On Wednesday, February 24, the Illinois Solar Energy Association will host an online program.about purchasing your very own EV. Register for the online event here.
On Thursday, February 25, the Wisconsin Sierra Club will host a training for members and others on working for a sustainable 21-23 budget. Details coming soon!
As the city prepares to put together a climate action plan, they are seeking your input.
Complete La Crosse’s Energy Survey
This survey will help planners understand how our community thinks about and uses energy. Please complete the survey before March 5. This survey should take about 10-15 minutes to complete.
We may be nearing some kind of peace with the coronavirus, but the climate crisis will require much more effort, determination, and change.
A new study on 2015 Paris climate goals concludes that, "the probabilities of meeting their nationally determined contributions for the largest emitters are low, e.g. 2% for the USA and 16% for China. On current trends, the probability of staying below 2°C of warming is only 5%, but if all countries meet their nationally determined contributions and continue to reduce emissions at the same rate after 2030, it rises to 26%. If the USA alone does not meet its nationally determined contribution, it declines to 18%. To have an even chance of staying below 2 °C, the average rate of decline in emissions would need to increase from the 1% per year needed to meet the nationally determined contributions, to 1.8% per year." Or, in short, our targets are waaay too low and we're not even close to meeting them. and even if we do, 2% is too much.
This is a crisis for all of us exacerbated by the worship of money and the power of the wealthy to spread the other big lie, that human-cased global heating is a myth.
Completing this survey is one small step you can take to tell local leaders that this is important. There are others.
WHEREAS humanity is faced with the growing crisis of climate change, with record-breaking temperatures, with consequences including sea level rise, prolonged drought, more frequent wildfires, more severe storms and flooding, and spread of diseases; and
WHEREAS the effects of climate change disproportionately hurt workers, people of color, and poor people, and constitute a civil rights crisis of our time, as seen so vividly in the recent devastation from hurricane impacts in Texas, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Carolinas, and Florida, wildfires in California, flooding in the Midwest, and elsewhere; and
WHEREAS the overwhelming scientific consensus attributes the warming trend to human emissions of greenhouse gases from the combustion of fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal; and
WHEREAS it is essential for the survival of humanity to drastically cut our emissions of greenhouse gases and convert our economy to renewable non-emitting energy sources; and
WHEREAS emissions from the transportation system are a major part of greenhouse gas emissions; and
WHEREAS affordable, reliable public transit is an essential public service, on par with utilities such as water and electricity; and
WHEREAS unequal access to public transit based on race, income, and disability persist to this day, and have to a degree become worse, with cuts in public funding for transit and consequent fare increases in many transit systems; and
WHEREAS public transit jobs in the United States have historically been good jobs that paid family-supporting wages, but in parallel to the cuts in public funding for transit and the trend of increasing fares, there is a growing marginalization of transit workers, who are facing worsening work conditions and erosion of their collective bargaining rights; and
WHEREAS transitioning our transportation system from excessive automobile dependence to public transit, especially electrified public transit with electricity from renewable sources, is key to transitioning our economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy and cutting our greenhouse gas emissions; and
WHEREAS the required expansion of public transit to address the climate crisis provides an unprecedented opportunity to create a large number of good, high-skill, family-supporting transit operation jobs, as well as construction jobs for building new transit facilities; and
WHEREAS the growth of public transit will also reduce automotive pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter that have the worst impacts on the communities closest to highways and other major roads, which tend to be disproportionately communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities; and
WHEREAS increased community access to public transit, reduction in racial, economic and other disparities in access to transit and clean air and in the burden of climate change impacts, and increased opportunities for employment in good jobs, form a key part of a “just transition” from a carbon-intensive, fossil-fuel based, highly unequal extractive economy to a pollution-free, regenerative, renewable energy based, just economy;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Coulee Region Sierra Club Group supports the call to observe a Day of Action on Public Transportation as a Civil Right on February 4, 2021; and
RESOLVED that the Coulee Region Sierra Club will draw attention to the continuing racial, economic, and other inequalities in access to adequate public transit, and the need for affordable and accessible transit, through the Day of Action; and
RESOLVED that the Coulee Region Sierra Club will use the Day of Action to highlight the vital role that can be played by expansion of public transit in the required shift from a climate-destroying fossil fuel powered extractive economy to a climate-protecting, renewable-powered and regenerative economy, with a just transition for communities and workers; and
RESOLVED that the Coulee Region Sierra Club will support legislation at the Federal, state, and local levels that:
Increases public funding for transit, including funding to expand transit systems, especially in underserved neighborhoods, communities of color, economically disadvantaged communities, and communities burdened by pollution;
Eliminates or reduces fares for particular populations such as seniors, people with disabilities, and school and college students;
Increases the accessibility of public transit for people with disabilities;
Increases job opportunities in transit system operation as well as construction, and ensures that the new jobs pay family-supporting wages, provide good benefits, and give workers the opportunity to organize a union and bargain collectively without employer pressure and intimidation; and
Prioritizes the hiring of economically disadvantaged people, people of color, people from communities currently underserved by transit and/or overexposed to vehicular and other forms of pollution, people with disabilities, workers displaced from polluting industries, formerly incarcerated people, and other marginalized populations for transit operation and construction jobs.
