(Plain Press, July 2014) Environmentalists and alternative energy advocates gathered at P.J. McIntyre’s Irish Pub at 17119 Lorain Avenue on Sunday June 1^st to drink cold brews and discuss climate change.

State Senator Michael Skindell said that Senate Bill 310, just passed by the Ohio legislature, wasn’t just about freezing timelines for alternative energy requirements. He pointed out there is language in the bill that results in a change in Ohio law. The bill breaks a contract with alternative energy firms taking away the predictability they need to attract investors in wind and solar power.

Skindell said the bill also ends an “in state” mandate for the purchase of alternative energy. He said that allowing alternative energy to be purchased across state lines would hurt the development of local alternative energy companies.

In the wake of the Ohio House of Representatives passing Senate Bill 310, State Representative Mike Foley urged those present to read an essay by local environmental advocate Randy Cunningham. In his essay, Cunningham says instead of fighting climate change with statistics and economic arguments, we should use a moral argument, which simply asks the question, “Is it right?” Cunningham says, a new American set of values, struggling to assert itself, is “based on a belief that we have an obligation to pass on to those that come after us a world that provides them with the basics of a decent life.”

At the gathering, activists from the Sierra Club urged those present to sign letters to the head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency in support of newly proposed New Source Performance Standards that would limit the amount of carbon pollution from new coal fired power plants. Other groups such as Moms Clean Air Force, Sustainable Cleveland, and the Audubon Society were on hand to call for cleaner air and to promote alternative energy solutions to combat climate change.