Global warming addressed at confab
midhudsonnews.com 8/25/07

Sustainable Hudson Valley Executive
Director Melissa Everett addresses the conference

Norrie Point — "It's either we pay now or we pay later. If we plan for the future at the start then we are ahead of the game." Those were the words of Ulster County Transit Executive Director Cynthia Ruiz, and the thoughts of everyone who attended Friday's Municipal Leaders Summit on Global Warming held at the Norrie Point Environmental Center in northern Dutchess County.

Leaders from across the Hudson Valley -- political and environmental -- met to discuss ways for municipalities to make their communities "green," and save the taxpayers, as well as Mother Nature.

Many communities, like Ruiz' department in Ulster County, have already purchased hybrid buses and other vehicles, researched ways to decrease energy consumption, and tested their communities for gas emissions levels.

Ulster County's Transit Center is state-of-the-art, with in-floor radiant heat and only NYSERTA-approved lighting. The department is also pursuing another hybrid-electric vehicle and solar paneling on its roofs.

Sustainable Hudson Valley Executive Director Melissa Everett said she believes that all communities in the next 10 years will follow a similar model, given bureaucratic barriers are broken down.

Everett said that momentum towards green movements all over the nation on all levels of government, big and small, is gaining ground, and that it is helping to break these barriers down to make it easier to apply for NYSERTA and federal grants for environmentally healthy projects.

"Last year was the year of the conferences, this year is the year of the commitment," said Everett. "We really feel that there is momentum to take action, to get cities to measure their greenhouse gas emissions and making plans to reduce them, to get cities working together on funding proposals and intermunicipal proposals, and getting their citizens involved in breaking down these barriers."

Everett said the purpose of the summit is to work as a jumpstart to do just that.

Over one hundred environmental and political leaders from around the region attended the summit.