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WCR Chapter Meeting
WCR Chapter Meeting
Tuesday, April 14 at 7 PM
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Guest Speaker: Skye Richmond of Bright Saver Speaking on Plug-In Solar!
Guest Speaker: Skye Richmond of Bright Saver Speaking on Plug-In Solar!
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Imagine going down to your local hardware store and buying a simple, affordable appliance that will lower your electric bill by supplying solar energy directly to your home. Sounds good, right? That’s the promise of plug-in solar.
Plug-in solar is one of the brightest new developments in clean energy. Smaller and less expensive than rooftop solar, plug-in solar is great for people who can’t make the financial commitment to rooftop solar, as well as to renters who don’t have access to the roof. It is designed to be plugged directly into a standard outlet and it complements your power, replacing some but not all of the power you get from the grid. Plug-in solar is popular in Europe, but it has yet to catch on over here due to burdensome regulations applied at the state level.
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Guest
Speakers
Skye Richmond
Bright Saver is a dynamic new non-profit dedicated to making plug-in solar affordable and accessible to all. On Tuesday evening we will have Skye Richmond from Bright Saver speak to us about the technology and the politics of plug-in solar. Skye is the Campaign and Policy Director at Bright Saver, and she brings three years of experience at the intersection of renewable energy policy, public sector strategy, and stakeholder engagement to the issue.
We are certain to learn everything we need to know about plug-in solar from Skye!
Rep. Jason Morgan
Rep. Jason Morgan
And as we mention below, new legislation designed to facilitate the adoption of plug-in solar has just recently been introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives.
One of the bill’s co-sponsors is Washtenaw County’s own Rep. Jason Morgan, and Jason will also join us to tell us all about this new legislation. Sounds like a campaign ready-made for us, doesn’t it? Let’s all learn more at Tuesday’s session!
WCR Meeting Agenda
WCR Meeting Agenda
I. Introductions
II. Presentation by Skye Richmond of Bright Saver: Plug-In Solar, the Promise and Potential
III. Explanation of Plug-In Solar Legislation by State Rep. Jason Morgan
IV. Website Update — Grace Lweendo
V. Ann Arbor Comprehensive Plan Overview - Kris Olsson
VI. Climate Changemakers Update
VII. Local Training? Collaboration with Detroit?
VIII. Announcements and Upcoming Events
IX. Adjournment
Meeting to be held on Tuesday evening, April 14, by Zoom at 7 PM:
Join our mailing list to attend.
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Next Climate Reality Training in Nashville, May 1-2
Next Climate Reality Training in Nashville, May 1-2
Commemorating our 20 years of climate advocacy, the next Climate Reality training will go back to where we started, in Nashville, TN, on May 1-2. Among the main themes will be “Lessons from the Last 20 Years of the Climate Movement”, “Looking to the Future: Affordable Abundance”, and “Taking on Big Polluters Across All Fronts”.
The lineup of speakers looks great! If you’re interested in attending, please check out the information in the link below.
The deadline for registration is coming up on Monday, so if you’d like to go, act now!
We are currently in discussions with the Detroit chapter of Climate Reality Project to work jointly on a local training in the week of May 6-17. Stay tuned!
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Ann Arbor Earth Day Festival Sunday, April 19 — Volunteers Needed!
Ann Arbor Earth Day Festival Sunday, April 19 — Volunteers Needed!
One of the highlights of the year is the Ann Arbor Earth Day Festival held at the Leslie Science and Nature Center at 1831 Traver Road. It’s a family-oriented event where kids come dressed up as animals.
It will be held on Sunday, April 19, from 12 noon - 4 PM; we will have a table there, as always. It’s a truly fun event and a good opportunity for outreach to the parents. If you’d like to volunteer to work at our table for an hour, please contact David.
And whether you’re volunteering or not, come to the festival and look for our table.
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FREE Home Energy Assessments in Ann Arbor!
FREE Home Energy Assessments in Ann Arbor!
As part of the A2ZERO program, the City of Ann Arbor is now providing a free on-site A²ZERO Home Energy Assessment (HEA) to all Ann Arbor residents. A home energy assessment provides guidance to reduce your home’s carbon footprint and your energy costs. It removes the guesswork for prioritizing options that can improve the efficiency of your home.
And as an added bonus, a group of generous donors has pledged $1,500 to our good friends at Ann Arbor Citizens Climate Lobby if 50 people mention they heard about the offer through A2 CCL when they sign up for an assessment. So help out our friends at CCL while you save on your utilities by getting a free home energy assessment!
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Compete in the 20 for 20: Actions Challenge!
Compete in the 20 for 20: Actions Challenge!
Why not try something fun, folks? The people at CRP have come up with a game of sorts, where you can compete with other CRP members (good-naturedly, of course!) to see who can take the most climate actions.
This is the 20th anniversary of the founding of CRP and they have come up with 20 categories of climate actions to take. As you complete each one, you record it and rise up the leaderboard. Below is a menu of climate action opportunities on the Hub. Click on the link below, take a look and see which ones look good to you.
May the best climate activist win!
Climate Changemakers Wrapping up Plug-In Solar Campaign
Climate Changemakers Wrapping up Plug-In Solar Campaign
Just to refresh your memories, Climate Reality has teamed up with a group called Climate Changemakers, which has a great formula for putting climate action into practice.
They have specific campaigns that last about six weeks apiece and use a step-by-step plan to take action. The most recent campaign is “Plug into Solar!”, and it’s just wrapping up. Changemakers meets (almost) every Monday online for an “Hour of Action” where we take one of those steps as part of the campaign.
We’re starting to get some participation from our chapter, so that’s looking good, but let’s build on that. Learn more about Climate Changemakers.
As an example of how these campaigns work, one of the steps is to write a Letter to the Editor about the issue at hand. We did so last week and we got an LTE published in last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press. Eureka!
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Climate Events in Town
Climate Events in Town
Below is the A2: Climate Action City U.S.A. newsletter which has a compilation of climate events in town for the month. Some of the events included have already taken place by the time we send out this newsletter; that’s why we send out a copy of this newsletter via our Google Groups mailing at the beginning of of each month. One more reason to make sure you’re on the Google Group list!
Just to highlight one event, the Fourth Annual Ann Arbor Climate Teach-In will take place at Mitchell Elementary School from 1 - 5:30 PM on Saturday, April 25. Click here for more information and to register.
One event which didn’t make it into the above newsletter is Ann Arbor Downtown Earth Day Week Event, taking place from Sunday, April 19 - Saturday, April 25. At the Community Commons immediately next to the downtown Ann Arbor District Library on Fifth Avenue and Library Lane.
Learn more about what’s on tap.
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Showing of “The White House Effect"
Showing of “The White House Effect"
Big thanks to Michael Hagan for hosting our showing of “The White House Effect”, and for giving us a tour of his net-zero home afterwards!
For those who missed it,
The White House Effect is a great new documentary on the missed opportunity to address climate change way back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.
It’s on Netflix, so if you’ve got that service, you can still see it. Highly recommended!
Video of the Month: Paul Polman Gives Wege Sustainability Lecture
Video of the Month: Paul Polman Gives Wege Sustainability Lecture
Business leader and former CEO of Unilever Paul Polman gave the 24th Annual Wege Lecture on Sustainability at U-M in late March.
His talk was entitled “Becoming Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take”.
Great presentation! Polman begins at the 9:25 point of the video.
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Climate in the News
Climate in the News
Environmental Protection Agency Chief Lee Zeldin decided to speak at the Heartland Institute, a fossil fuel-funded, climate denialist think tank which once put up billboards likening all climate activists to the Unabomber. Speaking of the EPA’s repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding which underpinned all climate regulations, Zeldin said this was a moment to “celebrate vindication”.
A group of Republican members of the Michigan House of Representatives has introduced legislation, HB 5711, designed to repeal most of the clean energy standards passed as part of the Michigan Clean Future package a year and a half ago.
Hopefully the legislation won’t get too far and it would have a tough time passing the Senate or the Governor’s desk, but it does demonstrate the determination of many lawmakers to fight any climate or clean energy measures.
In some great news, legislation has been introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives, HB 5764, to facilitate the adoption of plug-in solar, a more modest type of solar power than rooftop solar. Our speaker this month will be presenting on this topic, and we will also have bill co-sponsor Jason Morgan to fill us in the proposed legislation.
This is an article from the popular environmental journal Grist about Ann Arbor’s Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU).
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