Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson Honors Earth Day 2011

by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson

Greetings from Sacramento, California where the sun shines 320 days a year, and we are going green!

If you visit my office at Sacramento City Hall, you’ll see Rana’s book What Does it Mean to Be Green? when you walk into the Mayor’s Office. I am a great fan of Rana’s because she combines three things I believe in when she writes – a simple message, a call for action, and educating kids.

A Simple Message. Last year, I started an initiative called Greenwise Sacramento. I was encouraged by a young graduate student in my office who said that green was the future.  I talked with leaders in our region and learned that Sacramento had lots of green jobs; in fact, we have 14,000 and were creating new green jobs faster than anyone in California. Our region grows millions of tons of food that is exported to the rest of the country and has more solar panels per person than any city in our State. 

 

From this inspiration and research, I developed my vision - to transform Sacramento into the Emerald Valley - the greenest region in the country and a hub for clean technology.

Former Governor Schwarzenegger was there with me last May to launch Greenwise.  I invited speakers each month to Sacramento to share their simple messages at my Greenwise meetings. Hundreds of people in our region heard from environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that good economic policy is good environmental policy. Pulitzer-Prize winning author Thomas Friedman challenged us to make green a part of everyday life saying that “Green is the new Red, White, and Blue.” Chez Panisse owner Alice Waters encouraged us to eat healthy and especially offer good food to our schoolchildren.  Author Van Jones said the green movement is a chance for everyone to be involved including the least among us.

I learned from my famous friends and my neighbors in Sacramento that we can become the greenest region in the country, creating jobs and protecting the environment. The message is simple - set goals, work together and do the right thing for future generations.

Call to Action. So now I have a Greenwise Regional Action Plan that includes the great ideas from everyone in the region who participated in Greenwise. (You can see the Plan at www.greenwisesacramento.com.) I unveiled the Plan at my State of the City address in January 2011. The Plan includes goals that will truly transform Sacramento. And those goals are supported by real action that is already happening.

For example, our schools are going green with a bold  goal to retrofit 15 million square feet of school facilities by 2020. In July, we will welcome a U.S. Green Building Council Green Schools Fellow to the Sacramento City Unified School District who will work to green every part of our schools from curriculum to school gardens to buying green. The savings that can happen when we aren’t paying for energy or water that we can conserve are amazing. The Sacramento City Unified School District just completed a lighting retrofit in 50 schools with help from the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. The school district is now saving $600,000 per year on their energy bills! Now that’s action that helps our schools and our students. And, it’s only the beginning!  We hosted a Green Schools Summit in March to invite even more of our school districts to go green. We will share what we learn from each other and invite the kids to be part of the learning.

Educating Students. One of my favorite days during Greenwise was our Youth Summit. We invited high school kids from throughout our region to brainstorm their ideas on going green and getting young people engaged. We heard from the Alliance for Climate Education which teaches kids all over the country about climate change. We had hip hop artists who wrote original rap songs about the environment. And we heard from Dr. Michael Ziccardi, a UC Davis professor and wildlife veterinarian about his work in the Gulf of Mexico to rescue hundreds of animals following the BP oil spill.

The ideas from the students at the Youth Summit are included in the Greenwise Plan. Many of them were going back to their schools with the message to be involved through volunteering or studying in a field related to solving some of the environmental challenges we face.  I learned as much from them as they did from our guest speakers.

This Earth Day, I will be sharing my vision for Sacramento at a number of events. My message at these events will be simple – we all need to take action and every action counts. We already are in Sacramento! And I encourage everyone, young and old, to be involved in making green part of who we are and what we do everyday!

Have a great Earth Day!

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Mayor Kevin Johnson is the 55^th Mayor of Sacramento and the first born and raised in Sacramento. He has launched a number of initiatives in Sacramento to improve education, address homelessness, enhance the arts, encourage service, and transform Sacramento into the Emerald Valley. Visit www.cityofsacramento.org/mayor to learn more.