Re/Action on Climate Protection

Disclaimer

Dear Readers: Through this blog I aim to stimulate dialog, information exchange and debate. Opinions and ideas expressed in this blog are my own, and therefore may occasionally differ from those of the Climate Protection Campaign, where I work.

Climate Protection Conference in Sonoma County

Last Friday, 7/14, the second Climate Protection: Everybody Profits conference was held in Sonoma County, CA. Speakers from local governments, businesses were featured along with a panel discussion of tools and solutions. The keynote speaker was Linda Adams, secretary of the California Environmental Protection agency. Here is a link to the article on the conference in the local paper. The Climate Protection Campaign presented a "report card" for the County, detailing emissions levels to date, and how far the County needs to go to reach its overall target of 25% below 1990 levels by 2015Download status_report_july_14_06.pdf

Community Carbon Exchange?

The Chicago Climate Exchange is a non-Kyoto trading platform for carbon credits generated in the United States. It is a voluntary exchange, but once signed on the participation and carbon reduction committment is legally binding.

My question is, can this same model be applied on a small geographic basis? How well does this exchange concept scale down? Can it be used to create a business case for carbon reduction at a local level? Could a local exchange be set up that would allow carbon credits to be traded by local businesses and individuals?

Evangelical Christians and Climate Change

There has been an interesting discussion on our Energy Matters discussion group:
having to do with including the evangelical and fundamentalist religious communities in the fight against climate change. The discussion also includes some analysis of the value of setting community emissions targets. It was started with a comment by Ed Mainland, with responses by Ann Hancock and Stan Gold.

Question - What do you think?

For the readers of this blog (yes you!) What do you think so far? Any suggestions? Personally, I would like to see more comment. Any ideas how we could use this blog better to stimulate discussion/debate/new approaches to climate change? I would really appreciate it if you could leave a comment on what could be done to make the blog better.

Thanks,
Dave Erickson

Young Activist Takes a Stand

...In May 2005, the Climate Protection Campaign convened a workshop to agree upon a greenhouse gas reduction target for Sonoma County, where 32 community members came to consensus that Sonoma County should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 25% below 1990 levels by 2015, the boldest emission reduction target set by any community in the United States to date. The recommended target has now been adopted by all nine of Sonoma’s city governments, and the Board of Supervisors will vote on the target on September 27th, 2005.

Eight youth under 18 participated in the workshop, alongside city councilmembers, civic leaders, and business members. Below is the experience of Katie Arnold, the youth representative for Cotati...

Living Large and Zero Carbon?

Recently, the New York Times had an article titled, "Living Large, By Design, in Middle of Nowhere"

Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/national/15exurb.html?ex=1126411200&en=4c7c267b3b439984&ei=5070 .

This article begins by describing a typical new Florida development, "four miles from the nearest grocery store and 30 minutes from the nearest major mall'. This is an example of the "exurb", a highly planned, marketing driven community design, targeted at "what young families want", determining "how many streetlights and cul-de-sacs will evoke a soothing sense of safety."

"Over the next decade, New River will expand to 1,800 acres and be home to 15,000 people living in 4,800 single-family homes...At the moment, though, it is nothing more than an island of 400 suburban homes in the middle of nowhere, an infant exurb."

These are large homes, crammed together on tiny lots. A survey of the buyers of these homes showed that "88 percent said [they wanted] a home security system, 93 percent said they preferred neighborhoods with 'more streetlights', and 96 percent insisted on deadbolt locks or security doors."

The market research also showed that the home buyers were willing to trade off price with commute time. The tradeoff was quantified and showed that a 15 minute longer commute meant that the home needed to be $12,000 cheaper, than the exact same home located closer to work.

With a backdrop of new development like this, large, energy-hungry homes, located in an area with no mass transit, and cars are required for even the most basic errands, growth in GHG emissions from current levels is a given. New development like this represents the creation of huge new demand for energy for transportation, water, wastewater, streetlighting and solid waste disposal.

In order stop the growth and begin reducing GHG emissions, two things have to happen: 1)Existing energy users must increase efficiency and reduce demand; 2)new development must be decoupled from increased fossil-based energy use. That is, new development must not result in increased GHG emissions.

How can this be accomplished? The key principles of zero carbon development are:

1. Inside existing urban boundaries
2. Increasingly concentrated in existing downtown core areas
3. Mixed-use, unless adding residential above existing commercial, or filling residential in among existing commercial uses
4. Pedestrian and bicycle oriented, which means wider sidewalks, dedicated bike paths, narrower streets, smaller turning radius, and “Eyes on the street” orientation of living areas
5. Higher densities in downtown core areas and near transit hubs
6. Redevelopment of core areas to place high density residential wherever on-grade parking presently exists in downtown areas
7. New development outside downtown cores and inside urban boundaries
8. Electric energy provided by renewable sources such as solar or wind
9. New homes constructed to be "net zero energy" using passive solar design principles.
10. Any new development linked to transit hubs
11. Water and wastewater systems designed to use minimum energy and be renewably powered. Rainwater harvesting, graywater and reclaimed water all aggressively deployed.
12. Link green building with walk-ability and convenient, inexpensive mass transit options.

See our white paper section on new development: http://climateprotectioncampaign.jot.com/NewDevelopment

Zero Carbon Home example.

http://www.livingvillage.com/concept

Energy from Waste

We are excited to be working with Sonoma Compost to develop new processes that allow them to harvest energy from yard waste, and other organic waste streams. This is a step in the process that we call "closing the loop." This essentially means reducing greenhouse gas emissions by recovering energy from waste. Sonoma Compost is currently the processor for the yard waste that is picked up by Sonoma County haulers. They produce a high quality organic compost, which they offer for sale.

We are working with them to select new technologies that allow the production of biogas or a liquid fuel such as biodiesel or ethanol from organic waste streams, and also a new compost product. This energy or fuel can replace fossil-based energy sources, which results in a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Here is an example of a system that accomplishes this:

http://www.kompogas.ch/en/

Climate Protection Campaign White Paper Wiki

Please look at our white paper wiki. Here:

http://climateprotectioncampaign.jot.com

This is a living document that is updated by our authors to reflect the best thinking on local solutions to the climate change crisis.

Please send comments to dave[at]climateprotectioncampaign.org (replace [at] with @)

Achieving Zero Net Carbon

At Climate Protection Campaign, we have developed a strategy called "Carbon Removal". We look at each of the GHG emitting sectors: existing buildings, local energy system, transportation, water/wastewater, solid waste, agriculture, new development and forestry in the context of government, residential, commercial and industrial uses.

We then formulate what must be done to remove carbon emissions completely from each sector. Generally, these actions fall into two categories: demand side and supply side. On the demand side, we have found that energy efficiency measures top the list for fast, cost-effective GHG reductions. On the supply side, we are developing ways to transition our local energy supplies to renewable sources.

In my next few posts, I'll give some examples of the types of measures we are working on. I hope that other folks out there will share their experiences with working toward zero net carbon.