AUGUST 14, 2008 - The Florida
League of Cities is meeting in Tampa this week. A pre-conference seminar
sharing ideas about how cities can help solve global climate change was
held this morning at the Tampa Convention Center.
This seminar, Beyond Lightbulbs
and Hybrids: Local Government Solutions to Global Climate Change, was
co-sponsored by the Florida League of Mayors. Rocky Anderson, former
mayor of Salt Lake City, said he helped launch an environmental program
in 2001 called Salt Lake City Green that had a climate protection component.
Anderson is president of
High Road for Human Rights, a group advocating for human rights including
reducing climate change. Anderson called climate change the “greatest
challenge ever to humankind,” but said there are ways that cities
can help to reduce its impact, such as those he implemented in Salt Lake
City. “We helped stop the building of a major highway into Salt
Lake City.”
That point drew applause from Tampa
City Council member Mary Mulhern, who took notes on what she called “all kinds of great” ideas
from the mayors of other cities, such as using larger recycle bins and
reducing the frequency of curbside pick-up.
St. Petersburg was the first green-certified city in Florida. St. Pete
Mayor Rick Baker said everyone should be concerned about reducing greenhouse
gas emissions.
Like several of the other mayors, Gainesville Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan said
reducing greenhouse gas emissions saved her city thousands of dollars.
Hanrahan said that Gainesville has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by
322,000 tons since 1996, and she expects even more once the city constructs
a 100 megawatt biomass power plant that burns waste wood.
Matt Ward is the policy director of the Climate Communities Coalition.
He said local governments are critical to helping to combat climate change.
Steven Feren, the current president of the Florida
League of Mayors, is mayor of Sunrise, Fla., encouraged more cities to
sign the Green City Action
Accord, “Which supports the governor’s energy action team.”
The Florida League of Cities annual conference continues through Saturday
at the Tampa Convention Center and the Marriott Waterside.
July 28, 2008 -
Rocky Anderson Interview on KVNU's
"For the People" - On Tesimony Before Congress, Impeachment,
and Torture. Click
here to listen.
High Road President Rocky Anderson
Testifies Before Congress
Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson, former
Mayor of Salt Lake City, UT and president of High Road for Human Rights,
testified
before the US House
Committee on the Judiciary on July 25, 2008.
