Welcome back to Climate Movement Mondays! I hope you’re staying safe and healthy during these difficult days of climate chaos. It was rough seeing those photos and videos of flooding in New York, knowing this is our new reality. Fortunately, we have the technology to turn this ship around and we have people organizing to enact change in their communities. Today I want to bring attention to the nationwide efforts to “Create resilient schools with electrified buildings and transportation powered by clean energy” via an organization I just learned about: Generation180. “We are supporting K-12 schools to electrify their buildings and vehicles, power them with clean energy, and create energy resilient hubs for their communities.”

Image from Generation180

Their website is vast and there are many resources available. I’d like to highlight a few things I found:

• The application window to apply for the EPA Clean School Bus Rebate opened on September 28th and schools can apply through January 31, 2024. You can access all related info, resources, and application documents HERE. If, like me, you no longer have children in school or never had children in school, you might feel removed from this issue. But, schools are a great place to push for climate/pollution action and I’m going to contact my local school district to make sure they have the links and info to apply for the EPA Clean School Bus Rebate.
• The group’s Alliance for Electric School Buses can be found HERE. Scroll down on that page to find a U.S. map showing states with active campaigns. A group called Moms Clean Air Force seems particularly active and here’s a snippet from their 9.28.23 press release re the EPA’s announced round of $500 million for the Clean School Bus Rebates: “Every day, millions of children across America ride school buses. Nearly all of the 500,000 buses in our nation’s school bus fleet are diesel-powered, spewing harmful tailpipe pollution into the air with every ride to school. But thanks to important investments like the Clean School Bus Program, we’re making critical progress. More and more school buses are becoming cleaner as polluting diesel vehicles are replaced by safer zero-emission buses.” It’s also pointed out that not only do children suffer the ill-effects of diesel vehicles, but also the drivers!
• The Clean Energy Help Desk for Schools has tons of info including state resources, financing info, and success stories. That and more can be found HERE.
• A webcast series that helps schools access federal funding can be found HERE.
• Here’s a fun thing to do: scroll down to look at a map showing U.S. schools with solar. (Note: Colorado, which loves to tout its high number of sunshine-days, has only 129 schools with solar installations, while my home state of Wisconsin has 241 solar-powered schools! But the Colorado middle school my sons attended years ago now has solar. Yay!)

Thank you for reading and I hope you’ll pass along these resources to families with school-age children. We need to utilize the positive aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act and that means accessing federal funding to clean up our communities and make them more resilient to the effects of climate change. Until next time, stay safe. Solidarity! ✊🏽