Catharine Schutzius said she joined Third Act Illinois, a nonprofit for elderly peoples for climate change action, after overhearing her son question whether he should have kids given the environmental decline of the planet.
“I just felt like something has to improve,” Schutzius said. “It isn’t right that they should struggle.”
This concern is what brought seven environmental groups together and around 30 attendees for “Combating Climate Change 101,” a panel hosted by the League of Women Voters of Evanston at the Evanston Public Library.
The Monday night event was designed to educate Evanston and Skokie residents on making sustainable differences in the community. It also served as a means for collaboration between various environmental groups, which included Climate Action Evanston, Beyond Waste, Natural Habitat Evanston, Go Green Skokie, Evanston Grows, Third Act Illinois and Climate Change Coaches.
The panel, made up of representatives from each organization, acknowledged that the city has a long history of climate action and many opportunities for sustainability initiatives. Joel Freeman, a representative for Climate Action Coaches, said the Green Building Ordinance, the Stretch Energy Code and the recently-passed Healthy Buildings Ordinance are proof of Evanston’s progress with sustainability policies.
Climate Action Evanston Executive Director Jack Jordan said Evanston bears responsibility for the “heavy work” to offset other communities’ lack of progress.
“It’s really our job for the other communities that don’t have city staff, that don’t have resident groups, that don’t have not just one, but two, but three climate action plans we’ve had in our history, to do the hard stuff,” Jordan said.
Jordan emphasized that residents can utilize their social infrastructure for climate action in communities.
To do so, Jordan advised residents to assess their skills and the community spaces they inhabit. He said residents can then use this to leverage how they might take collective action on climate.
“Evaluate your place in the world,” he said. “That is where we really have power, and that is what we are trying to lean into.”
The current political climate underscored the hour-and-a-half event. Evanston Grows Board President Jean Fies said the nonprofit relies heavily on federal grants for funding, which she said are “not plentiful” at the moment.
Fies then asked audience members for help with fundraising efforts in the wake of this freeze.
Despite this setback, League of Women Voters Chair Paula Scholl stressed the urgency of making progress at the municipal and state levels over the next four years.
Third Act Illinois representative Kathy Tate-Bradish said this progress can be seen through the nonprofit’s efforts to lobby for a pension divestment bill that would require five major public pensions to divest from fossil fuel investments.
“If we don’t stop investing in dirty energy, we will never get rid of it,” Tate-Bradish said.
The event ended with small group discussions in which environmental organizations discussed ways in which residents can volunteer and reduce their carbon footprint from home.
Skokie resident Catharine White said she appreciated collective action at the local level, but acknowledged the conversations are getting repetitive.
“We keep going through the same information again and again,” White said. “We’re exhausted.”
Email: b.lecy@dailynorthwestern.com
X: @betsy_lecy
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