Thank You Governor O’Malley

On Wednesday night, I attended a Climate Victory Celebration hosted by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN). lori hill event productions was honored to serve on the host committee. Since we strive to make all our events sustainable (and any events we partner in producing), we provided eco friendly name badges (which we of course collected at the end to reuse again!) and asked our friends at Geppetto Catering to donate corn-based cups, napkins made of recycled content and plates made of bamboo. The bamboo plates were a huge hit! I was surprised that many of the guests in this room full of environmentalists had not yet seen this product which has been on the market for years.

The caterer at the venue offered plastic cups and plates that would be recycled, but we couldn’t stand the thought of CCAN using plastic -- even if it would be recycled. We just need to get away from plastic PERIOD, but that is a topic for another blog.

The purpose of the event was to honor climate heroes who helped Maryland pass the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act--the strongest climate action protection bill ever adopted by a U.S. state. Go Maryland! Governor O’Malley was one of those heroes. His speech was incredibly moving. You can tell he really cares about our future and protecting not only our shores – but our entire environment -- so that his kids and their kids and the generations that come after us have a beautiful planet that they can live on and enjoy. He even read some incredibly thoughtful and beautiful poetry. After he spoke, he stepped down into the audience and since I was standing by the stage, he came over, shook my hand, and said sincerely, “I really loved giving those remarks!” and I replied, “We really loved HEARING you give those remarks!”

We needed to pass this bill. Climate change is making Maryland one of the top 3 states (next to Louisiana and Florida) at risk of coastal flooding (basically, it’s going to happen). We MUST do something NOW and we have, but we still have a lot of changes to make. We need to change the way we conduct our business and our personal lives to cut down on green house gases which cause climate change that leads to flooding.

Read more about the others who were honored that night.