Middletown’s Clean Energy Future

A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day

And Middletown’s Achievement of Sustainable Jersey’s Silver Certification

(description of 3 presentations at the Middletown Public Library)

 In 2019 Middletown and its Green Team achieved Sustainable Jersey’s Silver Certification, as a result of a 10-year effort to make the Town more sustainable and preserve its pristine environment and quality of life for future generations. We are proposing a set of three presentations to members of the community to celebrate this achievement and to apprise them of our present and future efforts to recertify for silver certification, and attain the Gold Star in Energy.

We propose the first event be an evening during the week of Earth Day, April 20-24.  Pat and Steve Miller, founding members of Middletown for Clean Energy, will provide a vision of a clean energy future for our town, state and beyond, and an overview of actions that will be undertaken toward the Gold Star in Energy. This will be accompanied by a ceremony by the Mayor and the Green Team, congratulating them and Middletown on this achievement.

We also propose an Earth Day Electric Vehicle (EV) display beginning at 5:30PM and then convening in the community room at 7PM  for the Earth Day ceremony and talk.  The library’s rear parking lot could display about 10 EVs, both personal vehicles and dealers’ latest models, for public examination. [2/26/2020 note: We will leverage promotion of this Earthday Drive Electric event by Sierra Club, Plug in America, and Electric Vehicle Association.]

The initial Earth Day presentation, entitled “What Will a Clean Energy Future Look Like in 2050? And How Do We Get There?”, will include examples of the clean energy future vision, such as wind and solar energy, changes in home heating and appliances, vehicles we will be driving and using for transport, and the future job market.  The talk will also describe the path Middletown will take to get to clean energy and a sustainable future, as documented in a recently released draft Middletown Energy Plan, and steps toward the Gold Star in Energy.

The second and third talks in the series, at approximately 1 month intervals in May and June, will go into more detail on the seven actions that may be taken to “Get to Gold.” These include Energy Efficiency (Residential and Commercial), “Make Your Town Solar Friendly”, “Community-Led Solar Initiatives”, “Renewable Energy Aggregation”, “Make Your Town EV Friendly” and “Public EV Charging Infrastructure”.   Each of the three presentations may include talks by the Mayor or Green Team describing recent progress on Middletown’s clean energy initiatives.