(Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection - Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner)

Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action (MOVCA) was proud to take part for the first time this year in the Parkersburg Area Community Foundation’s Give Local MOV annual day of giving. Our organization received $8,655 from 22 donors to whom we express our deepest and most sincere gratitude and appreciation.

Our climate and environmental nonprofit organization got its start in October 2015 when a group of local citizens in Wood and Washington counties, led by a few deeply concerned and enterprising individuals, decided to come together to form what was initially a chapter of the national environmental organization Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Not long after, we decided to broaden our mission and collectively adopted the name Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.

A sister of one of our founding members, a very talented graphic artist, designed a fantastic logo for us and, as they say, the rest was history. Over more than a decade, we’ve accomplished more together than space for this column could possibly allow for me to elaborate on, but I’d like to share some things about what we do and some upcoming activities.

MOVCA tables numerous area events throughout the year including Marietta Earth Day, the Ohio River Sweep cleanup (where we serve lunch to volunteers with some tabling materials at the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge), the Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library Library Fest, the MOV Multicultural Festival, the Rivers, Trails and Ales Festival in Marietta, and at least occasionally the Volcano Days at Mountwood Park and events like “No Kings” protests.

Our tabling resources include a fantastic canopy with our name and logo and signature colors produced by Easton Printing, climate voter yard signs you may have seen around town, informative pamphlets and handouts on numerous important subjects related to our mission and goals, t-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, fridge magnets and information from other organizations and individuals with whom we partner.

MOVCA hosts or cohosts free public events with expert speakers, free public film showings; and hosts, cohosts or helps promote free online or other in-person engagement opportunities from organizations like ReImagine Appalachia, the Ohio River Valley Institute, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services, Buckeye Environmental Network, Save Ohio Parks, Washington County for Safe Drinking Water, the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Marietta’s Green Sanctuary Committee, West Virginia Citizen Action Group, the Sierra Club Chapters of West Virginia and Ohio and many, many more.

Our organization sponsors Student Climate Ambassador programs at area high schools and is proud to support a program right now led by a Parkersburg High School science teacher called the Native Roots Club, wherein PHS students are working with local elementary school kids to develop, restore and protect monarch butterfly and other pollinator habitats at their schools and in the community. We also had a chance last fall to showcase the arts by hosting an Environmental Justice Truth Tellers exhibition of 10 portraits of climate and environmental activists painted by artist Robert Shetterly as part of his Americans Who Tell the Truth series. The South Parkersburg Branch of the Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library hung the portraits from Oct. 18 through Nov. 17 and provided us incredible space to host events surrounding the portrait displays, including getting to speak with Robert Shetterly himself online.

We’re particularly proud to have been able to publish these weekly Climate Corner Column pieces in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel and its sister paper The Marietta Times since March 2021. We so appreciate the cooperative work of the newspapers’ Executive Editor Christina Myer and staff. We’re also deploying air quality monitors across the MOV and in surrounding counties that link to the PurpleAir monitoring network, and are in talks with the Environmental Health Project to potentially make use of their air quality data analysis tool called AirView Public to provide detailed information to the public about what the numbers mean. If you’re interested in obtaining an air quality monitor, please contact me at ericengle85@yahoo.com or visit map.purpleair.com, where you can also view the publicly available data from air monitors that are currently in operation.

One event we’re participating in and supporting is The Great Ohio Climate March, taking place May 16 – 28, which is a march through Southeast Ohio culminating in a Rally Lobby Day at the Ohio Statehouse on May 28. Meetings with Ohio legislators that day begin at 2 p.m. You can learn more at greatohioclimatemarch.org. We’re also encouraging participation in two other ongoing projects, one each in West Virginia and Ohio.

On the West Virginia side, we’re encouraging folks to complete the WV Utility Impact Project Survey. The WV Utility Impact Project is “a grassroots advocacy campaign collecting data from West Virginians to hold utility companies — such as AEP — and regulators accountable for skyrocketing energy and water bills.” You can complete the survey at https://form.jotform.com/260745171610047 or by visiting WV Utility Impact Project on Facebook.

On the Ohio side, we’re encouraging folks to sign a petition to amend the Constitution of the State of Ohio to ban data centers in the state that consume more than 25 megawatts of electricity. You can find out where to go to sign the petition and learn more about these efforts at conserveohio.com. The goal is 413,000 Ohioan signatures by or before July 1.

You’ll continue to see great billboards throughout the MOV, designed by MOVCA Board Member and graphic designer, Aaron Dunbar, and the deployment of our great yard signs this election year. We thank all those who have supported us over the years, all our current members and all those who care about taking action to stabilize and protect our shared global climate, lived environments and health and well-being.

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Eric Engle is board president of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.