Environmentalism Is Now

Norwalk strengthens relationship to environment

Environmentalism isn’t just a concept – it is the very real way in which we relate to the world around us.

In much the same way that America at the time of its founding was enraptured by naturalism and deism in which they viewed the natural order and its impact on human reason; we are now enveloped in an era where we view our human impact on the natural order. For many, being green is a way of understanding and responding to that relationship – which is why it’s a big statement when a municipality aims to be the greenest in Connecticut as Mayor Rilling said Norwalk will be.

This past March, the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency issued a draft of their first Sustainability and Resilience Plan (SRP), which they said in a press release is a “Roadmap that builds on the City’s sustainability and climate resilience efforts while placing Norwalk on a fast track to becoming the greenest city in Connecticut.” The goal of the SRP is to identify “new ways the City can enhance climate resilience efforts while addressing critical gaps to effectively build a pipeline of viable sustainability projects at the City level.”

Many times, a project roadmap or a statement can ring hollow or empty without the follow through to back it up. But the goal and repeated statement that Norwalk intends to be the greenest city in the state of Connecticut says that they mean it. Mayor Rilling repeated this claim in the press release, and said, “it’s our responsibility to take a proactive approach by implementing the steps in this Sustainability and Resilience Plan on behalf of our children, grandchildren, and future generations and that’s exactly what we’re doing.” Those steps include not just more green canopy and more Transit Oriented Development to wean people off of cars, but longer term goals as well.

And this is what we mean when we say environmentalism isn’t just a concept. It isn’t just a belief, but an acknowledgement that humans have an inextricable relationship to the natural world, an idea that has a long history amongst our political leaders stretching back to the Founding Fathers. Norwalk is taking the correct steps to navigate a world with an understanding that we play an important role in making our own environments. But Norwalk is just one municipality, there should be 169 municipalities all gunning for the title of the Greenest Municipality in Connecticut.