- By Ronny Hardaway
- Opinions
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The November 8, 2019 Lansing Star article, "Village Votes to Become Climate Smart Community," includes a quote that a casual reader might misinterpret. The quote attributed to me was "The rest of it's just gravy. So yeah, that way we can forget about spelling out greenhouse gasses. That's acceptable to me."At face value, a reader might mistakenly believe me to not take the NYS Climate Smart Communities (CSC) program or greenhouse gases seriously. Nothing could be further from the truth. I introduced the Village's consideration of joining CSC and tailored the Village's resolution that was presented at the Trustees meeting on November 4.
By removing the resolution's preamble, the trustees also removed the "whereas" that defined the acronym GHG as meaning greenhouse gas. The original paragraph that preceded the 10 CSC pledge elements contained a phrase that called out GHG. My editing hat was on, and I realized that we would need to spell out the GHG acronym within that phrase if we removed the preamble.
However, the trustees voted to remove the problematic phrase also, and that led to my statement, "So yeah, that way we can forget about spelling out greenhouse gasses. That's acceptable to me." It was an editorial statement about the paragraph's proper wording – not a deflection of the ecological dangers of greenhouse gas emissions.
My statement, "The rest of it's just gravy." referred to the fact that the preamble of "whereas" statements was important, but it was not necessary to meet the CSC's only requirement that the Village's resolution include the 10 pledge elements verbatim. The abbreviated resolution would allow the Village to officially join the CSC program and join the other statewide communities who are working toward reducing or eliminating their contributions to greenhouse gases and fossil-fuel consumption.
I look forward to working with the Village's CSC task force to help the Village of Lansing become a better and safer place to live through the discussions, plans, and implementation of the Climate Smart Communities action steps.
Ronny Hardaway
Village of Lansing Trustee and Deputy Mayor
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