JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — CuppaJax held a community discussion with Northeast Sierra Club Chair Logan Cross to discuss environmental goals and the club’s Renew Jacksonville campaign.
With growing concerns about climate change, rising sea levels, and severe storms threatening the First Coast, Cross says the city officials should create stronger resiliency plans to weather the changes and protect our city.
“Resiliency is the ability to withstand the impacts of extreme weather like flooding, storm surges and things like that, but it also is being built in a way that the recover is much more rapid and costs less,” he says.
Cross shared how climate change can impact Jacksonville’s resiliency based on it’s infrastructure in severe weather, the financial costs to rebuilding instead of being proactive, and the social impacts of how impoverished people by climate change.
“One of the resolutions would commit the city to operating on 100-percent renewable energy by 20-50,” Cross says.
Renew Jacksonville’s second resolution seeks to transfer the city’s fleet over to renewable energy in a show of leadership by example over the coming years.
Cross is set to meet with Jacksonville’s Mayor Donna Deegan and the city’s Sustainability Manager, Ashantae Green, on February 5th to further discuss environmental resiliency goals for the River City.