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Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Saint Paul Mayor Chris Coleman today launched a joint campaign to encourage residents of both cities to reduce their energy use and stem the problem of global climate change. The mayors urged residents to use a new website www.mnenergychallenge.org that allows users to calculate their energy use, reduce their energy use and compare energy savings with others.

Mayors Rybak and Coleman launched their campaign by visiting a family and used their home as an example to point out ways that all residents can reduce their energy consumption with easy changes to their lifestyle, such as turning off lights and electronics when leaving a room, limiting showers, washing clothes in cold water and carpooling.

“If current trends continue, Minnesotans will consume 35% more energy in 2025 than we do today, creating even more demand for coal plants,” Mayor Coleman said. “Instead, if everyone reduced their energy use, we could reduce climate-changing greenhouse gases. We are launching the Energy Challenge to encourage residents to ‘take an energy diet’ with easy steps to reduce their energy use.”

The Energy Challenge website calculates the greenhouse gas emissions a household uses and asks residents to pledge to reduce their energy use. The site encourages competition by allowing residents to assign their energy savings to a school, church, neighborhood or other organization that they belong to.

The mayors hope their effort will inspire broad community mobilization. Mayor Rybak said that both the City of Minneapolis and the City of Saint Paul are leading environmental cities, but that it is also essential to for city governments to inspire citizens into collective action to reverse climate change.

“Inspiration is critically important because, although the city government can provide leadership, we can make monumental progress to improve our environment if we also inspire business and citizens to join our actions, Rybak said. “While we need to inspire in all areas of environmental stewardship, the area that emerges far above all others is our urgent need to address the climate change crisis.”

“With less than 5% of the world’s population, the United States produces more than 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and those emissions are growing,” Mayor Rybak said. “As our federal leaders fail to address this climate crisis, the courage and leadership to reduce energy use and increase the use of renewable energy should and is emanating from local government.”

The Energy Challenge is a partnership with the City of Minneapolis, the City of Saint Paul and the Center for Energy and the Environment.

The two cities and the Center for Energy and the Environment are also sponsoring Energy Fairs where residents can learn more about ways to save on their energy bills and keep our community healthy with a cleaner environment. At each Energy Fair Xcel Energy will hand out 500 free energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs.

October 16th Minneapolis Energy Fair
6:00-9:00pm at Hale Elementary, 1220 E. 54th Street
Newscaster Don Shelby will be speaking at 7:30pm

October 24th Minneapolis Energy Fair
6:00-9:00pm at Jenny Lind Community School, 5025 Bryant Avenue North
Explorer Will Steger will be speaking at 7:30pm

November 13th Saint Paul Energy Fair
6:00-9:00pm at Central Senior High School
275 North Lexington Parkway