Sierra Club

Dan Besse received the Sierra Club's resounding endorsement in the Democratic race for Lt. Governor this week. In this video announcement he describes the Eureka! moment of his long career in environmental advocacy:

Following a purple river to its source and learning the ropes of citizen action...

I'm sure most of you consider yourselves at least somewhat diligent in the conservation of electricity in your homes. You know, turn off a few lights here and there, try to avoid messing with your thermostat (unless somebody else already messed with it, and it needs correcting).

But we've also all been conditioned to accept our monthly light bill as a necessary evil, and write our checks to the power company with mostly stoicism with a dash of regret, with possibly some vague determination to "be more conservative" in our daily switch-flicking.

Good morning, Tom Jensen. Thanks for joining us for live-blogging this morning.

As many of you know, Tom writes a weekly column about state and local politics for the Chapel Hill Herald. Last fall, he started working as the head of the 'Cool Cities' campaign for the North Carolina Sierra Club. When he began work in November there were 5 Cool Cities in North Carolina. Now there are 19. Tom also instituted the Sierra Club blog.

Got questions?

Cross posted at the North Carolina Sierra Club blog:

On Tuesday night the Canton Board of Aldermen endorsed the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, becoming the seventh city in North Carolina to do so. In recognition of this the North Carolina Sierra Club will hold a ceremony in April honoring the town and Mayor Smathers as a 'Cool City.'

By signing on Canton has committed to taking appropriate steps toward reaching the emissions goals outlined in the agreement. Over the last few years it has already made progress by:

-Placing their old watershed in a conservation easement and using the funds they received for doing so to build an outdoor sports complex on top of an old landfill.

Crossed posted at the NC Sierra Club blog.

The signature project I am working on right now for the Sierra Club is 'Cool Cities.' It's a program to get local governments to make a commitment to doing their part to reduce the impacts of global warming. Mayors sign the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and promise to take measures that will reach the goals laid out within it.

This is a great project for local communities to step up to the plate themselves instead of waiting for someone else to figure out how to deal with climate change.

There are currently six 'Cool Cities' in North Carolina- Asheville, Boone, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham, and Highlands. Throughout the southeast we also have Columbia, Greenville and Charleston, South Carolina on board as well as Williamsburg, Richmond and Alexandria, Virginia among many other cities in South Carolina and Virginia. Notable cities in Georgia and Florida include Atlanta, Tallahassee, and Gainesville.

Hey Folks-

I wanted to let all of you know about the new North Carolina Sierra Club blog-

We hope it will provide a forum where folks can find out what is going on in the state, as well as what they can do about it.

We encourage folks to comment, and also welcome relevant guest posts. If you're interested in writing one about an issue you think more people should know about or something going on locally that other activists could learn from, please feel free to submit something to me at tjensen 'at' sierraclub-nc.org

We hope this blog will help to become a hub for environmental activism in North Carolina.

The success of BlueNC and its increasing role as a force in North Carolina Democratic politics definitely helped motivate us to enter the blogosphere ourselves. Thanks for the wonderful model you have provided!