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Leonardo DiCaprio's "The 11th Hour" is a documentary concerning the environmental crises caused by human actions and calls for restorative action through a reshaping of human activity.

The mission of our community is to inspire action at every level: from individual action, up through our communities, to the state, national and international level. The actions are all shifting our civilization to a sustainable future. Let's work and take action together. The time is now. The hope is you. Let's begin.

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COLUMBIA COUNTY GREEN TOWNS INITIATIVES

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Chatham Mayor Boehme and Village Board members meeting

On January 24th, 2008, Karla Kavanaugh and Sumaya Conners were invited to talk to Mayor Boehme and his Village Board members about our new organization Columbia County Green Towns Initiatives and the documentary film 11th Hour.

Mayor Boehme was very interested in our presentation about green building, solar energy, developing clean and alernative energy not only for the Town Hall but for Main Street Chatham as well. Two of the board members were adamantly opposed to anything about climate change, did not believe in it and called it fear mongering and that climates have always changed even since the Roman times!?! We explained that the population has grown tremendously, that industry has contributed to global changes and that we all need to heed the warning signs.

After about 10 minutes of beligerent comebacks from these three men - excluding of course the Mayor who is more knowledgeable on this subject, they all at once calmed down and informed us that they indeed are conserving in many ways, just because it makes their budget more manageable. For instance they changed their light bulbs many years ago before anyone else was into it. They have energy efficient ways to decimate village sewage and now that Chatham is undergoing major changes in the roads on Main street they had wanted to explore taping into the ambiant earth heat and have geo thermal heating for the buildings on Main street only to find out that the government does not allow it. I interjected and asked if they wanted us to call upon "government" to see if anyting can be done, no answer was given, but I will continue working on this subject.

Both Karla and I were extremely surprised at the level of conservation that the Village Board is taking and asked them why they do not advertise it to their constituents in Chatham and encouraging all to do the same. They said they do not have the time to keep telling people what they are doing in their own building, so Karla and I will take on that task of informing Chathamites of how our Mayor and his board are GREEN and encourage all to do the same.