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Renewable energy
supporters cheered when John Kerry, in his Democratic Convention
acceptance speech, called for an American energy future that
relies on our “own ingenuity and innovation and not the
Saudi royal family.”
Maybe grassroots
America understands already. Coast to coast, for example,
states are setting minimum percentages of renewable energy
-- solar, wind, geothermal -- that they require utilities
to achieve. About half the states are funding energy efficiency
programs.
The Western Governors
Assn., at the urging of Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.)
and Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) has just made a commitment to
a package of tax breaks, government outlays, and ways to
shift utilities away from oil and coal. The goal: huge increases
in
renewable energy production in the next 20 years. Governors
of New England and the Eastern Canadian Provinces have made
a similar commitment, aimed at reducing the greenhouse emissions
that cause global warming.
Stand-outs among
big cities showing serious commitments to green buildings
and reduced fossil fuel consumption include Chicago, San Francisco,
Boston, Portland, Seattle, Austin, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
San Francisco, for example, is looking at wind turbines, solar
photovoltaic, hydrogen technologies and energy efficiency
installations to power a quarter of the city by the end of
this decade.
Chicago Mayor Richard
M. Daley, with a vision of developing America’s greenest
city, has pushed to meet clean air standards faster than any
other metropolitan area, cleaned up 1,000 acres of polluted
industrial land, spent over $5 billion to plant trees, improve
walkways, streets, parks and neighborhood communities. City
Hall now has a 20,000-square-foot rooftop garden, designed
to reduce the “urban heat island” effect.
On the education
side, there’s Chicago’s new Center for Green Technology,
exhibiting such elements as its rooftop solar panels, photovoltaic
awnings, a geothermal heat pump, high-performance windows,
storm water retention and a reflective parking lot. To underscore
his commitment, Daley has appointed a “green czar”
to make sure all city departments give weight to environmental
impacts in their decision making.
The idea isn’t
just providing healthy air or conserving energy.
David Reynolds of
the Chicago Department of the Environment told Charles Shaw
of Newtopia Magazine: “It’s also about increasing
Chicago’s competitive edge” as a place that businesses,
tourists, and today’s sought-after “knowledge workers”
seek out.
The multiple benefits
green agendas can achieve for communities are also stressed
by two leading advocates --Carol Werner of the Washington-based
Environmental and Energy Institute, and her husband, Jack
Werner of the Climate Institute.
Communities, the
Werners suggested in an interview, should try looking though
the “a greenhouse lens.” They’ll find that
conservation and renewable energy, the big first steps towards
reducing emissions, lead not only to better air quality but
better public health, developing better public transit systems,
urban designs that encourage walkability, and buildings with
natural light and air that are healthier places to work. It
all adds up, they note, to “cascading benefits.”
Jack Werner is a
kind of traveling troubador helping localities get moving
on sustainable energy issues. He starts by looking at players
in a metro area already active on energy issues, pulling them
together to form a coalition. “I like to make the city
and county governments the energy and climate change leaders
in the region,” says Werner, “to lead by example
in their own buildings, procurement choices, and policies
to encourage more renewables.”
Sustainable energy
backers are now starting to form alliances with the smart
growth movement. In a major development, the Congress for
New Urbanism, the U.S. Green Building Council and Natural
Resources Defense Council are adapting the widely recognized
“LEED” building rating system for energy-conserving
buildings to identify entire “green” new neighborhood
developments. To get high ratings, projects will have to be
in or near urban population centers and show they create density
that makes jobs and services accessible by foot or transit.
Is all this spitting
in the wind -- in a country still overwhelmingly dependent
on fossil fuel and foreign sources for its energy, a land
of gas-guzzling vehicles where the suburban spread model of
development is just starting to be challenged? You can argue
so. The Union of Concerned Scientists reports, for example,
that only five states, led by California and Texas, account
for 80 percent of commitments actually made so far to reduce
fossil fuel consumption and switch to renewables.
But the U.S. has
a long history of state reforms spurring later federal action--
including the first energy efficiency standards for appliances,
signed by California Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1974.
And popular sentiment
for green alternatives is rising fast. Last December the Mellman
Group poll asked Americans the best route to national energy
security. Thirty-seven percent named alternative energy sources,
34 percent wanted increased energy efficiency, and only 19
percent favored more production of oil.
Renewable energy
may have a long way to go, but the governors and mayors climbing
on its bandwagon are headed where Americans instinctively
want to travel.
Comments may be addressed to npeirce@citistates.com
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