Step it Up Austin! Despite unexpectedly cool temperatures and very gusty winds, a nice sized crowd assembled at the Texas State Capitol Building on Saturday to urge our federal and state legislator's to Step It Up. After opening remarks by Kathy Zarsky with the USGBC Central Texas Chapter about the need for transformation of design, construction and operation of buildings, Texas State House Representative Mark Strama got the crowd fired up by emphasizing that climate change legislation is on its way, it's just a matter of making it happen sooner vs. later. Austin Mayor Will Wynn then addressed the ralliers with an overview of the very aggressive Climate Protection Plan that Austin unveiled at the end of January. Mayor Wynn made a strong appeal for the State of Texas to Step It Up.
Michele Van Hyfte with both USGBC and Austin's AIA Committee on the Environment informed the group of AIA's commitment to Architecture 2030 and outlined briefly the goals it has established. Casey Martinez followed Michele and told everyone about the Sierra Club's "Cool Cities" program. Mid-rally, we got everyone to gather on the Texas State Capitol steps for a group photo. The Capitol is a huge tourist draw, but we temporarily became the bigger interest as many stopped to take our picture.
The person that got the crowd attention again after all of that was Brenda Cross. Brenda asked several trivia questions about affordable home improvement projects that help conserve water and energy. Even the youngest participants at the rally got fired up during trivia time!
Bill Moore, a local green builder, inspired us all with compelling statistics about the importance of individual actions. Habitat for Humanity's Michael Willard told us how affordable efficiency measures can be and got us all going with the rallying call, "Step It Up". Next, Brigid Shea with Efficiency Texas gave some stark evidence of the wasteful energy consumption in Texas and stressed the importance of policy reform. Our last speaker was Alex Miller with the UT Solar Decathlon team. He made us all aware that this competition is implementing the innovations that we will be using tomorrow. More trivia rounded out the event with musical entertainment provided by Mel Riser with Half Dozen of the Others and Corrina Rachel performing vocals. They made us forget all about the wind and the fact that we had papers scattered everywhere!
All and all, we had a very successful event with 91 signatures gathered for Step It Up in addition to support for State legislation and support of Local Government programs. Thank you to everyone who helped make this day happen (Dason, Sara, Donna, Mel, Brigid) and to all who came. We still have a long way to go, so continue to educate those around you, to do your part to reduce your own carbon footprint, and to support legislative action on climate change.