Giving up on the Mayor

by | May 4, 2021 | Uncategorized

22 July 2020  Honorable Greg FischerMayor of LouisvilleCity HallFifth & JeffersonLouisville KY 40202 Dear Mayor Fischer:           This is the twentieth month of “The Mayor’s” Monthly Earth Day Initiative. Twenty months ago, on 22 November 2018, we began delivering to your office a monthly letter asking for concrete and immediate action by Metro to slow climate change. This, our twentieth letter, joins the previous nineteen monthly letters in asking for Metro to act immediately on reducing locally the two primary sources of greenhouse gases per EPA data, power generation and transportation.  (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions)  As mentioned last month, in the past twenty months we have seen much too little concrete action addressing power generation and transportation.  On the power generation side of the equation, there has been no significant action toward the installation of photovoltaics or turbines (hydro or wind). LG&E has not been challenged by Metro to be a good corporate citizen. LG&E has not even been challenged by Metro to abandon the gas pipeline through Bernheim Forest. Metro is not taking a lead in greener local power generation. On the transportation side of the ledger, and as stated last month, the most significant action taken by Metro has been to close down the economy in response to Covid 19, resulting in less surface and air travel. Recognizing that to be an accidental result, Metro gets no credit for less surface and air travel. With the racial justice protests of recent weeks, Metro has been presented with, and (to date) ignored opportunities to change transportation in Louisville. Armed citizens in moving motor vehicles are threatening protesters. And LMPD is risking escalation,...
Generations, Awareness, Responsibility, Climate Crisis

Generations, Awareness, Responsibility, Climate Crisis

by | Jan 12, 2020 | Advocacy

The picture was taken in 1962. Four generations. Different levels of climate crisis awareness. Different levels of responsibility. Joseph Hamilton Green, Jr. 1857 – 1884 (not in the picture) https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/75478885/joseph-hamilton-green Jesse Addison Green 1879 – 1966 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/43366176/jesse-addison-green Jesse Leemon Green 1902 – 2003 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/41277110/jesse-leemon-green Addison Jack Green 1930 – 2016 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/157425768/addison-jack-green Jackie Lynn Green 1953 – present Joseph Hamilton Green, Jr.  1857 – 1884 Hamp rode horses and mules in rural Louisiana, and lived in very modest houses with no electricity. He died the last year of the Civil War. His generation were fewer in number. Their  carbon footprint was limited to cities, manufacturing, along railroads and ports, and war. Hamp’s contribution to the climate crisis was in his offspring. Jesse Addison Green 1879 – 1966 Papa’s generation still few in number, still riding horses and mules in Louisiana until after WWI, still lived modest lifestyles under a night sky lit by stars rather than street lights. He did live through WWI and II, both massive carbon contributors. But the science of climate change, even had it existed, would not point conclusively to climate crisis by 1966. Papa was a carbon contributor with no awareness of his contribution. He holds responsibility for the contribution, tempered by the lack of awareness. Jesse Leemon Green 1902 – 2003 Papa Jesse’s generation was the beginning of big change. His peers, horse-bound through youth, watched humanity leave footprints on the moon. By the time he died, public libraries worldwide held ten year old books addressing ‘climate change’. He probably died without that term in his personal lexicon. Responsible and unaware. Addison Jack Green...