Re/Action on Climate Protection

How to solve global warming

Stopping "dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate" is the most important problem facing humanity today. Significant action at the local level is one of the major keys.

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

What is "necessary" legislation for GHG reduction

I think that sometimes a "knee jerk" reaction of environmentalists is, "Let's pass a law!" However, especially in protecting the commons, there is no easy way to incentivize the desired behavior. So I propose that there is some minimum set of regulations that will be required for communities to pass, in order to significantly reduce GHG emissions from new development, from existing building stock and from transportation.

These new regulations are:
1. A green building ordinance
2. A "energy efficiency upgrade on remodel or sale" ordinance
3. A carbon tax
4. Land use/zoning regulations

100% of Sonoma County Mayors Sign Climate Pledge

Today it's official! All Sonoma County Mayors are listed on the Mayor of Seattle's website:

This constitutes the six national climate protection precedents for Sonoma County.

The other five are:

1) 100% of cities and the County publicly pledge to reduce GHG emissions
2) 100% of cities and the County complete inventory of GHG emissions from internal municipal operations
3) 100% of cities and the County set emissions reduction target for internal municipal operations
4) 100% of cities and the County publicly pledge to reduce GHG emissions community wide
5) Community wide target set by cities and the County is the boldest in U.S.

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.

News from Climate Protection Campaign

Climate Protection Campaign has been working with all nine municipalities in Sonoma County, California to:

• create inventories of GHG emissions
• set GHG emissions reduction targets
• create climate action plans (CAP) to reach those targets
• implement the CAPs
• monitor progress

At this date, all of the Sonoma County municipalities, as well as the County government, have completed greenhouse gas inventories. Eight of the nine municipalities, as well as the County government, have set GHG reduction targets for both municipal operations and for the community. The community target being adopted is aggressive: 25% below 1990 levels by the year 2015.

Several of the municipalities have started their climate action plans. The County of Sonoma has nearly completed its plan. Climate Protection Campaign has an energy tracking system in place that contains four years of energy use data for all municipal accounts for all cities in the county. This database is being updated every quarter so that reports can be generated that show energy consumption and GHG emissions for each city.

Action on Climate Protection

Hello, Climate Protection Campaign is launching our blog. This blog is intended to stimulate discussion about what can be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are currently working on projects at the local level, but we advocate action at all levels: local, state, federal and international.

What we want to do in this blog is to discuss solutions. We want to know what is working elsewhere in the world...and we want to share our experiences with what is working here in Sonoma County.

Although we will post articles on science and links to basic climate science, our aim is not primarily to discuss the science of global warming and climate change. We are not climate scientists, but we view the science of global warming as basically settled. We have adopted and endorse the findings of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which are that:

• The planet is warming
• Most of the warming in the past 100 years is caused by humans (anthropogenic)
• The human activities most responsible for warming are emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and deforestation.
• Emissions of GHGs that are causing global warming are primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels.
• Significant reduction in GHG emissions is necessary to prevent dangerous changes to the global climate.

In addition to the findings of the IPCC, our view is that meaningful reductions must be accomplished as quickly as possible in order to stabilize the level of atmospheric CO2 as low as possible.

We are looking forward to engaging in discussion with you about how to solve the climate crisis.