Recap: Bringing Clean Energy Home to Oak Park
On Monday, Dec 9th, OPCAN hosted a packed event at the Oak Park Community Recreation Center called “Bringing Clean Energy Home to Oak Park”.
The room was overflowing full - with folks from all ages and backgrounds (including several high school students who got extra credit from their teacher)! Folks ate well thanks to Happy Apple Pie Shop and Forty Acres Fresh Market.
The overall theme of the event: switching from natural gas (otherwise known as methane gas) to electricity is safer, lowers your utility bills, and fights climate change. The clean energy transition is already underway, and Oak Park and Illinois are leaders in helping to accelerate it!
Here’s a recap of what we covered:
Folks who showed up early were treated to a tour of the Community Recreation Center, Oak Park’s first net-zero emissions building, by Chris Lindgren from the Park District.
Laura Derks was our emcee and welcomed attendees with an overview of our group, Oak Park Climate Action Network.
Our State Representative, Camille Lilly, gave opening remarks and reminded us that she serves on the Energy and Environment Committee and has a 100% environmental score from the Illinois Environmental Council.
Abe Scarr from Illinois Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) gave an introduction to clean energy homes, and talked about the climate, cost, and health benefits of clean energy in your home, as well as policy strategies to get there. You can see his presentation slides here.
Occupational and Environmental Medicine physician, Village Board Member and OPCAN member Susan Buchanan gave a talk on the health effects of gas cooking ranges. She shared some eye-popping stats about the connection between asthma and gas cooking. In Illinois 21% of childhood asthma is attributable to gas stove use! Her slides are here.
OPCAN members Cindy Klein-Banai and Derek Eder gave an overview of our Climate Coach program, a free neighbor to neighbor service to help residents take the next steps in electrifying their homes. Their slides are here.
OPCAN member Pam Tate shared the policy progress made by the Village of Oak Park, including the Climate Ready Oak Park (CROP) plan, our electrification ordinance for new construction (first in the midwest!), energy benchmarking for large buildings, and energy retrofit grants for income eligible homes. She also shared concerns over how much further we have to go to reach our stated goal of 60% reduction in greenhouse gasses by 2030. To even reach a 30% reduction, it would require electrifying over 3,500 homes in Oak Park each year.
Abe Scarr from PIRG closed out our presentations with an overview of statewide policy and the Illinois Commerce Commission Future of Gas Proceedings which much of our state’s future climate policy hinges on.
We held a free raffle for all attendees. Our raffle winner, a high school student, went home with an induction cooktop and pan, winter blanket, and a gift card from Energy Matters!
After the presentations wrapped, attendees were invited to visit our partner tables. Energy Matters, a local heating contractor, brought a real heat pump to demonstrate how this amazing technology works!
Wendy Greenhouse and Cindy Klein-Banai offered free Climate Coaching to attendees to answer their questions about switching to clean energy in their own homes.
Thank you to everyone who attended, including Illinois State Representative Camille Lilly, Village Board Members Susan Buchanan, Ravi Parakkat and President Vicki Scaman (via video address), Village, Library, Park and District 97 staff, members of Third Act Chicago, One Earth Collective, members of Oak Park Climate Action Network, and many others!
A huge thanks goes to the Community Recreation Center for hosting us, to our presenters Laura Derks, Abe Scarr, Susan Buchanan, Cindy Klein-Banai, Derek Eder and Pam Tate, to our event volunteers Kaleigh O’Brien, Manolo Avalos, Wendy Greenhouse, Aya O’Connor, Macey Majkrzak, Laurie Bunkers, Laura Loveless, and Laura Stamp and to our event partners Illinois Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), Citizens Utility Board (CUB), Illinois Environmental Council, Third Act Illinois and the Sierra Club!
Thank you to Stephen Garrett, Paul Goyette and Viktor Koves for filming and photographing the event. Check out more of their photos below, and stay tuned for videos of the event coming soon!
Additional photos
