Tennessee Officials Pass on Environment Conference

Local Tennessee officials passed on the chance to attend an environmental conference for local governments.

The British consulate for the Southeastern U-S paid for 15 officials from other states, including North Carolina and Georgia to attend the Local Governments for Sustainability conference held earlier this month in Chicago.

Ulla Reeves is with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which partnered with the U-K consulate to outreach to local governments.  She says the consulate is trying to encourage the U-S to pay more attention to the environment, and is doing so in a grass-roots fashion at the local level. 

“Global warming in particular is an international problem, and the Southeast United States is far and away the largest contributor to the global warming problem.  So for them, being concerned about the planet helping the southeast local governments get moving on the issue is worthwhile.”

Reeves says no Tennessee officials wanted to go.  Topics at the conference ranged from changing city fleets to hybrid vehicles to sustainable land use. The conference was estimated to cost at least 1-thousand dollars per person.