Hi all,
I was unable to be at the meeting yesterday, but I heard about this group at the Forest Grove Peace Vigil, and I'm interested in being involved. I'm a student at Pacific University, and am working to get our local governments in this area to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Last spring I finally got the City of Hillsboro to sign onto the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, as well as commit to doing an inventory of greenhouse emission sources and making a plan to reduce emissions. Now I've moved onto the county government; I'm trying to get the WA County Board of Commissioners to pass the US Cool Counties Declaration, which would commit the county to reducing emissions to 80% below current levels by 2050, with interim goals along the way. I have an on-line petition asking them to pass the Declaration, at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/cool-washington-county. I need as many signatures as possible, especially from WA County residents, so please, please take a moment to visit the link.

I think that working at the local level is one of the most effective ways we can make real progress on getting rid of fossil fuels, and there is a lot of exciting stuff going on with local governments right now. I saw that influencing local governments was on the agenda for the meeting last night - sorry again that I couldn't be there. Anyway, I look forward to working with this group!