A Bold Vision for Philadelphia to Address our Climate Crisis
Imagine walking home under a shady tree canopy on a hot day and feeling pretty comfortable. Once you’ve arrived home your house is pretty cool too – though you haven’t turned on the air conditioning. It’s cool because you live on a shady street and because you had your roof painted white and got a little insulation in your attic. The City did all of this. You don’t need to jack up your air conditioning and you’re not melting. Sweet!
Also imagine walking to work on “trash” day when you didn’t have to put out any trash. That’s because when you got a delivery from your favorite restaurant, you handed the courier your washed container from last time, you bought dry goods from bulk bins with your cloth bags, and bought produce in your mesh bags. So, no trash out on the curb. Your leftovers? They went into the fridge. Your cooking scraps? Out into your new composter the City provided and taught you how to use. It sits next to your rainwater barrel, also provided by the City. The City now spends much less money hauling food waste for landfill and treating rainwater.
On your walk to work, the streets were being cleaned, and you were still able to listen to your favorite podcast because people were quietly sweeping with brooms. Many of the cars are electric, so they were quieter too. You didn’t need to check an air quality app because the air’s been good for years now.
Climate activist Meenal Raval and social entrepreneur Tanya Seaman have created a bold vision for Philadelphia that addresses the climate crisis in ways that will benefit everyone. It will make Philadelphia a more attractive place to live and work, will have cleaner air and cleaner streets, will employ more people, will power itself on renewable energy, and will reduce our curbside waste to nothing.
These proposals solve multiple problems that we currently experience, even without consideration of our climate crisis. We could all benefit from shaded streets in summer as we walk or bike down our streets or sit on our stoops. Caring for trees trains and employs people who otherwise might not have jobs or who would otherwise experience long commutes out of the city. Trees change the way we see our streets, and vehicles slow down when there are tree canopies, which is good for folks who travel by bike and on foot.
The Climate Action Platform includes many of the ten-year goals put forth in the Green New Deal bill now being reviewed in Congress. It proposes transitioning to 100% renewable electricity, pushing buildings to have net zero-emission heating and cooling systems, reduce and eliminate fossil fuel in manufacturing and agriculture, promote and support post fossil-fuel transportation, and remove greenhouse gases.
To review the Climate Action Plan, please visit bit.ly/cap-phl
To show your support for this platform, please sign on here: http://bit.ly/i-support-cap-phl
Philly Talks Climate 