Our Air and Climate

The health of our climate is fundamental to the well being of each of us. We are fooling ourselves if we believe we can have any lasting success without sound stewardship of our most precious natural resources - our air and the world around us. Montgomery County is in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and has a direct impact upon the Bay.

Despite efforts over the past few years, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation recently reported that the quality of the Chesapeake Bay has further degraded.

The Problems:

Development has outpaced the environments ability to absorb it.

Our use of non-renewable fuels continues to grow.

Lax environmental enforcement degrades our daily living and harms our future.

Current County regulations have allowed our forests to dwindle from 45 to 28 percent of the County in only 27 years, from 1973 - 2000. This represents a loss of 54,000 acres of tree canopy.

Solutions:

Educate the public as to the impacts each of us is having upon the world around us.

Provide a meaningful plan to reduce our non-renewable energy needs by relying in large part upon the non-governmental experts who live in Montgomery County and who have expressed a willingness to donate their efforts.

Enhance the County's Clean Energy Rewards Program such that more households and businesses will find it economically viable to shift to wind energy.

Expand the County's recycling program to require those persons and entities who generate large volumes of recyclables to recycle.

Include our community's environmental organizations as an integral part in the planning and development decision making process.

Publicize the importance that our State and Federal Legislators play in reducing global warming emissions and rally community involvement to advance their legislative initiatives.

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