Frederick Endores Kyoto Protocol
Just got back from Winchester Hall, where our county commissioners in a 3-2 vote have approved the resolution endorsing the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.
Commissioner Kai Hagen also told me that he’ll be coming to Step It Up Frederick to read the resolution.
A great step forward for our county! Cheers to the Commissioners (Gardner, Gray & Hagen) who made this happen!
Long Group Ride to Event?
Ray checked out our event on our website and emailed us asking:
this event has a lot of interest in my friends. The ride is rather short though; is there anything longer planned, even on streets??
That’s a great idea!
We’re going to keep the short ride for lots of short (i.e. young) riders. But it would be very cool to have a group (or groups) of riders to longer rides across the county that finish up at Parkway Elementary. Then everyone could ride together downtown to the Carroll Creek Ampitheather.
Interested? Please post a comment below and the groups can organize.
Get the Posters Up!
Christine, our dedicated volunteer graphic designer, has finished our poster. You can download it as a PDF here:
Isn’t it beautiful?
Furthermore it is a great way for us to get the word out about our great event.
So download it. Print it out and put it up. Send it to your friends. Do you part for Mother Earth!
Let’s Have Frederick Be Like Fairfax (at least in some ways)
There is an article today in the Washington Post about how Fairfax County Board Chair Gerald Connolly (above) is announcing a series of initiatives in how his county is going to become a Sierra Club Cool County. Sounds great! Also sounds like what our Frederick County Board Chair Jan Garnder is advocating. Let’s make sure it happens here soon!
We’ve got sponsors!
Thanks to the efforts of some of our great volunteers, we now have two sponsors for our event: BP-Solar, the world’s leading solar power company, based here in Frederick; and Wheel Base, Frederick’s (the world’s?) leading bike shop.
We could not imagine two better sponsors for our event. Together they embody so much of what our event stands for.
And we feel particularly honored to have them because, although we hope that through their sponsorship they find some economic gain, their support of our event demonstrates their real commitment to the cause of climate stability and to the community of Frederick.
Due to their support, we’re going to be able to hold a much better event that hopefully attracts many more participants. Our great thanks to them!
Commissioner Gardner Leads Frederick to Kyoto!
I just received the following reply from Commissioner Gardner to our invitation for Step It Up. She says:
Dear Toby,
Thank you for the information and the invitation to Step It Up – Frederick. I have noted the date on my calendar and will attend if I am in Town. I may be in Boston watching my son in a play at MIT that same weekend.
I do want you to know that I am preparing a resolution for the County Commissioners to consider which will endorse the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Howard County and Anne Arundel County have recently endorsed this effort through a local executive order/resolution. As you know, the international agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, has been ratified by 141 countries but the United States is not among them. Thus, local jurisdictions are stepping up to take leadership and I believe we should join them.
I would encourage the City of Frederick to endorse the same US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.
Jan
Hot damn! Commissioner Gardner is one of the best leaders we have in our community, and this initiative she is taking (that I’ll admit I did not know about) is great! It is one of our events goals! Now we just need to follow her lead and push this over the goal lime!
Inconvenient Truth Presentation!
Hannah Poffenbarger, one of our event organizers, has offered to give the “Inconvenient Truth” climate change at our rally!
Hannah, a student at Walkersville High, recently received training in Tennessee from Al Gore & team on giving this presentation. So immediately following our rally on Carroll Creek, she’ll be presenting in the activity room of the C. Burr Artz Library on the other side of the creek.
Thanks Hannah! This is really going to add to the event!
Politician Invites
We sent out an invitation to all of our elected officials tonight. Let’s hope they all attend. We invited:
- Frederick City Mayor & Aldermen
- Frederick County Commissioners
- Frederick County Delegation to Maryland House of Delegates and State Senate
- Frederick County Delegation to U.S. Congress (Rep. Bartlett & MD Senators)
- Gov. Martin O’Malley
Please follow up on the invitation urging them to attend. Here are the emails:
jgardner@fredco-md.net, lthompson@fredco-md.net, dgray@fredco-md.net, chjenkins@fredco-md.net, khagen@fredco-md.net, david_brinkley@senate.state.md.us, donald_elliott@house.state.md.us, joseph_bartlett@house.state.md.us, paul_stull@house.state.md.us, galen_clagett@house.statemd.us, richard_weldon@house.state.md.us, alex_mooney@senate.state.md.us, sue_hecht@house.state.md.us, Mayor@cityoffrederick.com, Mhall@cityoffrederick.com, dkoontz@cityoffrederick.com, aimhoff@cityoffrederick.com, psmith@cityoffrederick.com, dkuzemchak@cityoffrederick.com,
And here are the web pages of those who don’t have public email addresses:
- http://bartlett.house.gov/Email_Roscoe/
- http://mikulski.senate.gov/mailform.html
- http://cardin.senate.gov/contact.cfm
- http://www.gov.state.md.us/mail/
And lastly here’s the text of the email:
Dear Representatives of Frederick City and County,
On April 14th the nation and Frederick will take to the streets to urge our leadership at all levels to take action against the dangers of climate change. The rallies are organized through a national campaign, Step It Up. A group of local volunteers in partnership with various local groups are organizing the local rally, and we invite all you to attend the event, hear your constituents’ concerns, and begin work on solutions for this critical issue.
At a national level, Step It Up has been organized by environmental leader Bill McKibben and a coalition of groups. More than 800 communities nationwide will convene local Step It Up rallies on April 14, to join voices in urging our government to take actions to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2050. For more information, please see http://stepitup.org.
Step It Up-Frederick is our community’s celebration of the national event. The day will begin
with a bike parade from Baker Park to the Carroll Creek amphitheater. Then we’ll gather for
music and a rally for a cleaner future. Afterwards Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” slide
show will be presented in the C. Burr Artz Library. For more information, please see
http://www.stepitupfrederick.com/.The solution to climate change can only be achieved through a wide scope of action from the federal level down to the municipal. Our event will be calling for Congressional action as well as state and local initiatives such as transit, bike paths, etc. For more information on the event’s goals, please click here.
We do hope to have you attend. If you would be interested in addressing the rally, please let us know: we’d love to have you. Just now our country is recognizing the real threat posed by global warming; as a community, let’s Step It Up to start taking action to preserve our planet! We look forward to your attendance!
Best regards,
Toby Murdock
