Want to Know Your Own Carbon Footprint?

There are several helpful websites out there to help you measure your personal greenhouse gas emissions and the EPA has a webpage that lists them comprehensively. Try a few out for yourself!

You can also take measure of your ecological footprint, which is a bit more comprehensive and will tell you how many planets we would need if everyone lived like you. Assuming you are a resident of the United States, like myself, I can virtually guarantee that we would need more than the one beautiful blue one we've got. Try this quiz from Redefining Progress.

Seems we have a lot of work to do...

Project Update: end of September

We've separated this inventory into three categories to help manage the information.

1. The City Municipal Inventory: This includes all the information from and about City of TC municipal operations and responsibilities.
2. The County Municipal Inventory: This includes all the information from and about Grand Traverse County municipal operations and responsibilities.
3. The Community Inventory: This includes information about all residents, businesses and visitors in GT County.

City Update:

• We met with department heads to introduce the data reporting forms and start the formation of the City Climate Team who will help us identify particular areas to collect more information about and also fill in any gray areas we find.
• Employee commuter surveys have been distributed and will tell us how much employees travel - and how much fuel they burn - to get to work.
  

County Update:

• Employee commuter surveys have been distributed and will tell us how much employees travel - and how much fuel they burn - to get to work.
  
• Key staff are filling out reporting forms to tell us about fuel consumption for the County's fleet, heating and cooling buildings, and more.
  

Community Update:

• We are meeting with key individuals who hold important data including representatives from the utility companies that service our region, the Chamber of Commerce, the Council of Governments and the Resource Recovery office.
• As we move through the list we will also meet with others who have important transportation, tourism, and agriculture data.

After collecting the initial data sets, we will start the formation of Climate Teams for each of these three project categories. The Climate Teams will help direct the collection of important data sets that can be analyzed to give us information that will enable all of us to make 'cooler' choices for our future.

We have been fortunate to find people very willing to work with us and provide data and contacts. Even better, we've found people and departments are actively taking actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions already.

Clean Air, Clean Water, & a Cool Planet!

Project Introduction

On Jan 15 of this year, the Traverse City Commissioners unanimously joined hundreds of cities across the nation - including Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Marquette - in giving support to the US Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. This agreement calls for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below 1990 levels by 2012.

Both the City of TC and Grand Traverse County have decided to take measure of our current GHG emissions by working with an organization called ICLEI: Local Governments For Sustainability, on their Cities for Climate Protection campaign. This international campaign works with local governments worldwide to achieve quantifiable reductions in GHG emissions. The ICLEI methodology provides a simple, standardized way to measure, monitor, and report performance. SEEDS was hired to gather data and citizen input; we are truly in this project together.

Why is reducing emissions important work? Leaving aside global climate change and its causes and implications, there are many reasons to focus on reducing our emissions at the local level:

1. Cost savings through improving lighting, heating, & transportation efficiencies,
2. A cleaner environment with improved air quality & reduced non-point-source pollutants,
   
3. Enhanced quality of life with more transportation choices & a safer environment.
   

The hope is that after knowing what we are collectively emitting right now, we can set obtainable future targets and then obtain those targets. In the words of the July 24 Record Eagle, "The important thing is that the city and county will look for ways to be more efficient, and being more efficient is a good way to not only save money but reduce greenhouse emissions. That's a very good thing."

We agree and are excited to embark on this project with the City, the County and with all the residents and visitors to our region.

Who Is This Blogger?

Thanks for taking some time to read this blog! I hope you check back often and continue to find it interesting. Let me know by commenting or emailing me personally and contribute to the dialog.

Some context: My name is Sarna. I grew up on the Westside of Lansing and I've lived in Traverse City for almost 7 years. I left Michigan during school and came home again for the trees and water. My studies focused on the relationship between people and their places. Why are some public spaces empty and others lively? Why do some spaces make us feel safe and others not? How can infrastructure encourage users to make wiser choices?

This research ties directly with my work at SEEDS, a nonprofit organization based here in Traverse City. At SEEDS we choose to work on projects that give us opportunities to transform 'wastes' into resources - whether those wastes are from ineffective planning or a toilet.

I love working for SEEDS because I am able to work in and with my local community to create positive solutions. Some of my favorite projects include

• Great Lakes Bioneers, an intellectual and joyous gathering place for those meeting at the crossroads of ecology and social justice. Look into our upcoming conference October 19-21, 2007 at NMC!
  
• Something Fresh, the CD & Cookbooklet that pairs Michigan musicians with recipes using farm market produce. Hear Daisy May, Seth Bernard, Glenn Wolff, Claudia Schmidt and more here.
  
• Oryana Natural Food Cooperative's green-building expansion. Doubling the size of the store, the expansion team worked within a strict budget to make an efficient and beautiful building.

Of course, my current favorite project is working with the City and the County on developing data about our greenhouse gas emissions. Read on!