Adopt-a-Mayor is Here

By working with your own local government, you can make a real difference to the environment. A priority of Oregon Local Sustainability is to get people in different cities and towns across the state working with their own city governments to bring about change; this site will help you start a campaign for sustainability in your own community.

Here's how to begin:

1) Find out what your city is already doing to become more sustainable and reduce its contribution to global warming. Click here to see if your city is already on Oregon Local Sustainability's list of communities that are working to prevent climate change.

2) Once you know a little about what your city is or is not already doing, it's time to contact the mayor or a city councilor. If your city already has some kind of policy or formal agreement on sustainability, it will be your job to help it live up to its lofty goals. If the city currently lacks any such policy, then formulating one might be a good place to start. Consider asking your city to sign onto the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement as a possible means to get the community started on thinking about climate change. For a more detailed step-by-step plan of action to get your city working on sustainability, click here.

3) Report back to Oregon Sustainability about the progress you make. Leave questions or comments on this site's main page. The purpose of this site is to help you accomplish change in your community,

If we can get enough people in different cities working on sustainability and reporting back to this site, we will soon have a statewide network of activists accomplishing real change. But this all depends on people like you beginning to work with your city government. There's no time like the present to get started.

Hillsboro: to Sign or Not to Sign?

Hillsboro, Oregon's fifth largest city, is working on a plan to reduce its greenhouse emissions. Several important details remain unresolved, for instance, should the city sign onto the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, and join approximately 400 other local governments in the US that have signed onto this document? The Mayors Climate Protection Agreement was drafted in 2005, by mayors who resolved to reduce global warming pollution in their cities by 7% below 1990 levels by the year 2012. Since then, hundreds of cities have signed on, but some cities have interpreted the Agreement differently.

CLICK HERE TO ASK OTHER OREGON CITIES TO FIND GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTIONS

The goal of bringing emissions "7% below 1990 levels by 2012" is unrealistic for cities like Hillsboro, whose population has more than doubled in the last seventeen years. However, cities unable to meet that specific goal can develop their own target, and still sign the Agreement to show their general support for curbing global warming. The hundreds of cities that have signed the document send a powerful message: they show that global warming is an issue important to city governments. By signing the Agreement a city commits to reducing emissions in whatever way it can, but putting the mayor's signature on the document also confirms that the city is part of a nation-wide movement that confronts one of the most important issues ever taken on by local governments. So should Hillsboro sign the Agreement? What do you think?

Get involved in Oregon Cities Climate Solutions Network petitioning and campaigns - visit the OCCSN Action Dashboard