Shelby's blog

    If you want to know where the real environmental activism is taking place, you don’t have to look far. Local governments, frustrated by a federal administration that is woefully inactive on the issue of climate change, are tackling global warming from the ground up. Texas cities are taking matters into their own hands with aggressive local legislation that attacks everything from air pollution to waste management. How are they able to do this? It’s simple: the citizens expect no less. As Abraham Lincoln once stated in his famed Gettysburg Address, our governments are “of the people, by the people, for the people”, and only through the people will government take action and change.

The Cool Cities Information and Training Session last Saturday, August 4th was a wonderful success. The group of fifteen or so attendees was energetic and diverse. Many faiths and backgrounds were represented including Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, residents of Killeen, Cedar Park, Westlake, Georgetown, college students from Southwestern and the leader of a local Sierra Club group in a Georgetown highschool.

Dr. Andy Fowler, Texas Impact board representative from the Central Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church; Sue Sidney, President of the Southwest Texas Conference United Methodist Women; and Cynthia Crawford of the Catholic Diocese of Austin discuss the religious community's response to the Cool Cities Campaign.

We've all noticed the errant July weather we've been having (since when does it flood in central Texas in July??). But what you may not know is that bizarre weather has become a world-wide problem.

Just today I checked the headlines and saw three references to weather-gone-wacky:

China Rain Storms Claim 650 Lives

Floods, Fires Ravage South Africa

Hurrican Boost "Due To Warm Sea" 

Wondering which presidential candidate has the best global warming policy plan? Compare and contrast candidates' positions with this easy chart from the League of Conservation Voters.

Texas Interfaith Power and Light and Austin Area Interreligious Ministries (AAIM) are proud to announce the Kill-a-watt Interfaith Mini Challenge!

The Kill-a-watt Challenge, sponsored by the Austin Chronicle and Austin Energy, is a city-wide contest to encourage families, neighborhoods, businesses, and congregations to reduce their electric usage at this time of year when electric demand is especially high. Austin Energy customers can win recognition for cutting their electric consumption either in absolute numbers, or as a percentage of what they used in this same time-period last year.

Texas IPL and AAIM have convinced the contest sponsors to create a special category in the contest for congregations.

An American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) report found that bills pending in the House and Senate would reduce U.S. oil demand by 5.3 million barrels a day in 2030!

For more information on the specifics of these bills and their effects click here.

The Live Earth concerts were a series of music concerts held in major cities around the world on July 7th to raise awareness about global warming. They took place in New York, Washington D.C., London, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hamburg, and Sydney and included such high-profile music acts as Madonna, Smashing Pumpkins, Kelly Clarkston, Bon Jovi, Kanye West, Dave Matthews, Fall Out Boy, and The Police.

The event was largely credited to Al Gore, former Vice President and current Chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection that helped to coordinate the Live Earth concerts. He was the political and popular face of the concert event and so also became the brunt of most of the criticism surrounding it.

The promised TXIPL Cool Cities page has been completed! Click on the "Cool Cities Campaign" link on the left Contents bar to see the new page or simply click here.

The page includes information on what exactly the Cool Cities Campaign is, how you can get involved, other Cool Cities across the nation, and up-dated environmental news to keep you in the know.

Also: Check out the information on the up-coming central Texas Cool Cities training session!  The session is designed to help volunteers get involved in making their city a member of the Cool Cities campaign. Click here for more information.

Check out this press release from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) for full, reliable information on how you can update your air conditioning unit. The release gives examples of the best models for your climate type and information on how to reduce the costs of a new unit by taking advantage of federal tax incentives.

For the website version click here.

Save Money this Summer by Taking Advantage of Efficiency Incentives

We may be committed to reversing the greenhouse effect, but do we really know what it is we are committed to reversing? How do overactive carbon emissions actually contribute to the warming of the earth? How do gases trap heat? What do the predictions look like for the next fifty years of global warming?

Check out this page on the British Broadcasting News site to see interactive models of how the greenhouse effect and the carbon cycle really work as well as scientist's predictions for the next fifty years.