Algonquin trustee against Clean Cities program; says global warming natural

Mankind should not be blamed for global warming, Algonquin Trustee Robert Smith says.

If the planet is warming, and Smith says that is still iffy, it's just nature's way, the four-term trustee says.

That's why he stands alone in opposition to the village joining the Sierra Club's Cool Cities program, whose goal is to help towns reduce their impact on the environment.

"My feeling is that if there is global warming, it's just natural temperature changes," Smith said.

And he does not want the village linked to an environmental agreement he writes off as a "propaganda piece."

Smith's refusal to endorse the program, which addresses ways to curb global warming in town, is turning into a local debate about who's responsible for the phenomenon -- human beings or mother nature.

On Tuesday, the village's committee of the whole discussed whether to join the Cool Cities program. Smith was the lone dissenting vote. The village board will officially vote to join the program on Tuesday.

Towns approving what's officially called the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement give themselves five years to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 7 percent from levels posted in 1990.

Towns designate mayors to sign the document, then organize a global warming emissions inventory, create and a plan to reduce emissions, then implement it.

At least 600 towns nationwide have signed the pledge. Illinois towns include Aurora, Chicago, Elgin, Hoffman Estates and Lake in the Hills, according to the program's Web site.

David Willett, a national spokesman for Sierra Club, says the group doesn't monitor towns' compliance to the pledge -- enforcement is up to the municipality.

Smith questions the merit of signing the non-binding agreement, fearing the environmental group will use it for its own agenda.

"To me, it's just a propaganda piece and I don't feel that the village should be tying ourselves to it," he said. "My feeling is that the name 'the Village of Algonquin' isn't something we should be throwing around loosely."

Willett confirms that Sierra Club uses the pledges and other initiatives as tools to lobby Washington for stricter environmental laws.

The pledges, for example, become Sierra Club's proof that an increasing number of mayors care about the environment, he said.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing, says Village President John Schmitt.

"I don't have a problem with the Sierra Club saying we as a village are interested in our environment," he said.

Algonquin embraced a greener lifestyle long before it was in vogue to do so, said Assistant Village Manager Jenna Kollings.

The village's public works department turns old vegetable oil used for cooking into fuel to run all 100 of the village's diesel engines, from trucks pushing snow to lawn mowers.

Algonquin last year received honors for reducing smog-causing emissions and it is adding gas-electric hybrid vehicles to its non-diesel fleet.

With these and many other initiatives in place, the village doesn't need the Cool Cities pledge to guide its behavior, Smith said.

Schmitt disagrees, saying the pledge helps the village stay on course.

"All that we're doing with this pronouncement is that we are telling the community that we're following the guidelines that are scientifically designed to help, rather than hurt the environment," Schmitt said.

Finally, Smith argues that by supporting the pledge, Algonquin promotes the view that people are solely responsible for global warming, a position he disagrees with.

"It's a viewpoint that's taken by one side that there is no other alternative, there is no other side to the argument, and I disagree with it," Smith said.

But Schmitt says that Algonquin should do what it can to reduce its emissions footprint.

"If the evidence shows that there is a very good possibility that human beings are generating or at least creating some of the causes of global warming," he said, "you've got to jump on it right now and do something about it."