BIG ENDORSEMENT: Sierra Club Maryland

Our campaign has received another major endorsement - the Sierra Club!

The Maryland Chapter of Sierra Club "focuses on protecting the state's natural and wildlife resources, monitoring legislation, sponsoring outings, and educating the public about pressing environmental issues."

The Chapter's Howard County group works on various initiatives including, land-use and development, advocacy for preservation of open spaces, conservation, and outings.

I selected my career in high school after learning about the damage that coal does to our environment. Since then, I have been working on and advocating for clean sources of energy.

We are facing some tough challenges ahead. The threat of climate change is an existential one.

The damage to our communities due to natural disasters will continue to be expensive and it is important for local communities to implement programs to deal with such threats.

This starts from what we teach in our schools and how we prepare children to understand such issues.

At the same time, we need to mitigate the impact that unabated land development has on the environment.

This starts with incorporating Howard County's Green Infrastructure Network - "[which] maps the most eco­log­i­cally valu­able forests, wet­lands, mead­ows, water­ways, and other nat­ural areas as well as the lands that con­nect these parcels together" - into our land-use management and zoning laws.

Taxpayer dollars can only be protected once we incorporate externalities to the cost of doing business.

I am very grateful for this endorsement from a group of citizens who devote so much of their time on tough issues to protect our environment.