Orange County Global Climate Summit - 9/25/07

For University Unitarian Universalist Society, by Gary Przyborski, 9/27/07


On September 25th,, 2007, I attended Orange County's first Climate Change Summit. The list of speakers was quite diverse from business, government, science, and think tanks. The focus of the summit was not science oriented; man made global warming has long since passed the debate stage. Instead concentration was put on what is being done now and for the future to cut our CO2 emissions and to get Florida off of oil. Mayor Richard Crotty must be praised for getting this one day event happening. It was great to be able to talk with other companies and individuals to find out what has been working and what is being done.


As most of us are aware, the federal government has dropped the ball on the environment. With the present anti-environment stance of the present administration and the grid-lock mentality of Washington, D.C., the planet is suffering. One speaker described the EPA as anti-EPA since they no longer perform their original mission. EPA trying to undo the work of states and local governments in an effort to cater to some corporate interests who feel threatened by this change. Most recently, Sens. Bill Nelson and Barbara Boxer are addressing this issue with a bill (see below). Further, America's federal government needs to be working with other nations, especially emerging industrial giants (such as China and India), whose CO2 and methane emmissions are increasing as they follow an early 20th century model.


There was a lot of talk about home grown fuels as a way for the state and local municipalities to protect themselves from oil shortages. After a hurricane, gasoline usage is five times higher while Florida's reserve tanks can only last a couple of days at present loads, so there are shortages of fuel. Orange County and Universal Studios talked about their use of bio-fuels. Gov. Crist mentioned a processing plant for south Florida which will use the remains of the sugar cane and the citrus industry to cheaply produce ethanol.


At present, the most economical first level solution is conservation and in this regard Governor Crist's bill requiring Florida's electric utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2017, to 1990 levels by 2025 and by 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050 was welcomed (see below for details). Also, Florida will adopt California motor vehicle emission standards, which call for a 22 percent reduction in overall vehicle pollutants by 2012 and 30 percent by 2016.


While some of the measures presented appear aggressive in an atmosphere where little has been done, far more needs to be done. This will only occur if individuals, families, group, local communities, states, and businesses work hard and implemented real solutions that cost effectively cut greenhouse gases. At present, Orange County provides no buildiing codes to assure that minimum building standards for insulation (roof and walls), solar water heaters, or high efficiency AC/heaters are used. Nor is there county involvement to work with existing homeowners. However, Orange County has made its first steps in this regard. What is needed now is more involvement with its citizens to push for better results, holding all of us accountable. And the gauge should be real numbers of the impacts that are being made across the board.


A short list of the talks included: