Climate groups get a boost during first-ever Climate Action Accelerator - Evanston RoundTable

Climate groups get a boost during first-ever Climate Action Accelerator - Evanston RoundTable

Local climate groups invited community brainstorming and support for ongoing projects at last weekend’s Climate Action Accelerator. About 70 people gathered at the Robert Crown Community Center on Saturday for short presentations and breakout sessions to learn how they could help the groups’ goals and build relationships needed to ramp up local climate action.

Organized by the nonprofit Climate Action Evanston, the first ever Climate Action Accelerator spotlighted representatives from the city’s sustainability staff, the Evanston Public Library’s Blueberry Awards, Climate Education for Illinois and E-Town Sunrise and a group of Northwestern students working to pressure the university’s administration to take climate more seriously.

The groups presented projects aimed at boosting climate literacy, including implementation of the newly adopted ETHS Green New Deal and promotion of a statewide climate curriculum.

‘Emphasis on action’

“What makes this event a little different is that we’re really trying to put an emphasis on action,” said Jack Jordan, co-chair of Climate Action Evanston, which collaborates with local groups to “accelerate climate action.”

“We’re building the social infrastructure that is needed to meet our climate goals.”

Climate conversations often focus on building climate-ready physical infrastructure, like installing solar panels, investing in public transportation and improving building efficiency, Jordan said. While that work is essential, the nonprofit had another goal for Saturday’s event: Give community members a chance to meet each other and build a sense of communal purpose to accelerate Evanston’s implementation of climate action commitments.

Organizing groups often find that they’re preaching to the choir. “One of our struggles is, how do we reach beyond the people who normally are excited and show up?” said Joel Freeman, also a co-chair of Climate Action Evanston. “Each of these [groups] has their own dedicated audience, and when you put it all together, you start to see more people.”

Northwestern students

A group of Northwestern students pushing the university to boost its climate curriculum and add climate resiliency conversations to orientation week asked attendees to brainstorm ideas for getting the university to listen. So far, the university has only paid lip service to specific strategic suggestions about how they can step up their game, the students said. “We got 10 different excuses from 10 different people, but long story short, Northwestern is severely underperforming with climate education,” said Sam Bull (NU2025).

Including climate and sustainability conversations during student orientation week gets the most bang for the buck, said Katie Cummins (NU2025), because all new students are in one place at one time. In their breakout session, community members recommended circulating a petition urging Northwestern to step up its sustainability commitments and curriculum, organizing faculty and alumni to pressure the administration, and publishing how the university ranks on sustainability education compared to its top 20 peers.

Evanston city government

On climate, Evanston’s addressed a lot of the “low-hanging fruit,” said the city’s Sustainability and Resilience Manager, Cara Pratt. Taking action to slash emissions is going to get harder and harder over time, and it’s going to take money. “How do we adequately allocate resources to reach our community’s climate goals?” Pratt asked.

The city can deploy some resources through Sustain Evanston, which gives grants to local businesses; and the Good Neighbor fund, which will get $500,000 a year from Northwestern for the next 10 years. But, Pratt challenged the audience, “Is this community ready for a carbon tax? … Are we ready to really scale up these efforts and get the funding that I’ve heard a lot of these partners really need?”

After breakout sessions, Pratt shared the Finger Lakes Climate Fund, inspiration for a local program that she’s hoping an Evanston community group will emulate.

E-Town Sunrise

Members of E-Town Sunrise aren’t pausing to take a victory lap. Less than a week after winning unanimous support from the ETHS school board to pass an ambitious sustainability policy, dubbed the Green New Deal for schools, they were at the event asking for support and advice on how to implement the plan. “How can we recruit more students and teachers to create the plan to execute ETHS’s new Green New Deal policy?” the students asked.

Jexa Edinberg and Izzy Franconeri, from the local Sunrise Movement chapter E-Town Sunrise, presented the plan’s seven goals, which include cutting the district’s greenhouse gas emissions, reducing waste, conserving water and promoting sustainable purchasing.

Blueberry Awards

Now in its third year, the Blueberry Awards, which celebrate children’s literature about climate change, is looking to expand nationwide. The awards founder and Evanston Public Library librarian, Martha Meyer, shared on Saturday that she wants to take the program nationwide and asked attendees to help. This year’s winning titles will be announced at a March 14 event at the Crown Center library.

Climate Education for Illinois

Seventh-grade algebra was the first time Milo Slevin remembers hearing about climate change in school. “I feel like my school district let me down in a lot of ways,” he said. He has joined Dr. Marie Cabiya and Climate Education for Illinois to advocate for a statewide climate curriculum that responds to the current education gap. Led by Cabiya, the group’s mission is to pass a climate education bill in the Illinois General Assembly by 2025.

Cabiya came to Saturday’s event looking for help rallying support for the legislative effort, including encouraging community members to create witness slips, write postcards and advise on funding. “I’m so glad to be in a room with people who are tired of waiting,” Cabiya said after the breakout session. “Sometimes being tired of waiting is a great thing.”

Looking forward

While Saturday was the first Climate Action Accelerator, this is the fifth in a series of community gatherings co-sponsored by the city and Climate Action Evanston since January 2023. The next quarterly meeting, planned for June, will focus on environmental justice. “We get our hope by doing,” said Freeman.