Baby Steps: The Push To Do Something About Global Warming Starts At The Bottom

Cleveland Free Times
December 5th, 2007
By Michael Gill

It was a Saturday afternoon in early November, after a week of temperatures the likes of which drive armchair climate-change pundits to crack about how global warming is impossible to ignore, or the president to say the effects might not be all that bad. Cleveland`s Step It Up rally attracted about 85 people to Edgewater Park - a small crowd of the most optimistic and ignored people in politics: grassroots activists, a representative from the city of Cleveland, a few Democratic state representatives and Congressman Dennis Kucinich. A folksinger strummed a guitar and sang with steadfast hope, but without amplification: "We are living on a living planet, circling a living star."

Step It Up is the national network of activists hoping to urge state and federal officials to accelerate efforts to reduce carbon emissions. As Buckeye Forest Council activist Randy Cunningham told the crowd, "We need legislation on a scale not seen since the New Deal."

That means federal action. The goal of the campaign is to motivate governments to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050. That may be even more ambitious than it sounds. Just like losing weight, it`s easy to take tiny steps - replacing light bulbs, setting thermostats lower - to shed those first few percentage points. And if you divide 80 percent evenly across 43 years, it sounds manageable to reduce emissions by 2 percent annually.

But after those first few steps, the bulk of the journey is where the real challenge lies. The messages from speakers at the rally reflected the scope of what`s necessary, and right now that only seems to be felt at the lowest levels. Climbing through the levels of government hierarchy means navigating increasingly deceptive levels of smoke-and-mirrors legislation and ultimately the economic interests of some of the nation`s and the world`s wealthiest lobbies - the energy industry.

As Cleveland Sustainability Manager Andrew Watterson explains, some local governments are trying. Cleveland`s mayor has been a steady proponent of reducing carbon emissions, having signed a climate protection agreement last year - an indication that the city officially agrees that climate change is happening, and that human factors are contributing. The mayor has also thrown his weight behind city ordinances that would use Cleveland`s spending power to push for green building, with a proposal to require energy-efficient technology before builders and rehabbers could get tax abatements, loans and other help from the city. More recently he`s proposed to require Cleveland Public Power to generate a minimum of 25 percent of its electricity from renewable resources - wind, solar and gas from landfills - by the year 2025. City Council will ultimately decide whether the measures are implemented, and some members have already voiced concern about how much it will cost.

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© 2007 The Cleveland Free Times