Where there's a Will, there's a way

The State Journal-Register published my guest editorial today.

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We were warned.

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a major report representing the scientific consensus on impacts of man-made climate change.

For the Midwest, the report warned of heavy rainfall and unpredictable storms that would result in more severe flooding, delays in the planting season for farmers and disruption during harvest season. It perfectly described the weather trend of every year since the report was issued. One-hundred-year floods and extreme storms are part of the nation’s weekly weather report. It’s impossible to ignore the dramatic disruption to Earth’s natural climate patterns as extreme weather disasters are becoming the new normal.

Globally, we’ve seen that the panel’s predictions were not entirely accurate. Scientists now admit that the impacts of climate change are happening faster than many expected. Illinoisans are currently measuring the consequences of climate change in flooded homes, lost livelihoods, and reduced crop yields.

Coal power plants are the top source of man-made pollutants that cause global warming. While Congress has failed to take decisive action, Springfield and the state of Illinois can be proud of our leadership in the transition to clean energy. Illinois’ renewable energy portfolio standard requires a gradually increasing amount of our power to come from clean sources.

The standard already has created local jobs in the rapidly growing wind industry.

City Water, Light and Power became a national model by investing in wind energy, ramping up customer energy efficiency programs, shutting down an outdated coal plant and improving pollution controls on its other plants. And providing clean power hasn’t stopped CWLP from offering more reliable service and cheaper rates than neighboring utilities.

Others will be compelled to follow Springfield’s example. Operators of outdated coal plants will increasingly be forced to bear the true cost of pollution, whether it’s through a cap-and-trade program or EPA regulation that requires plant upgrades. Utilities that choose to be overly reliant on obsolete coal plants will be hit hardest by these changes, while those who make early investments in clean energy will benefit most.

As owners of our public utility, the people of Springfield must decide our energy future. The use of wind energy helps to green our current power supply, but Springfield has yet to make a significant investment in clean energy sources within city limits.

Now is the time for CWLP to begin offering incentives for distributed renewable energy, such as rooftop solar panels. As a source of peak power supply during hot summer days, small-scale solar will help CWLP remain financially sound while helping customers lower their utility bills and increase property values. In addition to customer rebates, other communities have launched innovative financing programs that allow property owners to install clean energy projects with little up-front cost and repay on their utility or property tax bill. As we grow, the city should explore ways to encourage the use of clean energy in new buildings as well, especially those receiving TIF district funds.

City leaders should take note that other communities are receiving significant state and federal funds to build large-scale solar projects. The opportunity to create jobs with a similar project can only be realized if the city is seeking those opportunities.

Being the owner of a public utility presents Springfield with unique opportunities for economic development. The refrigerator rebate program already helped to attract an appliance recycling center. Similarly, we can attract more green jobs by building infrastructure for electric cars, developing a mo-dern smart metering system, making it easier to install sources of clean energy, and pursuing further recommendations by the Cool Cities Advisory Council.

The most successful area of national economic growth is in green jobs, whether it’s installing wind farms, manufacturing solar panels, or building hybrid cars. Springfield can protect the environment and create jobs at the same time if we have the courage to choose a new energy future.

Will Reynolds is chairman of the Sierra Club Illinois Chapter.

Posted by Will at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Many progressive pundits seem to be stuck in the past. They expect Obama to be another Bill Clinton. Even before the inauguration he was accused of being the next DLC conservative Democratic sell-out after every hint of compromise or attempt at consensus building.

They don't get it. They don't understand Obama's approach because they're expecting a repeat of something more familiar.

Finally, I saw an article by someone who does get it. James Warren, writing for the Atlantic, explains Obama in context of his background in the Illinois State Senate and as a "deal-making community organizer." I've always viewed Obama through the same lens and I suspect that's why I'm very rarely surprised by anything he does.

And, as you watch him, be reminded of his informative pre-law school days as a community organizer in Chicago. Recall how they inspired both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin to openly mock the term "community organizer" at the 2008 Republican National Convention, with the former New York mayor unable to contain derisive giggling as he openly wondered what the term stood for.

Well, it stands for giving power to the powerless. But, for Obama, it also meant a strategic set of notions about finding mutual agreement among people with the most divergent of motivations, according to Obama mentors whom I know from back then and David Maraniss, the journalist-author now working on an Obama biography.

He describes Obama as taking a pragmatic, non-ideological approach to making progress, which incidentally, is how Saul Alinsky describes his own approach in the community organizing favorite, "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals."

The column gives several examples of Obama's work as an Illinois State Senator. The Illinois Senate drives me up the wall. The pace of progress always feels slow. And anything positive is often lumped in with something negative to appease lobbyists from the other side. But, over time they've done some impressive things like ending the death penalty, passing same sex civil unions, and creating a renewable energy portfolio standard. So, it doesn't surprise me when I see Obama attempt a similar approach at the national level.

He comes from a background which assumes that taking what you can get and fighting for more next year isn't considered a failure. Neither is getting people together for a solution that most can be happy with as long as progress is being made.

Let's look at health care as an example. Many bloggers choose to ignore that the U.S. Senate rejected the public option and that a single-payer system had even less support in Congress. It's less complicated to simply blame Obama for caving.

Yes, he compromised to get less than he wanted, but a bill was passed. The bill included a provision that will allow states to set up a single payer system. The first state which does so will serve as a model and pave the way for a national single payer system down the road. Obama compromised in a way that provides a foundation for continued progress.

Compare that to Bill Clinton, who adopted Republican agenda items (like welfare reform and telecom consolidation) and pushed House Democrats to the right. Obama has continued to make strong arguments for progressive principles and keeps pushing for more even after being forced to compromise with Congress. That's the difference between Clinton's third-way politics and Obama's pragmatic progressivism.

Clinton stopped pushing for universal health care after his '93 defeat. The Democratic Party spent the next decade talking about limited goals like prescription drugs for seniors. In contrast, Obama kept pushing to repeal Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy after being forced to compromise last year.

In another example, the Senate refused to vote on a cap-and-trade bill and Obama may share part of the blame for not pushing them harder. But, he didn't abandon the issue. This year he came back with a plan to divert oil industry subsidies to clean energy investments, while EPA simultaneously moves forward with new regulation on coal and CO2. He continues to push for the priorities he campaigned on even after faced with setbacks.

Obama's approach isn't evidence that he's a center-right or conservative President as I've seen him described by left pundits and bloggers. It's a difference of tactics, not ideology.

Undoubtedly, Obama needs to be pushed to do better. But, the comparisons to Clintonian third-way politics and broad-brushed denunciations don't add to the pressure or contribute to an understanding of what's really going on.

I'm afraid that too many on the left have been beaten down by decades of little or no progress. Losing has become part of their ideological identity to the extent that compromise is interpreted as failure . Progressives must learn to define success in ways other than losing righteously. There's a rising generation of progressives who aren't overburdened with cynicism and they're determined to get something done.

Posted by Will at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Your Environmental Road Trip is coming to Springfield as an official selection of the Route 66 Film Festival. Since YERT is meant to inspire discussion, it's being shown in advance of the festival as a free Liberty Brew & View screening. Co-Director/Producer Ben Evans will be here for a Q&A session!

It rolls into Springfield Tuesday, August 9, 7:00pm at Capital City Bar & Grill, 3149 S. Dirksen Pkwy.

50 States. 1 Year. Zero Garbage? Called to action by a planet in peril, three friends hit the road - traveling with hope, humor, and all of their garbage - to explore every state in America (the good, the bad...and the weird) in search of the extraordinary innovators and citizens who are tackling humanity's greatest environmental crises. As the YERT team layers outlandish eco-challenges onto their year-long quest, an unexpected turn of events pushes them to the brink in this award-winning docu-comedy. Featuring Bill McKibben, Wes Jackson, Will Allen, Janine Benyus, Joel Salatin, David Orr, and others.

Posted by Will at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey is there anything important going on in Washington? I thought there was a near crisis caused by House Republicans refusing to raise the debt ceiling. I thought there was more work to do in order to reach a compromise.

I must have been wrong because this is the facebook state update of House Republican leader John Shimkus on Friday.

Walked in the Troy Homecoming Parade this evening. Pretty toasty out there.

Well, at least there's nothing more important to do. And yes, this is the same John Shimkus who pushes conspiracy theories about global warming being a hoax.

Illinois Tea Party freshman Randy Hultgren had similar plans. He left Washington to walk in the Kane County Fair Parade. Now we know how Tea Party Republicans deal with an economic crisis of their own creation. They go home to walk in parades.

Posted by Will at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It would be nice for a utility to have a series of rooftop solar panels or a large scale solar installation to act as a peak power supply on a hot, sunny day like this.

Posted by Will at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg just gave $50 million to the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign. It was already the biggest, baddest thing happening in the grassroots movement to confront climate change. Now it's going to explode.

The coal industry may soon wish it had supported the failed cap-and-trade bill which was loaded with coal subsidies. The alternative will be something they like even less.

Here's how I see Americans dealing with the largest source of man-made global warming emissions as long as Congress fails to act:

1) A series of EPA regulations being introduced now will increase the cost of running the oldest, dirties coal plants. The industry will be forced to either internalize the true cost of their pollution, or shut their oldest plants down. They will no longer be allowed to act like a bad neighbor who throws their polluting trash in your yard instead of paying for their own garbage pickup.

2) The stimulus bill made huge investments in renewable energy. There needs to be another round of investment, such as Obama's proposal to divert oil industry tax breaks into clean energy.

3) Utility companies will face a grassroots movement pushing them to speed up the transition to modern, clean sources of power.

The fossil fuel Senate's failure to vote on a cap-and-trade bill during Obama's first two years in office was deeply disappointing. But, plan B may prove to be even more effective and it won't involve big giveaways to coal operators.

The Sierra Club coal campaign already helped stop the construction of over 150 new coal power plants. It has shifted to shutting down the oldest, dirtiest coal plants that are the biggest contributors to climate change and negative public health impacts. The Sierra Club's grassroots movement will grow, state by state and plant by dirty plant.

If you live in a state with many aging coal plants, then don't be surprised to see citizens calling for them to be replaced with clean energy. If you run a coal-dependent utility then start thinking about what you'll do next when your dirtiest plants become more expensive to operate.

This is the future. Get ready.

Posted by Will at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Normal, Illinois is abnormal for its leadership on smart growth and environmental initiatives. It has become a model community for small to mid sized towns in Illinois and the entire Midwest.

One of their latest initiatives is creating a private-public partnership to bring EV's from the coasts into the heartland. The assistant city manager of Normal wrote about the program on the Illinois Sierra Club blog.

The first major victory for the group was the announcement of an agreement with Mitsubishi Motors to become a pilot community for the North American release of their fully electric “i”. As part of this partnership, Mitsubishi has committed 1,000 EVs to the Bloomington-Normal market from 2011-2014. This partnership will ensure that Bloomington-Normal will become an early leader in electric vehicle deployment. The community is already installing charging stations to support the deployment EVs. To date, the Town of Normal has installed 5 public charging stations and by 2011 over 30 charging stations will be located throughout the community.

There's more info on their EVTown website. I'd like to see Springfield become a regional leader in building electric vehicle infrastructure to attract EV fleet vehicles but we're already playing catch-up to Normal. One advantage Springfield has is an environmentally friendly Governor who wants to incorporate more EVs into the state fleet. That provides an opportunity for partnerships the city can build on.

If you really want to dig deep into Normal's other initiatives, check out the 60 page sustainability plan. Or, this presentation with pictures of their downtown development plan is a little easier to digest.

Mayor Chris Koos has spoken at two Sierra Club meetings recently and everyone was inspired by the visionary things happening in Normal.

Posted by Will at 9:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone who follows Illinois energy issues will hear coal lobbyists and their politicians say our state is "the Saudi Arabia of coal." It has become a well worn cliche.

I heard on the Colbert Report that the natural gas industry upped the ante by claiming that America has TWO Saudi Arabias of natural gas.

But I know who can beat them all. America currently possesses INFINITE Saudi Arabias of wind and solar energy. Both coal and natural gas will eventually become more expensive to extract and supplies will run out. But, we'll never run out of the wind and sun. If someday the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining then the planet won't be able to support human life anyway.

We have two valuable resources we need to extract. Conveniently, no one has to destroy land or poison water supplies while mining wind and solar resources. We don't even have to spend billions on ports, roads, rail lines, and river levies to transport clean energy. Wind and solar come to us!

We can't leave these resources in the air!

Posted by Will at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My latest threadless t-shirt was popular at the Sierra Club Illinois Chapter meeting.

The closed plant seems pretty happy about not polluting anymore. It's called "Just quit smoking."

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Buffalo Springfield's Bonnaroo performance of Keep on Rockin in the Free World is in my head this Independence Day.

The videos I found of that show were all pretty poor so here's Neil doing it with Pearl Jam.

It brings to mind Obama's speech in Cairo delivered about seven months before Egypt's democratic rebellion. I remember pundits asking when Obama would have his Reagan-esque "tear down this wall" moment. If cable news networks covered actual news they might have realized that he already did in this speech.

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other. That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.

Now, there is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: Governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments -- provided they govern with respect for all their people.

This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they're out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others.
So no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power: You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

It feels good to have a President who advocates for real democracy around the world, rather than supporting cold war dictators. The free world is getting bigger.

Posted by Will at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)