What’s the buzz on the latest issues in the Green Community? Check out what you may have missed this last week:
Tampa's fourth annual Clean City Day – The City of Tampa will be hosting the Fourth Annual Clean City Day on Saturday, March 20, in conjunction with The Great American Cleanup, and they need your help to keep this city beautiful.
St. Petersburg College to install rooftop photovoltaic solar project – The system, which will generate renewable power for the electrical grid, will be installed on the roof of the LEED Gold Natural Science, Mathematics and College of Education building, already one of Tampa bay’s most environmentally friendly buildings. Installation should take about a week.
The fight against nearshore oil drilling in Florida isn't nearly over – Change is in the air, and the crack in the earth is generated from the ground up. That means us — you and me. National policy was lacking for years and it’s safe to say any success at that level will be diluted at best. The rubber hits the road right here in your home, your car, your yard, your life. Does this require duty and personal responsibility? Yes. Is it also an opportunity to make a real difference? You betcha. What we do here pushes up and out to affect the larger community in Tampa Bay, Florida and beyond. Contact your council members, your county commissioners, your state legislators.
4 or against? There's more to Hometown Democracy than environment vs. sprawl – Any issue that makes it onto a ballot – with the exception, maybe, of the question of whether the majority of kittens should be allowed to live – will be oversimplified into embarrassingly hyperbolic – and barely accurate – terms. The Hometown Democracy debate is framed in a similarly black-and-white manner. Environmentalists embrace the concept as a way to curb sprawl.
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2010.