Expanding civic engagement through online technology

Yesterday, a few of the NC Sierra Club staff got the opportunity to attend a workshop put on by The Triangle Community Foundation. The workshop was entitled Civic Engagement and Technology, Connecting People, Information and Causes in an Online Era.

It was a great treat to hear from some of our non-profit colleagues here in the Triangle about what tools they are using to better engage citizens and their members in their organizations' causes. Also, Rob Stuart, President of Evolve Strategies led most of the discussions. He is a famous "early adopter" of using the internet as a way to connect networks of people to political causes and advocacy. Among the tools we looked at were social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook to promote and connect more people to our organizations, web-widgets which are portable chunks of html code which can be used on multiple websites to gain information from the public about a particular issue. We looked at wikis which is a software that creates an interactive website where different people can contribute to the content of the website without knowing html (like Wikipedia). Some organizations are even utilizing YouTube as a method for online training of volunteers.

There are dozens of tools out there that can educate people on the issues, connect people to each other and their common causes, but the workshop also made it clear that it's important to use these tools as a spring board to real action. It is important to moving these people offline into the real world to engage in actions such as phonebanking, participating in community meetings or talking to public officials in person.

Young people taking the lead

There is a very neat story in today's Chapel Hill Herald about some students at Chapel Hill High School who were given the opportunity to come up with strategies for saving fossil fuels in lieu of taking an exam.

They come up with the idea of using LED exit signs in local businesses and took the idea to the town's Downtown Partnership:

They found that LED lights annually would cost businesses $4 and would release approximately 72 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution, as compared with incandescent lights which would cost $28 dollars annually in energy costs and would release about 574 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Pratson said that local businesses should be interested in using LED exit signs, if not for just the environmental benefits, but the financial savings as well.

You can read the full story here. Good for the students and good for their teacher too for giving them the leeway to do something more meaningful than book work.

Recent Sierra Club media coverage

Here's the mp3 from Chatham Olive's interview with Charlotte NPR on the topic of 'How Green is Charlotte.'

Also there were a couple preview stories of our upcoming Wake Forest Cool Cities event in the N&O and the Wake Forest Gazette. We are really looking forward to this event and are quite appreciative of the participation of the students from East Millbrook!

Sierra Magazine names Cool Colleges

The most recent Sierra Magazine names the ten 'coolest' colleges in America, and two of the top five are from North Carolina!

Coming in at # 3 is Warren Wilson College, which the magazine states:

This small Southeast star wears its environmental ethos on its sleeve and backs it up with a sustainably managed farm, garden, and forest that provide food and lumber for ths campus; streetlamps that reduce light pollution; and community service as an integral part of the curriculum.

Also on the list # 5 is Duke. The magazine's take:

The Blue Devils are turning green, mandating certification by the U.S. Green Building Council for all new construction, improving on-campus bike trails, collecting 17 types of recyclables, and pouring money into wind and small hydropower projects.

Additionally Appalachian State received an honorable mention for an on campus biodiesel fuel filling station.

Obviously the list is highly subjective but I do think UNC-Chapel Hill should have made it, even if I am slightly biased. More on that tomorrow...

Nonetheless congratulations to Warren Wilson, Duke, and App! It's great to see North Carolina colleges leading the way.

Wake Forest Cool Cities Event Tuesday

On Tuesday we'll have our event honoring Wake Forest as a Cool City...with a special twist!

The students from East Millbrook Magnet Middle School who helped last year in bringing awareness of the Cool Cities program to Wake Forest will be participating in the program. It's not all set yet, but one thing they'll be doing is performing a rendition of Billy Joel's 'We didn't start the fire,' which they've remade to be about global warming!

It should be a great event- 12 noon at Wake Forest Town Hall next Tuesday the 30th.

31 Cool Cities

Lincolnton is the 31st Cool City in North Carolina- and also the first from Lincoln County- and it will be the last because there is only one municipality in Lincoln County!

Our 31 Cool Cities now cover 19 counties.

Chatham Olive on NPR

Our Charlotte organizer, Chatham Olive, will be doing a four minute interview on local NPR affiliate WFAE this Thursday the 25th.

It will run at 6:50 AM and 8:50 AM. The topic of the interview is 'How green is Charlotte?'

Check it out on Thursday!

League of Municipalities Booth Picture

This is the picture of our booth at the League of Muncipalities Conference, kindly taken by Alicia Broadway of Benchmark County and Municipal Resources. Alicia was as good a booth neighbor as you could ever ask for!

Ann Arbor LED'ing the way

I've become a good North Carolinian over the last five years but I still love and am proud of my hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Even more so this week as it became the first city in the country and possibly the world to fit all its downtown streetlights with LED light bulbs.

This article from the Ann Arbor News mentioned that Raleigh was among the first cities in the country to use LED's, although not on the scale that they're planning in Ann Arbor.

Raleigh's LED Pilot Project, which you can read more about in our Cool Cities Best Practices Report, has been a great success.

Hopefully Raleigh and other North Carolina cities will consider following Ann Arbor's lead.

National Conversation on Climate Change Podcast

Joseph Puentes, the North Carolina environment's podcasting aficionado, did a podcast of the recent National Conversation on Climate Change event in Chapel Hill so that people who weren't able to attend are able to hear what was said.

You can choose which speakers from it you would be interested in hearing here.

Or if you just want to listen to me you can go directly here :)

Thank you to Joseph for all the hard work he does on this.

The Chronicle covers Cool Cities

The Duke Chronicle has written a couple good stories about Cool Cities in the last week. This one focuses on Matt Rumsey's work in writing the Best Practices Report, while this one talks about how the community and university interface on environmental efforts in Chapel Hill and Durham.

Thanks to the Chronicle for its coverage!

North Carolina League of Municipalities: the momentum is growing!

The League of Municipalities Conference gave me a great perspective on how well known our work is becoming across the state.

-The Mayor of Hope Mills told me he had been in the Mountains recently and that he had seen articles about Cool Cities in the newspaper and had heard people talking about it.

-A Swansboro Commissioner told me that his wife had been getting e-mails from me about the program and kept on printing them off and giving them to him! He said he thought it was about time for the community to get on board.

-The Manager of Morehead City told me that his Mayor had been asking him questions about the program.

North Carolina League of Municipalities Conference: the Odd Happenings

While the feedback to the Cool Cities program and the work we're doing across the state was overwhelmingly positive, there were some interesting reactions:

-The Mayor of one coastal community who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty informed me that our program did not apply to his community because they don't have any greenhouse gas emissions! Didn't seem like there was much point fighting with him on that one since there were other people waiting to talk to me.

-Two Council members from a Western Piedmont community that will also remain nameless came by to ask me about the program. When I explained it to them, one pointed to the other and said 'he has a lot of emissions and they stink!' Then they moved on. Glad to see the maturity.

-I pointed out to the town administrator of a mountain community today that his town was completely surrounded by Cool Cities. He said he didn't buy global warming and that when he began his career the liberals were coming and asking him to take care of global cooling...don't think they'll be joining in!

The other 200 or so conversations I had were very positive!

Three new Cool Cities!

At the North Carolina League of Municipalities Conference I found out about three new Cool Cities, increasing the number in our state from 27 to 30 and giving us the fourth most in the country!

While I was making my sales pitch on Cool Cities to the Town Manager of Tryon, he informed me they had signed six months ago when they received the joint letter about Cool Cities from Pat Smathers of Canton and Jimmy Harris of Brevard! They just hadn't told us.

Then I ran into Mayor Bob Austell of Cherryville. We had talked on the phone last month and he told me they were on board but just hadn't sent the paper work to the League of Municipalities yet.

This morning Mayor Barbara Cotten of Oak City told me she had responded to a letter I sent her in July about Cool Cities telling me she wanted her town to join in but that she hadn't heard back from us! We've been having some problems with our mail in the office and I never got it. The simple solution? She just filled out the sign on form right then and there!

Tryon is the first Cool City in Polk County, Oak City is the first Cool City in Martin County, and Cherryville is the second Cool City in Gaston County. Congratulations to our new and geographically well distributed Cool Cities!

North Carolina League of Municipalities Conference This Weekend

I'll be spending Sunday and Monday at our booth at the League of Municipalities Conference in Fayetteville. We hope to use the opportunity to introduce the Cool Cities Program to a much wider variety of communities than we have so far. If you're an elected official or staff person, come by the Cool Cities booth!

Two new Cool Cities

We are now up to 27 Cool Cities in North Carolina.

Yesterday we found out that the beautiful small town of Montreat signed on way back in May! Buncombe County now leads the state in Cool Cities with four- Asheville, Black Mountain, Montreat, and Woodfin. We're waiting on you Weaverville!

Then last night Indian Trail voted to become the first community in Union County to sign on. We hope it won't be the last!

Congratulations to Indian Trail and Montreat. We look forward to seeing what actions you take to help reach these goals.

Cool Cities Updates

-Pleasant Garden has become the 25th Cool City in North Carolina and we didn't even directly ask them to sign on! That's a good sign the program has taken on a life of its own.

-Tomorrow night the Town Council in Indian Trail will be deciding whether to become the first community in Union County to sign on. If you leave there, you can take action here to show your support.

-We're also making a strong push to bring Davidson in the fold. Express your support here.

And as always if you want to get something going in your community, give me a call or drop me a note.

North Carolina Cool Cities program goes national!

We thought it was cool when our Best Practices Report got covered on the sports pages of the Raleigh and Charlotte papers.

We think today's story in USA Today about it is even cooler!

National Conversation on Climate Change

The Town of Chapel Hill's event last night for ICLEI's National Conversation on Climate Change was a great success! The room at the Chapel Hill Library was absolutely packed with folks of a wide variety of ages. Each speaker contributed something good to the discussion.

Dr. Anne Waple from NOAA led off and gave a compelling presentation showing the real threat of global warming.

Cindy Shea, the sustainability coordinator at UNC-Chapel Hill, spoke about initiatives ongoing there. She particularly stressed the outstanding work the university is doing to be green in new construction, and credited outgoing Chancellor James Moeser for his leadership.

Representative Verla Insko outlined the efforts of the state on improving energy efficiency in the recent legislative session.

David Bonk, the town's Long Range Transportation Coordinator, talked about the many good things Chapel Hill is doing on the environment. Some of these are spotlighted in our recently released best practices report.

I spoke about the Cool Cities program. You can read coverage from the News and Observer of the event here.

Congratulations to Mayoral Aide Carlo Robustelli and the Town of Chapel Hill for putting on a great event!

Cool stuff in Chapel Hill

-There was good article in the Daily Tar Heel this morning about Chapel Hill's Cool Cities efforts.

-Just a reminder about the National Conversation on Climate Change event in Chapel Hill tomorrow night:

Next Thursday, October 4th the Town of Chapel Hill is holding two events as part of the National Conversation on Climate Action:

http://www.townofchapelhill.org/index.asp?NID=1452

October 4, 2007
Schedule for Chapel Hill’s Conversation on Climate Change

Part I:

2007 Sustainability Workshop

Location: Town of Chapel Hill Public Library
Noon - 4 pm
To register and see the Part I Workshop schedule click here

Lyle Estill, Piedmont Biofuels (biodiesel, sustainable community design, sustainability movement)
David Lee, Bland Landscaping
Tobin Freid, Triangle Clean Cities Program
Eric Henry, T.S. Designs
Greg Overbeck, Chapel Hill Restaurant Group

Part II:

2007 National Conversation on Climate Change
Location: Town of Chapel Hill Public Library
6 -7:30 pm
Program Agenda: TBA
This program is free and open to the public

Kevin Foy, Mayor of the Town of Chapel Hill
Anne Waple, National Climatic Data Center, NESDIS
Cindy Pollock Shea, Director of UNC Sustainability of Office
Tom Jensen, North Carolina Sierra Club
David Bonk, Town of Chapel Hill’s Long Range Transportation Coordinator

For additional information about this event please email the Town of Chapel Hill Mayor's Office at mayorassistant@townofchapelhill.org

Cool Cities hits the sports page

Our Best Practices Report and our outstanding summer intern, Matt Rumsey, were featured in the sports section of the News&Observer today because Matt is the starting center on Duke's football team.

You can check out the story here.

Congratulations to Matt, who was as good an intern as you could ever ask for.

Cool Cities Best Practices Report Media Coverage

There's been some good coverage already of our Cool Cities Best Practices Report.

You can read about the Triad here, read about Chapel Hill here, or listen to a radio story about Chapel Hill here.

Thank you to WXII, the Chapel Hill News, and WCHL for their coverage.

What Do We Do Now?

Guest Post by Marvin Woll:

When people in the future look back at this current period in time they will see that discovering the existence of global warming was the easy part. The hard part will be changing human behavior. If we are unable to change human behavior then we will not be able to have much affect on global warming.

Most people who are reading this have done many things in their own lives to reduce energy usage and thus carbon output. However, there are many other things we need to do to change the course of global warming events.

Each of us must become advocates in the battle against global warming. We should make a personal commitment that every day we should do at least one activity to spread the word about global warming.

Our congress and executive branch have been extremely neglectful in taking action on global warming. Under proposed legislation in the House and Senate mileage standards are not going to be increased until the years 2015 or 2018. This is not even close to being soon enough! Contact your representative or senator and demand that automobiles get better mileage by 2009 or 2010. If we can put a man on the moon then we can certainly do this.

This country uses 25% of the world's resources. It seems our motto in this country has always been "more is better". We must change that motto to "less is wiser."