Video: Weatherizing Chicago

Recently we participated in an event in Chicago to celebrate National Weatherization Day (haven't seen the greeting card for that one yet!). The purpose was to raise awareness among homeowners that there are major new resources available for cutting your energy use and utility bills, thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). ARRA is putting people to work in these programs all over the country. In Cook County, the Community Economic Development Association of Cook County, or CEDA, is the agency providing the jobs and the services. Other community action agencies are implementing similar programs elsewhere in Illinois.

Here's some highlights from National Weatherization Day event at an apartment building in Chicago's Austin community:



The jobs and energy savings being created through ARRA funding is especially exciting here in Illinois, where we recently won a great victory for funding this important work. As part of the state capital spending plan approved by the General Assembly this year, $425 million was budgeted for weatherization programs in the future. Those dollars will be available after the federal ARRA funding has been spent, allowing Illinois to sustain the changes, jobs, and energy savings initiated by federal funding well into the future.

We're also proud of the fact that we passed state legislation this year to require state-of-the-art buidling codes for energy efficiency statewide, so in the decades ahead, new Illinois buildings will be energy efficient from the beginning.

Green jobs are here now, and more are on the way!

USEPA Blocks BP Refinery Expansion

Good news today on the clean energy front:

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today issued an objection to the operating permit for BP North America’s refinery in Whiting, IN that will require the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to rewrite the permit. The decision is a
victory for the citizens and environmental groups who petitioned EPA to
object to the permit in August 2008 on the grounds that it did not
accurately account for the large increases in dangerous air pollution that
would be caused by BP’s expansion of the refinery. The petition was
submitted by Environmental Law & Policy Center, Hoosier Environmental
Council, Natural Resources Defense Council, Save the Dunes Council, Sierra
Club, Susan Eleuterio and Tom Tsourlis.

BP began a major expansion of the Whiting Refinery in 2008 in order to
process dirty Canadian tar sands crude oil at the facility. The expansion
would make the refinery the largest refiner of tar sands oil in the U.S.
and would increase numerous traditional air pollutants like sulfur dioxide,
nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. In addition, the expansion would
create approximately as much new global warming pollution as a new 300-400
megawatt coal plant, about a forty percent increase from current refinery
levels.

BP’s permit application claimed the expansion would not increase pollution
because the company would offset the increased emissions by shutting down
some older equipment at the refinery at a later date. But the company
failed to take into account many distinct sources of pollution from the
refinery, including flares (the large torch-like tower structures that burn
excess gases from the refining process) and “fugitive emissions” from leaks
and other sources. EPA’s objection requires the Indiana Department of
Environmental Management to go back and redo the permit taking these
sources into account. In the case of flares, EPA also presented the option
of prohibiting all new and increased flaring emissions. This is the first
Title V decision from the EPA requiring that these pollution sources be
addressed in refinery permits, and stands as important direction-setting
for future projects.

Last Day to Give IDNR Your Advice

Here's a good story on the latest in IDNR's effort to engage the Illinois outdoor community in discussion about the future of the agency.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is only now beginning the long road to recovery after years of budget cuts, layoffs and park closures.

In the latest example of Gov. Pat Quinn-style electronic democracy, IDNR Director Marc Miller is asking outdoor enthusiasts to fill out an online survey to help find cures for what ails the agency. He's hoping for input in three areas:

-- How can IDNR get more people involved in outdoor recreation?

-- How can the agency boost public access to recreational opportunities in a state where 98 percent of the land is privately owned?

-- Where can the financially-strapped state find more cash to enhance conservation and recreation?

Visit http://dnr.state.il.us/nrab/cc.htm to take part.

The Conservation Congress will review the results at its upcoming meeting Oct. 24-25 at IDNR headquarters in Springfield. The congress is a grassroots citizen input structure originally put in place by Brent Manning, director of IDNR during what many view as the agency's golden age under Govs. Jim Edgar and George Ryan.

If you haven't yet filled out the survey, take 5 minutes today to do so - today is the last day it is online, to give the Department time to analyze the results before the Conservation Congress next weekend.

Cook County: Wheeling and Dealing With Our Preserves

This year the Chicago region is marking the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's plan for Chicago that included a proposal for the Cook County forest preserve system, among other visionary features (like our open, green lakefront, to name another.)

Unfortunately, some on the Cook County board are prepared to mark the occasion by chipping away at the precious "emerald necklace" of forest preserves that rings Cook County and offers all of us a brief break from the pavement. On September 2nd, the Real Estate Committee of the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted to allow the clearing of 26 acres of Bemis Woods and to negotiate a long-term lease on the forest preserve property.

On Wednesday, the full Cook County Board will consider the Real Estate Committee's recommendation. Hundreds of Sierra Club members have been contacting their Commissioners, and we expect a close vote at the meeting. On Monday, the Chicago Tribune weighed in with a strong editorial against the proposal. If you live in Cook County, you can help keep our forest preserves intact by:

1) contacting your Cook County Commissioner and urging them to vote no on the lease at Wednesday's meeting; and
2) attending a Friends of the Forest Preserves rally Wednesday morning before the vote:

9 a.m. Wednesday, October 7,
outside of the County Board Room,
118 N. Clark St., 5th Floor

We are all the beneficiaries of visionaries like Burnham who planned and sacrificed so that we can enjoy these natural areas, and pass them on to future generations. In tough times like these, we especially need places nearby when our kids and all of us can experience nature, even if we can't afford to get out of town to bigger, more pristine parks and preserves far away.

Let's show the Cook County Board that these are not their preserves to be making deals with - they belong to all of us, and to the future.

Bring the Blue-Green Games to Chicago

There's a lot riding on the International Olympic Committee vote Friday, including a very unique opportunity to make the Chicago region a cleaner, greener, healthier place for 2017 and beyond.

Chicago 2016 has put together an impressive vision for a Blue-Green Games that deals with the air, water, habitat, open space, climate, and other issues associated with an event on this scale. Chicago's games will be very compact, not contributing to urban sprawl. All spectators will take public transit to all events - no parking lots. The games will be powered by 100% renewable energy, and leave our wonderful parks bigger and better after the Games leave town.

There is a tremendous amount happening in our city and our region in the area of sustainability. With environmental protection at its heart, the 2016 games have the potential to bring new energy, audiences, funding, and commitment to these already strong efforts.

I've really enjoyed being a part of the 2016 environment team, and am excited to get to work on the next phase of implementing the Blue-Green vision after we win on Friday!

Mark Kirk: Solving Global Warming a "Narrow Interest"

Last Saturday at an event in DuPage County, Mark Kirk discounted what had looked like a courageous vote in favor of the American Clean Energy Security Act in June.

On Saturday, here's how Kirk described his vote on preventing climate change:

"I voted for it because of the narrow interests of my Congressional district. But, as your representative, representing the entire state of Illinois, I will vote no".

Climate change is a "narrow interest"?

It is hard to imagine anything that this, or any, Congress could vote on that is a broader interest than climate change. Scientists agree that urgent action is needed by the world, and the U.S. in particular, if we have any chance to avert catastrophic change that threatens life as we know it.

When he says that climate change is a "narrow interest" of north suburban voters, does he mean it won't affect other parts of Illinois? The Union of Concerned Scientists recently released a report that found these risks to Illinois agriculture:

The Illinois agriculture sector would suffer from substantially more heat stress, which would impair livestock productivity. Illinois hog producers -- whose hog sales reached $800 million in 2007 -- already lose $20.5 million annually due to heat-stressed animals. By the end of the century, nearly permanent heat stress would plague hogs, dairy cattle and other livestock unless they are kept cool, for example, in costly air-conditioned barns.

Crop yields would also suffer. Illinois has 67 percent of its land in crop production and ranks second among the states in crop value. A 1988 heat wave that cost the United States $40 bil lion -- mostly due to crop losses -- reduced Illinois corn and soybean yields by more than 75 percent of their average annual yields from 1978 to 1997. By mid-century under the high er-emissions scenario, all Illinois summers are projected to be hotter than 1988.

Warmer winters and a growing season as much as six weeks longer than during the baseline decades would enable pests, such as the corn earworm, to expand their range. Between 1961 and 1990, conditions favorable to the corn earworm occurred once every 15 years in the middle of the state and once every three years in southern Illinois. With unchecked global warming, by the end of this century corn earworm infestations could happen nearly half the summers in the state's midsection and nearly every summer in the south.

Crop production also would be threatened by changing rain patterns, ranging from wetter springs -- which delay planting and increase flood risk -- to nearly 15 percent less rain during increasingly hot summers. Crop-damaging three- and seven-day heat waves would occur at least every other summer toward the end of the century. During the report's baseline period, three-day heat waves occurred only about once a decade, and seven-day heat waves occurred once out of 30 summers.

So global warming threatens our entire state, not just the 10th Congressional district. What about public support? I have not seen district-specific polling, but this recent national poll finds the American people in favor of the legislation Kirk has apparently disowned by about a 2:1 margin.

To be sure, there are powerful narrow interests working hard against these changes. Dirty coal is pulling out all the stops to keep their loophole, exempting CO2 pollution, wide open. Big oil is trying hard to keep us all on their hook, including scaring farmers, most of whom depend on fertilizers and fuels made out of their oil.

Kirk's vote for a clean energy future, and a chance to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, was the right choice for the broader interest. Now that he has told us all he wouldn't do it again, lots of Illinois voters want to know -

Mark Kirk - is my interest in a cleaner, better energy future a "narrow interest", or the public interest?

Springfield an Ironic Choice for Rally Against New Energy

Tuesday oil and coal lobbyists are bringing outsiders to Springfield for a few hours to protest the clean energy jobs legislation pending in Washington, and to attempt to argue for the status quo.

I know the location was picked by the American Petroleum Institute inside the beltway, but still - haven't they heard that Springfield is basically doing what the clean energy jobs bill proposes for the country?

Most of the "energy citizens" are getting a free ride, a free lunch, and a day's pay to show up and protest clean energy Tuesday. Here's what the DC organizers of the rally are against, and how Springfield is already doing just that:

-Targets for reducing global warming pollution
Springfield has committed to reducing global warming pollution 7% below 1990 levels by 2012, and gave residents cleaner air by shutting down an old dirty coal plant to help meet these levels

-Investing in the future with renewable energy
Springfield is leading the transition to a new energy future with its investments in wind energy, which protect local ratepayers by diversifying their power supply, and make our state capitol 100% wind-powered.

-Creating jobs cutting power bills
Springfield has begun major new energy efficiency programs to help residents and businesses use less energy, and create good jobs for skilled workers qualified to do energy efficiency upgrades.

So while Springfield moves to the future, national and state lobbyists gather here to argue for failed energy policies that leave most of us with high prices and pollution, and make the companies financing this “rally” richer and richer.

Springfield is showing that solving global warming works - they are doing it NOW, and know that it creates jobs, lowers energy prices, and cleans the air.

These are the same major changes before Congress this fall. Springfield knows these were good choices, and we are already seeing the results.

Maybe big oil and dirty coal can take some of those lessons back to Washington.