Town Hall Addresses Climate Change
By Jason Sibert.
The Union of Concerned Scientists sponsored a town hall meeting on the Climate Crises, Environmental Justice and Clean Energy at the University of Southern Illinois at Edwardsville at the Center for Spirituality and Sustainability last night. The title of the town hall was “The Heat is on: A Conversation About Clean Energy, Jobs, and Justice.”
“The heat index changes that we’re going to talk about tonight present a lot of challenges not only to our economy but also to water issues,” Edyta Sitko of the UCS said. “This is a security issue.”
Sitko works in the Chicago office of the UCS and made the trip to St. Louis’ Metro East area to join the town hall as a lecturer. She said town halls are important to warning of the impacts of climate change.
“The report we’re representing tonight, ‘Killer Heat,’ will show drastic increases in what we call extreme heat index days, over 90 degrees over the next mid-century or end of the century if we don’t do things to curb heat trapping emissions,” Sitko said. “The report presents dire scenarios, but there’s a lot of things people can do in the Metro East and in Illinois that can keep that from happening.”
Sitko recommended passing the Clean Energy Jobs Act. The act will increase the energy input from renewable energy and scale up energy efficiency efforts in Illinois, said Sitko. It will also help communities transition from economies based on coal and gas to economies based on renewable energy.
Due to the nature of climate change, the proposed Illinois legislation would have impacts beyond the state’s borders.
“The legislation is important to the St. Louis area as a whole – both Illinois and Missouri – because greenhouse gas pollution doesn’t know state borders,” said Sitko.
Meghan Hassett, also of UCS, attended the town hall. She and Sitko both talked to the audience on the subject of climate change and both referred to the Killer Heat Report which addressed the impacts of climate change.
“I think town halls like these are important because there have been so many attacks on science by the Trump Administration,” she said. “Now is the time to get back to the facts and sound policy. We have to project our communities from things like rising heat and the other effects we will see around the country. Communities need to protect themselves from the heat that is coming.”
Although the Trump Administration left the Paris Climate Accords, some cities remained active on the local level and have chosen to remain in the pact. The St. Louis suburb of Maplewood is one of those communities. Hassett said international action is necessary to address the climate crises but that municipal and state action also played a role in the absence of federal action.
“The more that a state like Illinois, or that cities like Edwardsville or St. Louis, can do to get us to a net zero emissions future, that can contribute to global efforts to make sure that we have a recognizable future,” she said.
Hassett said some of the refugees fleeing their home countries are doing so because of sea level rise caused by changes in the climate in their home countries. She also agreed that the lack of a movement for a clean energy future the world could become less stable due to lack of quality water and air. In turn, this could lead to a more war-driven world.
The Sierra Club, Prairie Rivers Network, the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, Citizens Utility Board and the United Congregations of the Metro East also sent representatives to the event.
