Business Planning for Climate Change- A 'Climate Change and the Bottom Line' Conference Recap

November 6, 2013

By Katia Blackburn

Climate change is real: It’s happening fast, it’s extremely expensive, and preparing for it requires a collaborative full-court press. Cascadians already getting traction with their preparation, protection and prevention strategies shared their experiences and plans at Climate Change and the Bottom Line conference, held on October 31.

Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway: Scientists Who Obscure the Truth

Since researchers began examining evidence that our planet is heating up, people have been questioning data, doubting evidence, and attacking the scientists who collect and explain it. Science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, authors of Merchants of Doubt, blame a cadre of high-level scientists and scientific advisers who clouded public interpretation of facts to advance a political and economic agenda—some of the same figures who denied studies linking smoking to lung cancer—and show how ideology and corporate interest can skew public understanding and spread confusion on many of our most important challenges.

The authors will be speaking at Town Hall on Thursday, June 30, 2011, 7:30-9:00pm
Presented as part of Seattle Science Lectures, with Pacific Science Center and University Book Store. Series sponsored by Microsoft. Series media sponsorship provided by KPLU.

Flow 5/1/2011 Issue 8

Flow is based on Sustainable Seattle's Happiness Initiative and is inspired by Vinyasa, which means one leading to another. Flow gives small, but important steps that can improve one's contentment amongst all nine domains of happiness. Flow is a weekly jolt of inspiration, pragmatism and a collection of local events that will raise our happiness. This month of May we are taking a look at some simple actions we can take to get our mental health on a better path. First before we get started, this month is not meant to replace professional psychological advice nor should it be used as a substitute for seeking assistance for serious problems such as depression. Psychological Well Being Issue 8 I’m a huge believer in taking actions to affect our attitude. We sometimes get so caught up in our minds that we do not make significant changes, but wallow in our emotional problems. We are going to be looking at actions that can help change our emotional states from the outside in. Use the mornings as a time for yourself. Set the alarm fifteen minutes early and enjoy the silence of the home while eating a healthy breakfast, exercising or meditating. Make lunch for the next day in the evening and when eating said lunch get out of the workplace whenever possible. Find a place of beauty and calm, or a place filled with people whichever makes you happier. Never cram food in your mouth while you sit at your desk. Make connecting with friends a priority. Nothing beats face to face interactions no matter how “busy” we claim to be. We need to make that choice to spend time with people we care about. Choose to read, write, draw, or dance as a way to not only be creative, but also to be active. Active minds are more resilient. This week slow things down and take time to appreciate all the things in your life that are going quite well. Health, employment, love of family or friends, safety, all these things we take for granted. Choose this week to pay attention. Lastly, and I can’t recommend this enough, is to keep a very safe, secure journal. Journaling allows us to get things out of our heads, explore ideas, and reconnect with ourselves. There are only three rules to journaling: never let anyone else see it, write consistently about whatever pops into your head, and NEVER let anyone else see it. Journaling is raw thoughts that do not need to go through our usual filters of society. It is extremely important that others do not see these thoughts as we are nowhere close to that amount of honesty in our relationships. This journal is for us to reflect and think and organize, not to show and tell. I would also recommend not to do this online or in the form of a blog. Once something is out in the ether of the internet, it cannot be withdrawn. Nathan Jackson Recommendations This week’s website recommendation is: The #happiness Daily This week’s book recommendation is: Pocket Sudoku by Will Shortz Sign up for the weekly newsletter. Support Flow		Flow Suggests: 5/1-5/7 2011 Climate Change and Grass Roots Organizing Environmental, Psychological Well Being, Community www.sustainableballard.org Monday, May 2, 2011 4:45-7pm Visualization Tools for Sustainability Environmental, Community Tuesday, May 3, 2011 9am-5pm www.sustainableseattle.org Susan Freinkel: Plastic, Plastic Everywhere Environmental, Cultural, Material www.townhallseattle.org Wednesday, May 4, 2011 | 7:30 – 9pm

Staples Urban Environment Challenge, Call for Entries

Sustainable Seattle is coordinating the Seattle regional chapter of the Staples Urban Environment Challenge. The challenge is a competition open to organizations that serve 5th through 9th graders in an environmental educational type of capacity. The following is the website that contains the requirements and rules. For further information contact nathan(at)sustainableseattle.org.

Staples Urban Environment Challenge

Earth Force and Staples Foundation for Learning share a mutual commitment to the environment, education and youth. Both help to inspire a national movement of young people who will become the leaders of their communities and to secure a healthy environmental future.

Our Project – THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT CHALLENGE

Together, Earth Force and Staples will develop the next generation of environmental problem-solvers by engaging urban youth in addressing issues related to climate change. THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT CHALLENGE encourages young people in urban communities to take action on pressing local issues created by global climate change. Entries to the UEC from each region have a chance to win a $1,000 custom technology & supplies package or one of two $500 packages..

Do I qualify?

Criteria for participation in the Staples Urban Environment Challenge:

• Groups of 10 or more young people engaged in youth-led projects, such as service learning, in one of the ten metro areas listed below
• Groups of 5th - 9th grade students from schools where 60% or more of students qualify for free/reduced lunch
• Commitment to completing an action project that addresses issues related to climate change

Already doing service learning on your own or with another partner organization? You're invited to participate! Click on the registration button to let us know you're in!

How It Works

Young people doing service learning in groups of 10 to 30 are invited to address a environmental concern related to global climate change that impacts their urban community and submit their project to the UEC by Earth Day - April 22, 2011. They will work with local businesses, government agencies and climate change experts to develop the understanding they need in order to address the root cause. Through their research contestants will develop a solution to the problem and implement an action plan to improve their community.

Young people will use their project results to develop a written and web based entry into THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT CHALLENGE. Entries will be posted on the internet and Staples employees and other partners will be invited to review the entries and vote for those projects they believe should win each of five regional competitions. One winner in each region will receive a $1,000 technology & supplies package. Two runners up in each region will receive $500 packages.

How to talk about climate change (or any other issue, for that matter)

One of the most important things that sustainability advocates can do is to persuade more people to care about the issues we find important, and to support solutions that will work.  Because—thank heavens—we don't live in a dictatorship, we must do this to make progress.  It's difficult, frustrating work, but we have some resources and ideas to help.  The things I'll be writing about in this post are specifically for talking about climate change, because it's one of the most difficult issues to do this with, but the advice translates to any contentious or sensitive issue you want to persuade people to listen to you about.

Joe Brewer, who is part of our Leadership Circle and taught last month's How To Bring About Large-Scale Behavior Change workshop, recently published an excellent article: Responding to Climate Skeptics' "Change Argument".  You should read the whole thing, but the gist is that it's essential to build trust in order to be listened to at all, and to understand where the skeptic is coming from in order to respond well to their argument.  This is good general advice that we should all follow, and in the article Joe expands on this and adds some specific advice about climate change and some common reasons why people who are neither malicious nor stupid continue to deny that there's a problem.

I can read as many articles about this as I like, but when it comes to using the theory there's no substitute for practicing.  To give you a chance to practice how to talk about climate change, we are putting on an evening workshop on October 7th called Stop Global Warming With Words.  It will start with a short lecture by Louise Stonington, but most of the time will be devoted to practicing your message, and giving each other feedback on this.  We hope it will serve as a good warm-up for the 10:10 campaign and worldwide work party.

We're also planning another intensive workshop with Joe early next year - watch this space for details.

July Events from Sustainable Seattle and Updates

So what is next for Sustainable Seattle? We the month of July is filled with various events and trainings that are still barely available for attendance. We do have limited space so make sure to sign up today!

July 1,2010 Climate Solutions from Buddha



July 15, 16, 2010 Triple Bottom Line Reporting





July 28, 2010 Life Cycle Analysis











Whew, the last few months have been busy here at Sustainable Seattle. We've been working towards a holistic vision of sustainability with all engines firing with different events, trainings and collaborations that have widened the spectrum of sustainability and broadened our minds.

First, we had a fantastic event at Hidmo located in the Central District. It was a cultural exploration of East African people's through dance, song and food. Our partnership with Walking with Africans was to bring the vision of micro lending into the wider audience of the Central District. The event was a tremendous success and the performances were entertaining and educational.

Our Dream a Sound Future project is fired up and bringing in ideas and plans from numerous sources both professional and dreamers from all ages. Some of the ideas that have emerged include an energy source from the motion of falling rain to solar powered street lights.

We have also just completed the first step in our Rain Garden project.
The project was a joint collaboration with Alleycat Acres and Creatives 4 Community and it included an extensive training project that teaches homeowners and individuals about the importance of the Puget Sound Watershed and the steps they can take to lower their impact on this important resource.

The Rain Garden Project was funded in part from a grant from the Puget Sound Partnership via EcoNet.

Escaping despair

This is post 5 of a 5 part series. Previously:

Deepwater Horizon should surprise nobody

What you can do to use less oil

Only better policies can really save us

Why individual action still matters

A few times in this series I've talked about just how dire the status quo is. I think people outside the sustainability advocacy community often fail to grasp that when we describe systems as "unsustainable" we mean this entirely literally. This is neither about some minor luxuries we'll have to live without in future nor about problems so distant or theoretical that we can afford to ignore them: it is about whether society organised the way it is today can survive for as long as I intend to live.

At the same time, we know the task ahead if we are to change the status quo enough is intimidatingly huge. The world has sunk tremendous resources into building a fossil fuel dependent economy, most people seem desperate to keep the status quo, there are immense vested interests in keeping it so for as long as possible, and we are already seeing the damage we have caused to ourselves. This leads inexorably to a state that we must avoid: despair.

I think that despair is a particularly grave sin in so many religions because it leads people to stop trying, and the only way we can guarantee failure is by giving up. It really is a kind of cop-out; "I don't need to change my behaviour because all is lost anyway". But it's also a very understandable, very human trait to fall into this trap. I wrestle with despair routinely—especially when events like the Deepwater Horizon disaster or the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks shine a light on how bad things really are—and most people who are deeply involved in the sustainability movement do at least some of the time. So it's really important that we work out a way to deal with the risk of despair and not become paralysed by it.

For me at least, despair comes from mistakenly seeing major environmental problems as binary: broken vs fixed; good vs bad; success vs failure. Seen in this light, we have already failed, so despair is inevitable. In the real world, though, there are always degrees of success and failure. We could stop global warming at the 1.5-2°C we're already stuck with and do some serious work to protect coastal communities, limit desertification and manage flood risks, or we could let it run much further. We could continue to accept the virtual inevitability of more Deepwater Horizons, or we could act to reduce this risk. We could accept the significantly shorter life expectancy of residents of the most polluted parts of Seattle (which are also some of the poorest districts), or we could do whatever we can to improve the situation.

Doing something—anything—turns out to be liberating. It's much easier to wallow in despair when using it as an excuse to do nothing at all, but if you start to do something about the problem it's much easier to fight that off. There is also a measure of detachment required, though. Not detachment about the problems we face, or denial of the problems or their scale, but a more personal detachment from the messianic idea of being able to fix everything. Accepting that all I can do is play my small part makes me much more effective at it than I was when I was fixated on the enormity of the trouble we are in, and how limited my own power is to sort it out.

There's no denying that humanity is in deep trouble if we don't change our ways, and it is entirely normal to respond to this with despair. Yet a better world is possible if we all do what we can and don't allow the despair to paralyse us or become an excuse for complacency. Escaping that trap requires us to do what we can to make the world better, and stop beating ourselves up about the limits to what we can do.

Why individual action still matters

This is post 4 of a 5 part series. Previously:

Deepwater Horizon should surprise nobody

What you can do to use less oil

Only better policies can really save us

If you've been reading these posts in order, you may feel that the previous one about the paramount importance of better policy undermines the message from the day before about individual choices we can make to use less oil. There are several reasons why even though it can't be enough alone, individual action is still crucially important.

The first is simply that the status quo is so bad that we must do everything productive, and not allow the pursuit of one avenue to prevent others from being explored. I started this series writing about the direct consequences of oil extraction, but I have barely mentioned the larger problem: global climate change. Unfortunately, the world is almost certainly committed to some warming even if we somehow stop emitting greenhouse gases overnight. This means we have already passed the point where the real question is about whether we suffer serious, painful consequences; it's already a question of how bad it will be. This means that anything which reduces emissions now will have some benefit, and most of the individual actions can be done much quicker than the necessary policy changes.

A deeper reason is that the domains of individual action and policy are not entirely separate. When you choose to bike somewhere instead of driving, you are not only avoiding those miles of driving, but also shifting demand from car to bike infrastructure. This information is tracked and used to plan future investments, so each time you make a choice of how to get around (or where to buy things from, what food to eat, and so on), you are voting with your feet. And if you want to persuade your elected representative to do something, it's much easier if you can say "this will help me, because I'm already practicing what I preach", not to mention simply being more honest.

Finally, individual choices matter as much as anything else because they shift the Overton Window; they change what is considered politically possible. Each person who makes the kind of behavioural choices that contribute to weaning us off oil, makes it easier for the next to follow, and easier for politicians to pass the kind of laws that support them doing so. Changing social trends change what politicians feel they can or should do, and a changing social trend is nothing more than the aggregation of enough individuals changing their own behaviour. A movement is powerful because it leads to political change, but it starts with individuals opting to do the right thing.

So, individual action alone won't save us, but the system-wide changes we need won't happen without the support of many individuals' actions.

This is post 4 of a 5 part series. Coming up:

Escaping despair

Only better policies can really save us

This is post 3 of a 5 part series. Previously:

Deepwater Horizon should surprise nobody

What you can do to use less oil

In the previous posts in this series, I argued that we must reduce our oil consumption and outlined individual actions we can take to do so. Unfortunately, all manner of structural problems conspire to limit how much difference we can make as individuals. As a simple example, consider what happens to the supply and demand of parking if you stop driving: parking becomes easier or cheaper for someone else to find, leaving everyone else with less incentive to change their behaviour. Unfortunately, this is just one example of a much broader phenomenon. Oil is a fungible commodity, meaning that whatever is not used in one place can be trivially transferred to use elsewhere, and without wholesale economic systems change we are on a course to use the last drop we are capable of extracting from the ground, at ever higher costs. If we are really to escape the terrible consequences of oil use, we must change the way our economy is organised comprehensively enough that we can actually leave oil in the ground.

To achieve this sort of change, we have to build up from individual actions to local, national and ultimately international policy. The local part is the easiest to get a handle on. Local governments make decisions every year that have important impacts on the behaviour of, and opportunities open to, the people who live in their jurisdiction. Many of these are straightforward allocations of resources; investing in more, larger or faster roads increases driving while transferring those same resources over to improving public transport, bike infrastructure or the pedestrian environment encourages people to leave their cars behind by giving them better alternatives. Here in Seattle, we face a particularly extreme allocation of resources into oil-dependent infrastructure with the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement megaproject, which will plough $2 billion into a downtown highway bypass while almost certainly sucking away all the resources that might have been spent on improving travel within downtown.

Local government also exerts a lot of control over urban form by means of building codes and zoning laws, and these make a huge difference to resource use. Everything that encourages car-friendly infrastructure over pedestrian-friendly, and especially if it encourages sprawl over dense urban living, contributes to making us all use more oil as we travel past each others' houses to get to anything. Local examples include a set of townhouse design rules which both increase the amount of space one house needs and leads to hostile pedestrian environments, and the very limited area in which developers are allowed to build multifamily housing. Many cities in the US have similar issues, and if they were all fixed we would consume significantly less oil as a country, simply because we'd be travelling so much shorter distances going about our business.

Nationally, we need not only to introduce policies that deliberately reduce oil use (such as Cap and Trade in some form), but also to remove the huge number of subsidies that make enormously resource-wasteful activities economical; the most obvious being highway subsidies. We can and should take this further, and use a huge economic lever to reduce demand for oil by shifting taxes from income and goods to pollution. This is where we start to get multiplier effects that approach the scale of the problem.

Of course, the same argument about fungibility that applies between individuals applies between countries, so ultimately international treaties will be crucial. I won't go further into that here, because the international influence of the US is so huge that it's clear that no worthwhile international treaty can be passed until we are seen to be fixing our own problems, so we must focus on domestic policy first. And domestic policy is somewhere where you can make a difference by educating yourself about the issues, talking about them, and writing to elected representatives wherever you are.

If you take one thing from this whole series of posts, please let it be the importance of advocating for policies that wean us collectively off oil.

This is post 3 of a 5 part series. Coming up:

Why individual action still matters

Escaping despair

What you can do to use less oil

This is post 2 of a 5 part series. Previously:

Deepwater Horizon should surprise nobody

In yesterday's post, I wrote about the inevitability of a disaster like what we're seeing unfold in the Gulf of Mexico right now, given our economy's deep reliance on fossil fuels. This information is only useful if we can do something about it, and today's post will address the first level of that: actions we can all take to reduce our individual contribution to the problem. It's very simple in principle—we have to directly use less oil, and reduce our consumption of things manufactured and delivered in reliance on oil—but it's worth going through a few examples.

The most obvious thing is to drive less. Driving not only consumes oil by burning it as gasoline, it also consumes significant amounts indirectly, which is why driving less is a far more comprehensive solution than getting a more fuel-efficient or electric or biofuelled vehicle. There's an astonishing amount of energy embedded in a car because manufacturing one involves mining large quantities of various metals, melting them down, producing plastic components (generally made from natural gas and with other huge environmental costs), shipping the components around for final assembly and then getting the car to you. Then there's the immense amount of oil used to make tarmac for roads and consumed in their maintenance (powering the road-building equipment itself runs on), and many other environmental costs imposed by them, such as stormwater pollution. Cars also create their own demand, because the more of a city is given over to roads and parking, the greater the distances between people and destinations, and the harder it becomes to get around without a car. That, however, is a hint of the great limitation of telling people to drive less: for many people it's not so much a free choice as one forced by the combination of places where they can afford to live and are able to work.

In light of that, the next recommendation is to use more human power and less machine power throughout our daily lives. Switching from a car to a bicycle is a significant environmental win, but many smaller things are easier to do and more universally accessible. Try growing your own food--even just a pot of herbs in a window--cooking yourself dinner, mending your own clothes, and so on. Completely opting out of manufactured goods takes a large investment of time and many skills, but making the first changes that start to add up only requires a little resourcefulness. Above all, start small and don't be intimidated by not being able to change everything tomorrow. Most people who do this find it empowering to know they can make a few more things themselves, even if they don't have time to do it routinely.

For the things you can't make yourself, whether through lack of time or lack of the specific skills, it remains necessary to buy manufactured things but is almost always possible to consume less. "Green consumerism"— the luxury of choosing items manufactured in a somewhat more environmentally friendly way — is out of many people's reach, but it's also hugely overrated. Buying more stuff still means consuming more resources, and the details are, well, details. Many more thing can be reused than most people do, and as old-fashioned and unflashy as this is, mending clothing instead of replacing it is one of the most powerful ways you can reduce your use of stuff and therefore of the oil that in some more or less direct way is an input to the manufacture and delivery of almost everything. And when you do buy new things, carefully consider whether there's a longer-lasting or more reusable version available. They often cost more up front, but that cost is very often made up for by the longer useful life they will have.

There are many more way to reduce individual impacts, but this is a starting point. Of course, it's impossible to completely opt out of the oil economy without running for the hills and abandoning most of contemporary civilisation, but the next two posts in this series will address ways in which we can magnify the effects of our individual choices, and the final post will argue for why we must keep trying even though the task at hand often looks overwhelming.

This is post 2 of a 5 part series. Coming up:

Only better policies can really save us

Why individual action still matters

Escaping despair

Deepwater Horizon should surprise nobody

This is post 1 of a 5 part series

Like most people who care about anything, I've been watching the news from the Gulf of Mexico with horror. What is almost certainly now the worst ecological disaster in US history will have mind-numbingly huge effects, probably for more than a generation. In all honesty I'm saying so little about that because I can't find a way to be articulate about it. It is entirely appropriate to be horrified, angry and deeply sad. But the level of surprise I'm seeing almost universally expressed just shows how little the public at large understands the implications of how our economy and society are organised.

The first reason we shouldn't be surprised is that there's precedent. If you aren't familiar with the Ixtoc incident, then I urge you to watch this. It's worth the 8 minutes:

Of course, just because there is a precedent that people seem to forget about doesn't guarantee that an event will happen again. It's the sheer numbers that do, and here's why.

Every process has some level of risk attached. Go and look at a package of any medicine and you'll see information about statistical risks. Multiply the risk factors by the number of people taking the drug, and you get an expected number of deaths and catastrophic side-effects per year from people taking that drug. Most countries have a fairly rigourous regulatory regime in place to make sure the benefits outweigh the risks, and most drugs do turn out to bring a net benefit to humanity, but they are approved knowing that there's some level of risk.

The same risks x frequency calculus applies to oil exploration, except that regulation is ineffectual, hard numbers are much harder to find, and the consequences of the worst things going wrong are far larger. I haven't been able to find a count for the number of oil wells in the world, but there are almost 4,000 in the northwestern Gulf Of Mexico alone, and there appear to be over 40,000 oil fields in the world.

If we use the very conservative estimate that the average oil field has 10 wells, we get 400,000 oil wells. At that scale, the risk of any given well blowing out in any given year only needs to be 1 in a million for at least one blowout per decade to be all but inevitable (p=0.98, to be precise). I don't know what the real risk factor is, but I'm pretty sure I'm underestimating the the number of wells....

It's tempting in the face of that to just wring our hands and blame the oil industry, but that's a dishonest way out.

We are all responsible for this. We have oil exploration on this scale because the entire industrialised world is heavily dependent on fossil fuels to make it run. Every time you get in a car, or buy something that was shipped from far away, or use a disposable plastic thing, you are contributing to the leviathan that is the global fossil fuel industry. It's not just the headline-grabbing catastrophes like Deepwater Horizon; we all contribute to the slow-motion oil spill from our streets every time it rains, and it doesn't even take an accident for fossil fuel extraction to be destructive.

The saddest thing about this is that it didn't have to be so. We can have a modern, technological civilisation without relying on oil for everything, but we have what we have because of a series of choices we have made as a society. This is also the most optimistic thing that can be said, because we still have the power to change it, and the rest of this series will address how.

This is post 1 of a 5 part series. Coming up:

What you can do to use less oil

Only better policies can really save us

Why individual action still matters

Escaping despair

City Council Carbon Neutral Panel

April 13, 2010

SEATTLE-It was a packed house as the City Council opened up the panel to public presentation and comment. There were guest speakers invited by the council to give testimony and advice on the ways to the ends of Carbon Neutrality (a term one of the speakers derided as sounding too passive) that included a US representative, an executive director of a non profit, city employees and a leader in the sustainability field.

The crowd listened intently with applause and accolades coming at measured clap friendly quotes and themes for the mostly left leaning audience. One of the loudest applause lines was from Representative Jay Inslee when he touted the need for the US Senate to pass some form of energy bill like the House already has. This line was repeated at appropriate times throughout the meeting.

Representative Inslee also talked about bringing the conversation away from environmentalism and morality, but to economic stimulus and necessity. He gave examples of the green technological revolution China is undertaking as a matter of national directive. The biggest solar power plant is being built in China as we speak and the representative, channeling a diet version of the ghost of America being left behind, spoke of the amount of jobs, treasure and leadership the US was leaving unexplored because we do not have a governmental mandate for green technology.

Alex Steffen, executive director of Worldchanging.org, was a panelist whose views and ideas were all backed by science, data, and a heavy dose of cautious optimism. He spoke of the interconnection of social justice, women's rights, lowering consumption, and the emergence of a new city the size of Seattle being built every other day for the next forty years.

He spoke of the need for cities to be built smarter as nearly 70% of humanity will live in major metropolitan areas with the other 30% nearly all living in suburbs connected to major metropolitan areas by 2050. "We need a different plan; maybe they will be building their cities on the Seattle model," said Mr. Steffen. If we make Seattle carbon neutral though innovative technologies, and most important behavior change we could once again be a leader in the world in the face of an existential threat.

Mr. Steffen then dropped the most impactful line the entire night in response to a question about human population growth. The question was what are we going to do about a growing population that is expected to be 9 billion people by 2050. Mr. Steffen said, "Population doesn't matter. But if the rest of the world starts living the way the United States, and Europe does, that is a death sentence to this planet." No one clapped, no one even breathed. You could hear your neighbors breathing as the blame was shifted from those poor people having five or six children back to where the blame needs to be centered, our over consumption.

The council members had a chance to ask questions at the end of the presentations and Council member Licatta asked the question I've been hoping to hear from our political leaders for months now since the council published its 17 priorities. What about poverty and social justice? How can we ensure that the technology and planning does not leave behind the downtrodden and poverty stricken? The answers ranged from inclusion in the initial decision phases to diversifying the outreach for ideas.

The public questions were insightful for the most part with questions ranging from the viability of walking to schools, having a partnership with Metro and schools to eliminate school district run buses, to bringing bicycle sharing to the city as long as the city council doesn't get in the way. One speaker explained that bicycle sharing would create green, sustainable jobs and would not need any money from the city to get started. The audience applauded that.

Green Jobs

Green Jobs Crossroads
Image from treehugger.com

The following is an excerpt from Sightline.org about the importance of green jobs and the opportunities they present. For the original article please follow the link below.

Sightline PDF

Paychecks with a Purpose: Patriotism, duty, pride

Green jobs help families in our communities: Cut energy costs in our homes and buildings, raise property values in our neighborhoods, and keep energy dollars at home. Green jobs give local economies a competitive edge: Clean energy is happening now. Those who dawdle may be left behind. Green jobs make our families and economy more secure: Green jobs help cushion the economy from volatile energy prices and reduce our dependence on dirty fossil fuels. Green jobs protect our climate: A green workforce contributes to an economy, environment, and future we can be proud to pass on to our children.

Sustainable Wallingford Events

The aim of Sustainable Wallingford is to build a more sustainable town in Wallingford.



Sustainable Seattle in collaboration with other sustainability groups will bring you news of events in the greater Seattle area.

What’s up this month with Sustainable Wallingford groups?
Next week is Wallingford Community Preparedness week with ham radio training Feb 18 and a SNAP workshop Feb 20.
Growing Food Growing Community is growing vegetable starts for food banks this year with 25, count em - 25!! volunteers (last year they grew and gave away more than 3000 baby plants with just 6 volunteers).
Community Kitchens are holding a delicious winter salads and chocolate dinner to celebrate Feb 26 (rsvp early)
Climate Dialogs continue to take political action to inform, educate, and lobby.
Wallingford Solar has a vision of putting solar panels on 1000 Wallingford houses and is making a presentation Feb 17 at Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell Energy Committee (getting local energy generation is part of the Sustainable Wallingford Energy Efficiency Team Plan - the SWEET Plan).
Meaningful Movies shows Food Inc Feb 13 and celebrates its 7th birthday, Meaningful Movies partners with us on a monthly Transition movie series starting March 13.

And check out our 2009 accomplishments!

Sustainable Wallingford is blessed with amazingly knowledgeable and dedicated people. Take a look at our member pages: we’ve got systems planners, communication consultants, toxicologists, nutritionists, gardeners, artists. (Make sure you update your page if you’ve got new interests and skills or a new address.) We still need more - writers, social media folks, painters, photographers, engineers, musicians, babies, cheesemakers, nurses, teachers, carpenters, tool bankers, businesspeople, students, yogis, chemists, biologists, plumbers, shoemakers, bakers, bikers, dancers, architects, computer scientists, ham radio operators, psychologists, pruners, electricians. We need you. We can build a better community and a better world with your unique skills and passions.

What you can do to stop climate change

One of the reasons the environmental movement has slowed or grown jaded is because the everyday person seems to think that they cannot do anything that will make an impact as an individual. People think that climate change is something that the leaders of a country or large corporations and industries must solve since the problem is so big. The truth is that individuals can affect climate change and the best part of it is that the steps you can take can also save you money.

You Can Prevent Global Warming by Jeffrey Langholz and Kelly Turner is a handbook for those who want to add household actions to their group climate change activities. The book is written in a very conversational tone and even has a primer in the beginning to explain some of the basics of climate change for those who want a few more facts about the dangers. It also makes every step of action measurable with monetary savings to the individual households.

The actions we take to combat climate change must be sustainable and simple. They cannot be only feel good letter writing campaigns or standing on a corner every fourth Saturday with a sign that reads "Stop Turning Up the Heat!" We need to take actions that are measurable and give an additional reward besides the feelings of making a difference.

A few examples from the book include:

1. Purchasing a water efficient toilet or using water displacement to lessen the amount of water used per flush.

2. Buy water efficient shower heads.

3. Turn down the water heater in your home by ten degrees.

4. Wash your clothes i cold water instead of hot.

These are just a few of the tips that the book explains in details. If we are serious about climate change we need to make individual steps to lessen our own carbon footprint and conserve energy. The rewards are a more energy efficient country and a cooler planet.

Climate Change Conference Copenhagen

The climate talks that began earlier this December have come to a conclusion on Friday December 18, 2009. The topic of discussion was how to address climate change from a global united perspective. Over one hundred and ninety nations participated in the event and the results have been mixed from the expectations many countries and environmental groups had going into the conference.

The talks were stalled as countries began to take issue with various procedural and substantive differences of opinions, but with the intervention of the heads of states that arrived on Thursday evening there has been a movement. Four nations have come to an accord, amongst them the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases: the United States and China. The other nations were India and South Africa.

The agreement was a compromise that was brokered between the heads of state in late afternoon and night sessions. It is unclear whether this agreement will be ratified by the rest of the nations at the conference, but the leaders of the four agreeing nations called it an important step.

The agreement called the "Copenhagen Accord" in essence renews the Kyoto Protocol and also sets targets for global temperature to only increase by two degrees Celsius. The other major parts of the accord are financial with aid going to developing countries to invest in more climate neutral technology and preservation.

Progressives and environmental activists have hailed the "Copenhagen Accord" as a victory although a very small one. Many advocates against climate change feel as if the accord does not do enough to combat climate change since most of the accord is on a voluntary basis. The agreement sets temperature goals and a financial buy in that is disproportionate to the countries' greenhouse emissions.

Others see this agreement as a major step forward as the United States for instance was not ever on board for the Kyoto Protocol when it first came into being. The proponents of this agreement say that the mere fact that the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, the United States, getting on board even for a voluntary climate control mechanism is a major change in policy.

The way forward for those concerned with climate change is to get involved with local and international non governmental organizations that focus on environmental issues. The way forward is not only focusing on individual actions such as recycling, but to change the way that business is done in the United States.

Government action can only be effective if the representatives and senators feel the pressure and support from their constituents. So, get involved with local government. Write your representatives and congress people, get informed about climate change and what you can do to lower your own carbon footprint. Educate yourself and follow what is happening in the decision making centers of the world.

For more information you can go to the website of the Conference itself here.
For more information about climate change in general you can go here.