Coming soon: Climate change reporting from a suburban perspective. Here's how you can help.
Dear readers,
Happy Earth Day!
Most of us are old enough to remember the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, when we took to the streets with broom and garbage bags to tidy up the neighborhood and we started bundling our already-read newspapers and magazines, collected bottles and cans and tromped over to the local recycling center to ensure all of this stuff would be reused instead of end up in landfills.
At least that is how I remember my childhood in Arlington Heights in 1970. The drop-off center on Arlington Heights Road near Golf Road was buzzing on Saturday mornings with eager would-be environmentalists.
I was one of them.
Fast forward 52 years, and I still separate my newspapers and magazines into my blue bin, I cut up Amazon boxes and shove them in there, too, I rinse out bottles and cans and struggle mightily to remember which numbered plastics are recycled and which are not.
My wife and I bought a high-efficiency furnace that we try to keep clean. We use what we've been told is environmentally friendly lawn products that promote grass growth but tamp down the weeds.
When we have old paint and stain cans and other hazardous materials to discard, we drive 33 miles to Naperville's great recycling center to dispose of it. Come to think of it, we should do that in my hybrid car, which gets better gas mileage than hers.
My love for Earth has not waned in my 60 years living on it, and it never will. But my knowledge of how to be my best protector of it has ebbed over the years.
I'm alarmed by changes in our climate over my lifetime, owing to pollution, deforestation and the abundance of hydrocarbons in our atmosphere that trap the sun's heat and, in turn, trigger the melting of the polar ice caps, revving up storms and threatening coastal communities, water quality, farming, etc. I could go on.
I worry for my nieces and nephews and their kids and their kids' kids, who surely will live in a less hospitable world.
But today I'm excited.
I'm excited that through the Report From America program, we've been granted a reporter who will cover - not in global terms, but in relation to the greater Chicago area - climate change.
She will focus on our relationship with Lake Michigan, our prized water source, as well as how we use energy and how we recycle.
She'll examine changes in climate visible in the suburbs, using scientific data to show you empirically how things have changed.
Her focus will not just be on what's happening to us but on what we as suburbanites can do to forestall the worst effects of climate change. She'll look at things large and small - telling us which types of plastics are recyclable, which types of lawn care products are safest, whether smart thermostats can really help you save energy - all sorts of things that even a wannabe environmentalist like me is a bit hazy about.
We hope her reporting makes you a better informed resident of the world you live in.
I can't divulge her name yet, but we will be sure to introduce her to you on May 10, a few weeks before she starts. So keep an eye out.
Meanwhile, keep doing your best. I know I will.
Thanks,
Jim Baumann
Executive Editor
jbaumann@dailyherald.com
How you can help
Report For America is an organization devoted to filling news deserts. Report For America pays for half of a reporter's salary for the first year and requires that host news operations fundraise and cover the remainder themselves. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit events.<a href="https://events.dailyherald.com/climate/">dailyherald.com/climate</a>.