Event celebrates climate

Mayor Mark Kruzan declared Oct. 24 an official day of climate action in Bloomington.

The declaration came in honor of Bloomington 350, a climate action event that kicked off Saturday in the Bloomington Community Farmers’ Market.

Bloomington 350 is an offshoot of the international climate organization, 350.org.
The organization uses the number 350 to represent the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide (in parts per million) in the earth’s atmosphere. Currently, the atmosphere has a number above that level, and the organization is campaigning for international policy to lower it.

The organization helped synchronize the largest international day of climate action in history.

Elisabeth Venstra, vice president of Bloomington Transportation Options for People, said more than 4,000 actions in more than 180 different countries took place.

In Bloomington, a small crowd of climate action supporters and onlookers from the market gathered outside city hall to hear the mayor start the event with a speech.

The mayor highlighted his signing of the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in 2006, which called for a citywide commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The agreement came after the United States failed to ratify the United Nations Kyoto Protocol, which called for more stringent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

“We’re going to get climate protection legislation in our lifetime,” Kruzan said. “We are going to get health care reform ... I don’t see those as goals. I think those are necessities.”

Kruzan mentioned the city’s Team Green, a subcommittee that has helped reduce electricity consumption at city hall by 34 percent since 2006.

In addition, the Green Building Ordinance requires all new city buildings to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards as part of the city’s progress toward becoming greener.

Kruzan also addressed the environmental obstacles still facing the city. He said 95 percent of the city’s energy use continues to be coal-based.

“There is never such a thing as clean coal,” Kruzan said.

Elizabeth Cooke, a graduate student in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said she thought Kruzan delivered an informative speech.

“I thought he did a good job drawing a connection between local and global concerns,” Cooke said. “I think the city has already done a good job, but there’s still more that could be done.”

However, Morgan County resident Dale Edson said he did not learn anything new from the mayor’s speech. He saw the small turnout at the speech as a demonstration of his concern that many people were not taking climate change seriously.

“It is actually happening,” Edson said. “If people want their grandchildren to have a habitat that is livable, they need to change.”

After Kruzan’s speech, the Jefferson Street Band led the crowd of supporters to the Third Street Park, where the action continued with speeches, music and demonstrations until 6 p.m.

Venstra began the events in the park with a reassuring speech.

“You are a part of something that matters,” Venstra said. “We have science on our side... We have numbers on our side, people around the world and
passion.”