Marguerite Wells is the manager of the future Black Oak Wind Farm in Enfield, NY, just west of Ithaca. The seven-turbine, 11.9 megawatt facility will be partly owned by local investors. Wells was running a green roof plant nursery when she started volunteering on the project. Now it’s a full-time job. Photo by Jonathan Miller

The climate is going haywire, and politicians are bickering over what to do about it, or whether to do anything at all. But around the country, communities are taking matters into their own hands, publicly pledging to shrink their carbon footprints, then setting out to make good on their promises. Leading, they hope, from below.

Mike McCoy works as an installer for Taitem Engineering, an Ithaca firm that participated in the Solar Tompkins solar incentives program in 2014 and 2105. In one year, the program more than doubled the number of residential solar systems in the county. McCoy began as an apprentice and is now a full-time employee. Photo by Jonathan Miller

In this special hour for State of the Re:Union, guest producer Jonathan Miller gives us a tour of his uber-progressive but practical-minded hometown of Ithaca, New York, where citizens and civic leaders are hustling to wean themselves from fossil fuels.

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Judy Hyman for composing and performing most of the music in the program. Also thanks to Peter Bardaglio (Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative), Gay Nicholson (Sustainable Tompkins), Ed Marx and Katie Borgella (Tompkins County Planning Department), City and Town of Ithaca Sustainability Planner Nick Goldsmith, Mike Sigler (Tompkins County Legislature), Jim Catalano, Dylan Brown, Annie and Marie Burns of The Burns Sisters, The Horse Flies, Jeff Claus, Richie Stearns, and the Cornell Glee Club.

A list of all the music heard on the program can be found here.

Links:

Black Oak Wind Farm
EcoVillage at Ithaca
Sustainable Tompkins
Sustainable Ithaca
Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative
Solar Tompkins
Cornell University Sustainable Campus
Tompkins County Sustainability
Town of Ithaca Sustainability
New York State “Reforming the Energy Vision” Initiative
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)