Blog Action Day: Climate Change

It's blog action day. Once a year bloggers around the world can all blog on the same topic. This year blog action day is focusing on climate change.

You can take an international view, like the folks at www.climatehearings.org/. For a national view you can check out the info on the EPA's website, or track legislation at the open congress site.

Drilling down further there is a Climate Change Roadmap for Pennsylvania, and a document on Climate Change in Pennsylvania, as well as a brand new Pennsylvania Climate Change Action Plan.

On a more local level it is hard to find specific plans for climate change but you do find individual projects designed to use energy in a less disruptive fashion. While things like solar panels for residences are still a relative novelty, and those big wind farms haven't yet been built, you do see other smaller projects taking off.

You see more and more new public buildings making use of geothermal energy. Last week I sat in on a conference call with Congressman (and senate candidate) Joe Sestak. He talked about 2 projects in his congressional district. One is a geothermal project at West Chester University. It will involve three buildings, two libraries and Anderson Hall. If you google geothermal school Pennsylvania you can fine a number of other examples of schools with at least partial geothermal heating and cooling systems. You can find similar projects with municipal and township buildings throughout the commonwealth.

Sestak also talked about a large solar panel field in Lower Providence, with some involvement from PECO. The area in question is a landfill and not desirable for other uses. Officials estimated that the solar fields may offset the energy demands for township facilities and there may be a surplus. There are also solar fields in Bucks and Somerset Counties; there may be others in other parts of Pennsylvania.

International movements can help change minds. National legislation can provide tax incentives. But it is the local projects, and the funding for them, that get the ball rolling.