Help on Designing a State Wide Climate Change Event

Hi Julian

I know Tim Moore (aka Ranger Tim) from the Queensland EPA is doing some good work in the area of Climate Change. I believe it is the best program in Australia targeting behavioural climate change. He is currently Managing a major program called Climate Smart. You should checkout the QLD EPA Climate Smart program and give Tim a call in the New Year. ([email protected] or 07 3227 6678) He is pretty business but approachable. The best advice I can give you is, see if you can develop a partnership with the QLD EPA i.e. share or develop new resources or even ask Tim if he is interested in doing some consulting on climate change behavioural change campaign development. Good luck with your program.

Merry Christmas
Manny

Hello all,

I'm the Marketing and Outreach Coordinator for Boulder, CO's Climate Action Plan programs. Our campaign is also called ClimateSmart (no space between the two words) and was officially launched in September 2007. Below is the website for info on what we're doing in the community; in 2008 we'll include more case studies, and we plan to engage the community directly next year with as many CBSM strategies we can, with limited staff of course. Some highlights of 2007 and plans for 2008: We initiated a viral email campaign in October that generated a huge amount of traffic to our website for our online pledge (to reduce carbon footprint) Our online banner ad campaign was also extremely successful in generating traffic to our website. Cost in local newspaper: $500/month. I intend to meet with as many community leaders as possible, leveraging their networks to help us get the word out. Our department (Environmental Affairs) will provide support to organizing neighborhoods - a set printing budget, for example, and we come to their neighborhood meetings to explain what our programs are and ask what they need/want In late November we held a LED Holiday Light Exchange (we sold strands for $5 each for each incandescent strand handed to us for recycling) and we had to turn away 300 people. We generated so much PR from this event it was incredible to see the demand. We got two radio interviews following that event. If you want to bring large amounts of people to a community event, provide an incentive such as reduced cost CFLs or LED lights, or some other personal incentive.

Boulder's ClimateSmart campaign: www.beclimatesmart.com (please sign up for our e-news to get monthly updates on our programs and initiatives!)

One Boulder neighborhood's efforts: www.neighborsforclimateaction.org (contact Dan Friedlander for inputs on what the community was motivated by, how they track their efforts, etc.).

Hope this helps!
Beth

Beth Powell
Marketing & Outreach Coordinator
Climate Action Plan Programs
City of Boulder
Office of Environmental Affairs
Tel: 303-441-1846
Fax: 303-441-4070
www.beClimateSmart.com
www.environmentalaffairs.com

Beth-

Thanx for all the info. I was very disappointed to hear that China has declared its future will hold an increased use of coal to generate energy. Does anyone know, do they have a department of energy, or something that is supposed to look like such, or any groups that resembles an energy watch dog organization or are these stupid questions?

Renee Goodnight

Community Outreach Coordinator
City of Kannapolis
246 Oak Avenue
Kannapolis, NC 28081
704-920-4311-office
704-791-2527-cell
[email protected]

Hi Renee,

It's true about China (and India is growing rapidly as well), and China is building about one coal plant per week. In June of this year China surpassed the US as the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. The US has about 120 new coal plants currently being planned to accommodate our own population growth projections and electricity demand. I do believe China has an environmental minister. I've read that he "gets it" and is trying to minimize their emissions where possible...but still, they want the right to develop economically - who can blame them? Surely there are watchdog groups. I imagine it might be much like how it works in the US....if the government doesn't support a sustainable energy policy, the watchdog groups can only do so much....however, I've heard that in many parts of China you can't even see the sun (due to coal burning in the air) and that the diseases mentioned below are becoming common. So sad. Many governments and other organizations worldwide are now framing global warming as a health issue (asthma, allergies, lung diseases, etc.) and are finding success in tackling/creating policy from that angle.

Beth

Let us pause at this point to remember that China is not a democracy, which means a lot more than the absence of meaningful elections. Chinese citizens do form watchdog groups to advocate new policy directions, but they do so much less often than here in the U.S. -- because this activity often lands them in jail. Sometimes it gets them killed.

*** Eric Eckl

Water Words That Work
P.O. Box 2182
Falls Church, VA 22042
(703) 822-4265
[email protected]
Skype/AIM: ericeckl
http://waterwordsthatwork.com

Hi All -

This may be a bit off-topic, but I think that our effectiveness also depends on understanding the larger context in which we're operating. The U.S. is not a democracy either (and I'm not bickering over the difference between direct and representative democracy) - the founders abhorred democracy if by that we mean rule by the people (other than themselves and their ilk). There is no constitutional right to vote; even so the absence of meaningful elections here is hardly trivial. Trying to exercise what we think are our democratic rights puts Americans in jail too, and sometimes killed - think "free speech zones," peace t-shirts at malls, keeping out toxic corporate enterprise in your community, breathing while black (and becoming prison fodder), protesting while native american, etc. etc. Then there's the lethal issue of wars for oil, where our children are dying for greed and oligarchy. What our oligarchy, which used to be more overtly violent, does better than the Chinese is propaganda: it anesthetizes us with the fundamentally meaningless glut of stuff that is destroying the planet, and brainwashes us to think that it's a good thing. If we want to be effective in our efforts to foster sustainable behavior in truly significant ways, i.e., drastic reduction in consumption and increase in global equity, I think we'll need to figure out how the culture seduces us with fatal attractions, and come up with antidotes.

Cheers,
Adam in warm drizzly Massachusetts, USA where climate chaos froze us yesterday and will snow on us again tomorrow

Yes, thinking that "we" are democratic in our capitalisms while others are not is pure ethnocentricism. The truth is that "we" are encouraging the Chinese and other "emerging" economies to industrialize without environmental regulation because it is convenient for our notions of consumption (consider, for example, that most American flags sold by Walmart are made in China - a Clinton Trade Policy). All the while, "We" can play the holier environmentally effective policies and point to the ignoble masses of other countries who, subject to our White Man's Burden, must be educated into our better ways while, yet, we exploit them -- sustainably.

Dear Renee & Beth,

I don't know how helpful this idea is, but in some ways it's ironic that one Conservative supporter I know says we should boycott Chinese imports if we are concerned about emissions. From a practical standpoint, I'm sure this would be an extremely difficult thing to do, if even a sufficient number of people cared. But our consumption of those goods really is the heavy end of a stuck see-saw. I suppose most Conservatives would consider trade barriers too hard-line a position to advance in climate talks - but it's the corollary of their call for an "even playing field." Imagine if several countries advanced trade barriers in a green union. It would probably start a war ... and yet we have no qualms about fighting terror. Well, maybe 2008 will bring some fresh ideas.

Best wishes to all,
A.M. in N.S.

Hi Renee,

They do have an Energy Ministry. A delegation of 20 Chinese people visited us in Melbourne just before Christmas. They were on a fact finding tour and were very interested in the renewable energy projects we are implementing in Victoria and in Australia in general as they are planning to install many renewable energy projects to reduce their reliance on coal. They also raised a very interesting point about their rapidly growing economy, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. This was that China's emissions growth is being driven by its status as a manufacturing centre for the world (i.e. many of the world's large corporations are building their factories there to reap the profits of cheap labour as they provide manufactured items to world markets and this is causing a large percentage of the increase in emissions). It remains to be seen whether this will be taken into account in deciding on future emissions targets for the different countries around the world.

Cheers
John

John Osborne 
Renewables, Sustainability Victoria
T: 03 8626 8783 
F: 03 9663 1007 
Level 28, Urban Workshop,
50 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne 3000 
www.sustainability.vic.gov.au

Regarding Renee's third item, climate change as a public health issue, can anyone direct me to specific resources on this subject?

Thank you --
Ann Soule

Hydrogeologist
Clallam County
Environmental Health Services
360-417-2424
fax 417-2583

Hi Ann -

Paul Epstein at Harvard is a leading scientific researcher on climate change and health. Just do a web search on his name and "climate change" - lotsa stuff.

Adam

Hi All

(Forgive me for being a bit behind, making a comment on a dialogue from 2 Jan, I'm just back from holidays and catching up on messages!) This was that China's emissions growth is being driven by its status as a manufacturing centre for the world (i.e. many of the world's large corporations are building their factories there to reap the profits of cheap labour as they provide manufactured items to world markets and this is causing a large percentage of the increase in emissions). It remains to be seen whether this will be taken into account in deciding on future emissions targets for the different countries around the world. John has raised an important point, amongst all the bluster about China being the world's biggest greenhouse emitter etc etc, the Chinese aren't consuming all they produce - see the Global Footprint Network's mapping of biocapacity flows in and out of China (disaggregated from national footprint accounts) on page 9 of the Asia Pacific Report: www.footprintnetwork.org/download.php?id=9 What are national greenhouse frameworks counting? What should they be counting?

Cheers,
Sharon