Councilmembers.  Good afternoon.  I’m honored to be here today.  

Firstly, I’d like to thank Councilman Johnson for acknowledging risks of oil trains and for the resolution all of Council passed yesterday on this issue. 

I represent a strong coalition of groups.  Groups that you may have heard of. Such as… 

  • The Clean Air Council, founded in 1967, now with 8000 members; 
  • Clean Water Action, founded in 1972, now with 1,000,000 members;
  • the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, established in 1988
  • Food & Water Watch, established in 2005;  
  • the Pennsylvania chapter of Interfaith Power & Light, started in 2009, now with 43 member congregations; 
  • Protecting Our Waters, founded in 2009, with over 4000 members; 
  • Penn Environment;
  • Sierra Club’s Pennsylvania chapter;
  • Physicians for Social Responsibility, Philadelphia chapter; 
  • the Energy Coordinating Agency, founded in the early ’80s; 

and some you may not have, such as… 

  • Mom’s Clean Air Force, and their naptime activism around climate change, with 410,000 members nationally and over 17,000 members in PA; 
  • 350 Philadelphia; 
  • Praxis Building Solutions and the Sustainability Nexus at CityCoho; 
  • the Maypop Collective for Climate and Economic Justice; 
  • PHEW! a bike shop, getting people out of cars and onto bikes since 2009; 
  • Transition Philadelphia, inviting all Philadelphians to transition to a low-carbon relocalized economy; 
  • the Beehive Collective in Kensington; 
  • the Philadephia Jewish Climate Action Network; 
  • and EDGE (Encouraging Development of a Green Economy). 

As you can see, we’re quite a diverse group of Philadephia area residents.

Like most of America, we look to our elected officials as well as ourselves to step up to the challenge of our times.  The challenge we talk of? Our changing climate. And the need for carbon reduction.  

There’s even a recent PennFuture poll amongst Pennsylvanians which shows that 82% want to cut carbon, 93% want help with energy efficiency, and over 60% believe switching to clean renewable energy will create jobs. 

We’re concerned about building onto the fossil fuel based economy; one that emits additional greenhouse gases, that contaminates our rivers, our drinking water, by fracking for gas, and the overall polluting and unsafe infrastructure around this economy. 

In our vision, a moral vision, we like to think, for a vibrant, healthy future, fossil fuels have been left in the last century.  We see us building a green economy based on energy efficiency, conservation and clean renewable energy sources.  When there’s a solar spill, people simply say it’s a nice day.  I like that. 

With the Greenworks goal of making Philadelphia the greenest city in America, what are we waiting for?  We have a low-carbon transition economy to build… 

Thank you.