Hot World and Cool Cities

In the back of a greasy hamburger joint in San Mateo, about 9 people gathered, all had received an evite from Rafael Reyes with the Sierra Club. The topic was vague, "come talk about San Mateo, energy and climate action". We went around the table and introduced ourselves, some were retired, some out of work, two educators, two writers, one engineer, one city worker and me and Rafael. Turns out the Rafael has been pretty involved in the Sierra Club, including local chapter president and now elected to the board, good for Rafael.

Each person told their story as to why they came to this meeting. Several mentioned having seen "An Inconvenient Truth" and wanted to do something. (I'm so glad that Al made his movie and that it is motivating people to take action.) The engineer had put solar panels on his house and wanted to do more to make San Mateo a Green City. The city worker had actually helped the city develop a sustainability plan, a copy of which he had in this hand. The retired guy was available to write proposals, position papers and other documents. Some could dedicate more time, others would commit to be a show of force when needed.

As for me, I had just done a tour of the new San Mateo Public Library by the architects who were showing off the Green design elements of the building. Having just finished the book "Greed to Green", the idea of a city making a commitment to becoming green was not foreign. Now I found myself smack-dab in the middle of a group that was actually forming to forward this same cause. Seems that the Sierra Club is embarking on a city by city campaign called "Cool Cities". I am not sure what my level of commitment will be at this time, but I am interested in what we can do at the local level to promote a sustainable community.

Where this will go, I don't know, but it looks like the group has some key elements for success: good people, good cause, good knowhow and a specific target and goal. So the Accidental Environmentalist is now going local. More to come, hopefully, on the success of this new endeavor.