From recycling to wind power, grass-roots leaders like Jerome Ringo are calling for a national effort to curb the effects of global warming and foreign oil dependence.
Jerome Ringo: We've got to get moving and do something. And we've got to look at the big picture.
That big picture, Ringo says, is our community. Ringo is the president of Apollo Alliance, a largely labor-based coalition that promotes sustainable jobs through investments in renewable energy. Communities, he says, can reap economic benefits if they turn blue-collar communities into green-collar meccas. The group promises to create 3 million jobs over the next decade through a framework targeted at low-income, poor neighborhoods across the country.
Ringo says the challenge is how to get those communities involved.
Jerome Ringo: You have a poor community in this country whose lists of priorities consist of more quality of life issues. Poor people are more concerned about rent then global warming or climate change or depletion of the ozone layer. Even though, they are disproportionately affected by climate change.
But there are ways, Ringo says to bring minorities and the poor into the discussion.
Jerome Ringo: We have got to educate in our schools, educate within our communities. We got to meet those people where they are. We can't bring them out to us. We've got to go into them.
In Cuyahoga County, commissioners have established a regional energy task force to research renewable resources, such as wind and solar power, in an effort to grow the economy. County development director Paul Oyaski says despite a limited budget, county proposals such as off-shore wind turbines have economic potential.
Paul Oyaski: The wind on Lake Erie three to four miles out is strong and steady enough to allow us to consider the production of electricity from wind in a cost effective way.
There are other local advanced energy initiatives in the works too. The Cleveland Indians will erect solar panels on the upper concourse of Jacobs Field to reduce energy consumption. And, the City of Cleveland will host the national renewable energy conference at the Convention Center in mid-July.
Whether renewables will ultimately prove practical is the subject of a report released yesterday by The Cleveland Foundation. The report found electricity from renewable resources would have a very small effect on the price of electric power and therefore would not discourage new business development.
But, The Foundation's Richard Stubei says it will likely take some government regulation to bring energy companies on board. He says increasing limits on carbon emissions could open the door to a renewable energy standard - one that would require utilities to generate or buy wind, solar, and other forms of green power.
Richard Stubei: You actually want to propagate a way now toward renewable energy. A renewable portfolio standard is a market-based mechanism to kind of encourage the market that way in a relatively benign way.
Right now, Congress is considering such a standard. And, Stubei says 20 states, excluding Ohio, already have one. He says it's likely Ohio could have a standard in place as soon as this year.
Richard Stubei: There is a need to have a comprehensive energy bill passed. The rate stabilization plans that apply to the four major utilities in the state expire at the end of '08. And after '08 it's kind of this ambiguous netherworld where nobody knows what the rules of the game look like. Wall Street doesn't like that. The utilities don't like that. Customers don't like that.
If a renewable energy standard becomes a reality, Northeast Ohio leaders foresee more green related jobs and businesses coming to the region. Cuyahoga County is already poised to move in that direction with or without state or federal help. Tasha Flournoy, 90.3.