Solar Day kicks off Cool Cities Campaign in Athens September 23

            The campaign to bring Athens into the Cool Cities Campaign to combat climate change will launch with a visible solution of green energy right in uptown Athens , with the installation of a 2,000 watt solar electric array on the Athens Middle School

            Democratic Senator Candidate Sherrod Brown, Athens Mayor Rick Abel, County Commissioner Mark Sullivan and others will speak at 1:30 p.m. Saturday September 23 at the Athens Middle School .

            The project installation will begin at 10 a.m., when community members are invited to learn more about solar panels, and how they are installed.  This demonstration open-house is from 10 a.m. until the press conference at 1:30 p.m.

            The Appalachian Ohio Group of the Sierra Club has received a $4,000 grant from the Athens Foundation and about $9,000 worth of solar panels donated from the Foundation for Environmental Education.  Athens-based Third Sun Solar and Wind Power has donated professional design and project management services as well as sourcing for the rest of the equipment necessary for the project.

            The project will provide 2,400 kilowatts of electricity that will offset the need to purchase that energy from AEP, which uses predominantly coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels and a main culprit of climate change.  The American Lung Association found that there are 24,000 premature deaths caused by burning coal every year.

            Al Gore said that there have already been hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by climate change worldwide.  More than a hundred million people are expected to die in Africa alone this century because of human-caused global warming.

            The Cool Cities Campaign is an exciting national movement to address global warming at the local level, because our national leaders are failing to tackle the issue.  Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Minneapolis, Dayton, Toledo, Cincinnati and thousands of other cities and towns across America have already signed on to the campaign.

            Through efforts to increase the efficiency of energy use, the campaigns show that they can save money while decreasing urban smog and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  The ultimate solution is to switch to renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and ecological biofuels.

            The campaign in Athens will start off with a visible display of the future.  In addition to providing electricity that will significantly lower the AEP bill of the Athens School System, the project will also provide educational material for students for decades to come.

            The project will also have a digital electric meter that students can use, as well as meters that students can take home to measure energy use in their homes.  The meters plug between the outlet and the cord to appliances, and then measure the power usage over time.