Peter Walks for Democracy

Tuesday was a big day for the Local Climate Action Program in Harrisburg!

In addition to partnering with municipalities this year, Omar Padilla, Kathy Cappelli Breier, and Vijay Bhaskar Chiluveru worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to develop the Department’s first operational emissions greenhouse gas inventory. We owe a huge debt of gratirtude out to Greg Czarnecki, Jake Newton, Alexandria Bowling, Peter Spadaro, Jim Julian, and Shawn Lehman from DCNR. The inventory includes facilities from over 120 state parks, 20 state forests, all those campgrounds, the Rachel Carson Office Building, dozens of waste water treatment plants, and thousands of vehicles. The students, the team at DCNR, & our partners at ICLEI have met weekly since August.

On Wednesday, they presented the culmination of that work to the senior staff at DCNR, including Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn. To say they nailed it is really an understatement. They were well prepared, thorough, and comfortable. Kathy, a World Campus Renewable Energy and Sustainability Systems student in Oregon was up and presenting today at 6 am local for her!

Then, we headed to the State Capitol where Representative Paul Takac (HD-82) had LCAP recognized on the floor during their morning session. We then had lunch with the House Climate Caucus to talk to them about the program, talk to them about the practical technical assistance we provide, the capacity we help to build, and the workforce we are developing. We want to encourage them (and you!) to let their constituent communities know about it. This was a followup to a presentation another LCAP student had provided them over Zoom on Thursday that featured our student Max Brown Theuer & Palmer Township planner Craig Beavers, CFM, CZO. We were fortunate to be able to include Gemma Morrison, one of the students who worked with Mechanicsburg Borough this year. After all that, Rep. Takac gave us a bit of a behind the scenes tour, which was also super fun.

Finally, we ran into Miranda Moore, EIT, ENV-SP, Miss Pennsylvania! She works in sustainability (with specific emphasis on cleaning up fast fashion). Brandi Robinson & I had the chance to hear her speak in October at the Pennsylvania Municipal League Sustainability conference, where she shared her vision of sustainability in Pennsylvania and the necessity for communities to hashtag#actonclimate. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to wear Ms. Moore’s tiara. Just not that fabulous.

Back home now and feeling grateful for the chance to work with awesome students and dedicated public servants across the state to try to take more #climateaction!