Sierra Club pushes Earth Day initiatives, car abstinence

Watch out. Earth Day was Tuesday and the Inconvenient Truthers are out with their CFL light bulbs advocating auto abstinence.

Sierra Club is highlighting several local examples of green leadership, promoting a week-long effort to give out 1,000 CFLs while advocating people give up using their car for one day.

“This Earth Day, we want to show people what their neighbors, local businesses and governments are already achieving in moving towards a Clean Energy economy – and persuade them this is not a pie-in-the-sky, generation-from-now possibility, but these are changes and opportunities that could and should be seized now,” says Tiffany Hartung, Oakland County Sierra Club Organizer.

The organization promoted several green initiatives in Ferndale, Berkley and Royal Oak. For instance, Ferndale is taking steps to change its streetlights to energy-saving LEDs next year and is in the process of upgrading its vehicle fleet to more fuel-efficient models.

“We can move beyond oil, coal and the other polluting fuels of the past and instead move into a clean energy economy that creates opportunities and jobs immediately,” Hartung says. “American ingenuity and innovation can lead the way when it comes to clean energy technologies and fighting global warming. If we can have one industrial revolution – why can’t there be another?”

The Sierra Club is also pushing the “No Car Day Oakland County” on Saturday. The club, which also helped create the Detroit Green Cruise, is asking Metro Detroiters to try alternative methods of transportation, such as bicycling, walking or riding a bus. Participants in the no-car-for-a-day pledge will meet for lunch at AJ’s in Ferndale.

“With soaring gas prices and air quality alerts, it is time for us to all use forms of transportation that are better for our wallets, better for our personal fitness, and better for the air we breathe,” says Shirley Bavonese, a member of the Sierra Club and founder of the Green Cruise.

For information on the Sierra Club’s Earth Day events, contact Hartung at (248) 549-6213 or at tiffany.hartung@sierraclub.org.

Source: Sierra Club
Writer: Jon Zemke