Soglin, Barrett Sign Pledge To Make Cities Resilient To Climate

Two Wisconsin mayors – Paul Soglin, of Madison, and Tom Barrett, of Milwaukee – have signed on to a national agreement to better make communities ready for climate change.

Across the United States, 45 mayors have signed to join Resilient Communities For America. The agreement pledges them to take cost-effective steps to prepare and protect communities from climate disasters like heat waves, floods, droughts and severe storms. Many climate scientists say extreme weather events are more likely as global temperatures rise. Barrett signed the agreement, saying the federal and state government seem stalled on cutting air pollution that can contribute to global warming.

“We know that Washington has been incapable of making any major decisions as it relates to this, and we know that there are state governments, like our state government here in Wisconsin, who are not sympathetic at all to many of these concerns. So we have a choice: We either wring our hands and do nothing, or we try to look at other local units of government and see how we can best deal with this.”

Barrett says the Milwaukee sewer district is already taking steps to reduce flooding, and that the city’s health and fire departments may do more things to rapidly respond to heat waves.