Who are our leaders? Where do we find them? So many times the real leaders aren’t in Washington, New York or Los Angeles; often they’re people we don’t even know by name. To the Leadership Hall of Fame let’s nominate the residents of Greensburg, Kan., a town of 2,000 that many Americans forgot about after a brief sympathy-op when it was flattened by a tornado in May, 2007.
Greensburg had a city council that exhibited extraordinary vision and leadership; after the storm destroyed 95 percent of the town, it passed a resolution requiring all new building to be done to LEED specifications. Tests done in 2009, two years after the tornado, indicated that the “average” house in Greensburg used 41 percent less energy than conventional “standard code” houses.
No sooner did the people in town recover from the trauma of the storm, which caused the deaths of 11 residents, than they showed a courageous commitment to earth-friendly practices like minimizing waste. Trees blown down by the tornado were cut and used for rebuilding rather than just being hauled away. Then, in an outstanding act of cooperation, the folks in Greensburg changed their energy sources. Since this past March, the Greensburg Wind Farm, 10 turbines strong, has supplied power to every household and business in town, as well as thousands of other homes in the region.
The renovated courthouse saves tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of energy each year. The local John Deere farm equipment business got help from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. to institute an energy conservation plan that cut nearly 40 percent off its utility costs. The dealership also halved its water consumption.
An organization called Greensburg GreenTown (www.greensburggreentown.org) draws heavily on volunteer involvement to provide technical support and constantly updated information on the town’s green successes, and on projects in progress. One planned project is the “Chain of Eco-Homes,” a group of up to 12 model houses at various price levels that will showcase energy-efficient building techniques and materials and other green products and services. The houses will be offered as “eco-lodgings” so people can have the experience of spending a night in homes with advanced ecological adaptations.
Greensburg made its commitment before the Gulf oil spill happened. But it’s a commitment that points the way to a future in which the kind of devastation the Gulf coast is experiencing would be less likely to occur again.
