By Linda
Sullivan
For the last
maybe 25 years, I have gone to Lobby Day.
Here is why:
Minute for minute, there is nothing more effective you can do for the
environment than help pass an environmental law. AND there is no way to have
more FUN passing an environmental law than to go to Springfield with Sierra
Club and IEC for Lobby Day.
This year
your attendance at Lobby Day on March 3 will be a key part of passing the Clean
Energy Jobs Act (CEJA). While environmental progress is stymied in D.C.,
Illinois is poised to pass a monumental law that provides a mechanism to make
Illinois carbon free by 2030 and totally renewable by 2050. Unlike so many
proposals that are really just a wish for carbon free, CEJA provides the meat
and bones to get us there, and it does so while bringing under-served
communities into the job boom that renewables will create.
Expect a fun
bus trip, giant rally on the steps of the capitol, a fetching green t-shirt
sure to double as St. Patrick’s Day fashion, then a chance to do nothing less
than convince your senator and representative to save the Earth.
During Lobby
Day, you are inside the halls of power effecting change. The halls smell of
history and power. You and your team are running back and forth through a
tunnel between offices in the Capitol Building and the Stratton Building trying
to find your legislators. Just when you feel like a demented gerbil, smiling
and waving at all your demented gerbil friends who are doing the same thing,
your senator or representative appears and says hello. You make your case.
Sometimes he will change his mind right in front of you. Because of what you
said!! It doesn’t get more empowering that that!
So, my
opinion is: You can buy a Tesla, quit using plastic and Styrofoam and give up
meat and cheese for the rest of your life, but you would not help the
environment as much as helping pass CEJA at Lobby Day and you won’t have as
much fun!
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