility savings for Salt Lake City when the city installed light-emitting-diode, or
LED, traffic lights, and the trend in some municipalities toward
replacing fleet vehicles with gasoline-electric hybrid cars. Asked why hybrids should be pushed, as
opposed to cars with significantly more fuel-efficient biodiesel
engines, Sarna says that most Americans still drive
gasoline-powered cars and aren’t familiar with alternative
fuels. Hybrids, she says, “are a win, win,
win.”
Colleen Sarna discusses how local governments
can combat global warming at 7 p.m. Monday, April 17, at Lincoln
Library, Seventh Street and Capitol Avenue. The event is
co-sponsored by Pax Christi Springfield and the Sangamon Valley
Group of the Sierra Club.
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2006.
