Great Bumper Sticker

Saw this on a car in my dentist's parking lot yesterday:

"If you don't like gay marriage, blame straight people. They're the ones who keep having gay babies."

Classic.

Climate Action Conference Recap

Today's 2007 Virginia Climate Action Conference was a big success. I think we had as many as 175 people at the event at some point or another, and all corners of the state were represented. Participants appeared to come away feeling renewed and energized in their desire to take action on the climate change issue, which was precisely our hope; one specific campaign that grabbed a lot of people's attention is the recently-launched effort to block a new 585 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Wise, Virginia. I could give a long litany of reasons why this power plant is a bad, bad idea (for one thing, that one plant alone would far more than negate [from a carbon emissions standpoint] all of the tree-planting, CFL-buying, building-retrofitting, hybrid-vehicle-purchasing, etc., that the City of Charlottesville intends to do in the next decade or two), but I'd just be duplicating what you can already read here.

One of the many cool people I got to meet today is Miles Grant, whose eco-themed blog ("The Green Miles") I've long admired. Miles "live-blogged" the conference at Raising Kaine -- see here.

I was pleased and proud that Charlottesville was able to play host to this first-of-its-kind (in Virginia) gathering. Several speakers noted and commended Charlottesville's own efforts to address climate change locally, which was gratifying to hear, but we clearly all have a long way to go if we're going to make much of an impact on the overall problem of global warming and climate change.

10/28/07 UPDATE: Seth Rosen has a good write-up on the conference in today's Daily Progress.

Holly Edwards Releases "Healthy Cville" Platform

Holly Edwards, longtime community leader and current candidate for Charlottesville City Council, today unveiled her platform for helping Charlottesville to realize its ambitious goal of becoming "America's Healthiest City."

"I applaud City Council for setting the goal of being 'America’s Healthiest City,' but we have a long way to go if we’re going to get there," said Edwards, a Registered Nurse who worked at the UVa Medical Center for 13 years. Edwards is co-founder of both the Black Nurses Association of Charlottesville and the Virginia Health Ministries Association.

Edwards made several proposals today to ensure improved health for all of the city’s residents:

* As a City Councilor, she will encourage more of her fellow health professionals to volunteer their time and skills through community health facilities like the Free Clinic, the Westhaven Nursing Clinic, or the Salvation Army Medical Assistance Program, in order to reduce health disparities in our community.

* If elected, she will push Council to give more of its attention to health-related matters. "If we’re to make health a priority," she said, "we need to devote the time to discuss the issues and find new solutions."

* Noting the health and environmental benefits of walking and bicycling, she proposes that the City designate one day a month as a voluntary "car-free" day, when those who can walk or bike to work or school are encouraged to do so.

* Touching on a subject near and dear to parents of City schoolchildren, "We should challenge our schools to provide the healthiest meal choices possible," Edwards said. "I challenge the City schools to 'eat local' by utilizing products from local organic farmers and developing vegetable gardens that would create sustainable educational enrichment opportunities for our children."

* In the wake of IMPACT's recent decision to press for expanded access to quality dental care for lower-income residents, Edwards pledged to advocate for increased City funds and higher state Medicaid reimbursement rates so that more children and adults will be able to utilize these critical dental services.

* Finally, Edwards committed to ensure that all City children have access to quality recreational/exercise opportunities. Addressing one specific proposal that's currently being considered by Council, she said: "I believe that the proposal for a new YMCA in McIntire Park can be a wonderful asset to our community. To ensure that it serves all of our families, there should be free bus service to the new Y, and the Y should establish an after school program targeting Charlottesville High School youth and encouraging youth participation and input in the planning of programs."

Holly Edwards would bring a thoughtful, insightful and experienced voice to City Council and as I've said before, I look forward to the opportunity of serving with her on Council. Please vote on Nov. 6!

I'm No Mike Wallace

No, I'm more Conan O'Brien...just without the easy humor or witty repartee.

I now have my own public access TV show, "Postcards from Charlottesville," a monthly half-hour gabfest where I get to sit down with people I find interesting and talk with them about local history or current events.

You can see the first episode, which includes a walk down memory lane with Ann W. Carter about the Jefferson School and a provocative discussion with "Miss Representation" herself, Jennifer Tidwell, about the portrayal of Sacagawea at the Lewis & Clark statue, by clicking here:
http://charlottesville.granicus.com/ASX.php?publish_id=64&sn=charlottesville.granicus.com
(requires Windows Media Player or Flip4Mac for Macs)

My freakish bobbing head is thrown in at no extra charge. (I've got to work on that...)

"Postcards from Charlottesville" will air on Fridays at 7pm and Wednesdays at 4pm on Charlottesville Public Access Channel 13. Many thanks to my producer, David Dillehunt, for doing such a great job of pulling the show together!

I'm gonna have fun with this.

Local Climate Action Events this Saturday

It's not too late to register for the 2007 Virginia Climate Action Conference this Saturday at UVa -- it's shaping up to be a tremendous event. Seth Rosen did a nice write-up on the conference in Sunday's Daily Progress and City Council last week agreed to kick in $2,000 toward scholarships so students & others of limited means can attend for free. If you want one, contact VaClimateAction@hotmail.com.

The conference will wrap up with an energetic Step It Up! rally at the UVa Amphitheater from 4:45-5:45pm. Music, speakers, info., refreshments -- it'll be quite festive and family-friendly. Even if you can't make it to the conference, feel free to come just for the rally. Paul Ferguson (Chair of the Arlington County Board of Supervisors), Mike Tidwell (founder of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network), and Kathy Selvage (co-founder of Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards) are just three of the conference presenters who will also be speaking at the rally. You won't want to miss it!

All Grown Up

A couple of months ago, my 11-year-old son started wearing my t-shirts on occasion. He said they fit him better. Didn't think much of it then. Now it's practically a daily occurrence. This morning I walked into my bedroom and there he was, putting on a pair of socks from MY sock drawer. "Eli," I said, "you've got at least 15 pairs of socks in your dresser!" "They don't fit me any more," he replied. I guess I've got to come to terms with the fact that (1) he's not a little boy any more and (2) I've got to buy him some new clothes.

Oh, and (3) I'm getting old.

Green Awards

Congratulations to Kristel Riddervold, Ernie Reed, RiverBluff and AltEnergy for receiving the 2007 Commonwealth Environmental Leadership Awards yesterday from the Charlottesville Waldorf Foundation. Well-deserved in each case!

Solar-Powered Cville?

I've long felt that if we could figure out a way to generate solar power on a marketable scale here in Cville, there are enough residents and business owners (not to mention the City itself, hopefully) who would opt to pay a little more for clean, renewable, locally-produced energy that solar could become a viable source of electricity. With the help of a local solar-energy entrepreneur, new renewable energy targets adopted by this year's General Assembly, and existing federal tax credits for solar energy production, it seems like we may finally be heading in that direction. Stay tuned...

Toward a More CFL-Friendly Cville

Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) are 4 times more efficient and last up to 10 times longer than traditional incandescent bulbs, resulting in a $45 average savings to the consumer (i.e., you and me) over the life of each bulb. Furthermore, acccording to eartheasy.com, "Replacing a single incandescent bulb with a CFL will keep a half-ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the life of the bulb. If everyone in the U.S. used energy-efficient lighting, we could retire 90 average size power plants." That's powerful.

The one downside to CFLs is that they typically contain tiny amounts of mercury. When you consider the amount of mercury that a power plant emits to produce the electricity needed to run a normal incandescent bulb, CFLs still present a less-toxic choice. However, CFLs contain enough mercury that consumers are often urged to dispose of them at community hazardous waste collection sites (which in Charlottesville means a trip to the Ivy landfill) rather than including them with their household trash.

Who is realistically going to drive all the way out to Ivy to dispose of some lightbulbs though? Most of us will just throw our used-up CFLs in the trash, despite the toxic mercury that may be released into the environment as a result.

Good news: Now we have a better choice! Starting Oct. 22, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority will begin collecting used CFLs at the McIntire Road Recycling Center for proper breakdown and recycling of the bulbs' contents. A special drop-off container will be available for this purpose, and consumers are asked to place the CFLs gently into the container to avoid bulb breakage.

Charlottesville is one of the first communities in Virginia to offer this service and I commend RSWA for taking this small but significant step. Special thanks to John Cruickshank and the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club for pushing this idea along and thereby making it easier for all of us to do the right thing on behalf of our environment -- and our pocketbooks.

Congratulations, Mr. Gore!

An apt and awesome honor.

Want to get involved in this Nobel Peace Prize-worthy cause? See post below. (Note that Stephen Smith, Gore protege and founder of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, is the keynote speaker at this event.)

In Which Cville Becomes the Epicenter of Climate Change Activism in Virginia (At Least for One Day)

I am excited to announce that on Saturday, October 27, Charlottesville will be playing host to the largest climate action event of its kind in Virginia history. On that day, hundreds of grassroots activists, concerned citizens and local officials from across the state will be converging on our fair city for the 2007 Virginia Climate Action Conference, which will take place from 8:30am-4:45pm at Clark Hall at UVa.

The organizers of this event (full disclosure: I am one of them) have recruited a stellar cast of speakers and presenters and we hope that Charlottesville sets a good example by turning out a good number of attendees. Registration (before Oct. 20) is only $30, which includes breakfast and lunch, so please do come. To register, or for more info., go to www.VaClimateAction.org. Hope to see you there!

Cville Goes to War -- An Update from the Front

Bryan McKenzie provides a status report on our Monticello Guard soldiers, now in Iraq. If you're the prayin' type, please keep them in your prayers.

From the "Things That Should Go Without Saying But Need To Be Said Anyway Because Not Enough People Are Seeing The Connections" Department

Today's print edition of the Daily Progress includes an article entitled "Housing Costs, Low Wages Lead to Rise in Homeless," which links to this AP story. Apparently, when housing costs increase a lot faster than wages, some people can't keep up and end up homeless. "Until we have some investment in affordable housing," says Massachusetts state official Julia Kehoe, "we're not going to see a leveling off of these numbers." I've tried (see here and here, for example), but I couldn't have said it better myself.

Curbside Composting in Cville?

San Francisco has set an ambitious goal for itself: divert 75% of its waste materials from the landfill by 2010. And the city is well on its way to achieving that goal; a few months ago, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that San Francisco had already reached a 69% recycling rate for 2007. Since over 35% of San Francisco's wastestream was organic material (mostly plant trimmings and food scraps), the city launched a curbside composting program a few years ago, which has been a huge boost to its waste-diversion efforts. "If it came from something that was once alive, you can compost it," says the city's website. Each day, 300 tons of food scraps, leaves, grass, etc. are taken to a facility where they are turned into nutrient-rich organic compost.

Perhaps Charlottesville should consider starting its own curbside composting program. Right now our City's recycling rate is 38%, and our Citizens Committee on Environmental Sustainability is soon going to urge Council to set a 50% goal for 2008. That's ambitious, but I think it's good to aim high. Removing recyclable/reusable materials from the wastestream is not only good for our environment, it also saves us money (one of the many ways in which being green can save you green). We've been making great strides lately with our City's recycling efforts and I would like to think that between our expanded curbside recycling program, our new system-wide recycling initiative in the City schools, and a new curbside composting program, we could easily achieve that 50% goal in a fairly short time period. And who knows, maybe someday we could find ourselves aiming even higher -- San Francisco, here we come!

Cville Gets More National Props

This month's issue of Public Management magazine (trade journal of city-manager types -- c'mon, we know you read it from cover to cover each month) features a cover story on "Using Energy Efficiency to Create a More Sustainable Bottom Line", which highlights Charlottesville's efforts to make our municipal buildings, schools and local govt. operations more energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly. It's pretty impressive to read what Cville has been doing over the past few years in this regard, and much of the credit goes to City Manager Gary O'Connell (recently named to the Leadership Advisory Committee on Sustainability for the International City/County Management Association) and our tireless and brilliant Environmental Administrator, Kristel Riddervold. Congratulations to both on the well-deserved recognition.

Charlottesville for Obama

Barack's coming to Cville for a rally at the Pavilion on Oct. 29. Get your tickets now!

From Fred Hudson:

Subject: Obama is Official

Barack Obama is coming to town, for sure, on October 29th. The location of the event will be the Pavilion on the Mall, at 7 PM. The tickets are $29, $15 for students and the "Orchestra" is priced at $100. To buy a ticket, go to www.my.barackobama.com/C2CVA and place your order. I suggest you do it quickly as who knows about the rate of subscriptions on this, and you do not want to be left out. Also, please put the name of "Cauline Yates" in the blank that asks for the person who referred you to the site. She is the main promoter of the event, and has done a huge job in getting Obama here. Without her persistence, I am not sure it would have happened. Thanks, and I hope you can go.

Fred

PACEM Benefit Concert Oct. 28

Fire, an a cappella women's choir directed by Linda Hanson, will perform at Holy Comforter Catholic Church (208 E. Jefferson St. in downtown Charlottesville) on Sunday, October 28th, at 3:30pm. The program is an eclectic mix of sacred music from ancient to modern. The concert is a benefit for PACEM, Charlottesville's interfaith effort to shelter the homeless. All donations from a free-will offering will be given to PACEM. Please come, and bring a friend!

Come On and Take a Free Ride

It's 11:56pm on Sunday, Sept. 30 as I start to write this. In four minutes, the Charlottesville Transit Service (CTS) will officially kick off an ambitious month-long experiment in fare-free bus service. That's right: throughout the month of October, anyone can take public transportation in Charlottesville for free. This isn't the first experiment with fare-free transit in our area; the enormous success of our fare-free Trolley service (between UVa and Downtown) and the recently-launched partnership whereby UVa students, faculty and staff can ride our city buses for free (which is already resulting in significant gains in ridership) indicate that eliminating fares does indeed get more users onto the system. This is no surprise to UVa's own University Transit Service (UTS), which has been operating fare-free for decades and has huge ridership. (It doesn't hurt that UTS also operates with shorter headways and takes its users exactly where they need to go relatively quickly, which are things that CTS can learn from as well.)

Assuming this month-long experiment in system-wide fare-free transit does result in a substantial increase in ridership, I am going to push for us to consider a year-long trial starting in FY2009. My argument is this: we (City/County/UVa/State/Feds) already subsidize about 90% of every CTS trip as it is, so why not go the extra 10 cents on the dollar if it is going to help us achieve one of the most important goals we all have for our community: getting more people out of their cars. And the extra funding that would be required to cover the cost of eliminating fares is quite literally pennies on the dollar compared to the amount of money we put into subsidies for road construction and maintenance. It's not even close, actually.

As the USA Today noted back in May, Charlottesville is not the only community looking into fare-free transit, but I do think this would be one more important step we can take to demonstrate our community's commitment to improving our environment and our quality of life.

OK, it's now October 1 as I conclude this post. Take a free ride, Charlottesville!