York Goes Green

On October 3, 2008, the President signed into law the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.” Among other things, this bill extended tax credits for energy efficient home improvements (windows, doors, roofs, insulation, HVAC, and non-solar water heaters). Tax credits for these residential products, which had expired at the end of 2007, will now be available for improvements made during 2009. However, improvements made during 2008 are not eligible for a tax credit.

For more information on Federal tax credits for home energy efficiency, go to the EPA’s Energy Star site.

October 29th, 2008 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Here is some more information about the Climate Protection Agreement from an article in the GOOD blog subtitled How Mayors are picking up our national climate action slack.

Seattle mayor Greg Nickels saw the potential for mayors to collectively make a big impact in 2005. Frustrated by the U.S.’s dismissal of the Kyoto Protocol, he dialed up nine other mayors and asked them to pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, in order to meet the goals of the federally neglected international treaty. Soon, other mayors wanted in. Nickels initially hoped for a symbolic 141 signatures on the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement (CPA)—equal to the number of nations that ratified Kyoto. He got 400. Today there are 884 mayors signed on, representing a total population just shy of 81 million Americans (more than a quarter of the national population).

The strength in numbers approach has proven useful. Cities pool buying power and save money on energy saving products, force producers to offer more efficient construction materials, and hasten the development of new technologies. Politically, the US Mayors Climate Protection Center—which formally administers the CPA—is a vocal and aggressive force in Washington, pushing Congress to pass greenhouse gas reduction legislation and to create a national emissions trading system. In the past four months alone, the Center has also published two influential reports—“The Impact of Gas Prices, Economic Conditions, and Resource Constraints on Climate Protection Strategies in U.S. Cities” (pdf) and “Current and Potential Green Jobs in the U.S. Economy” (pdf)—that are driving many clean energy and climate change discussions.

But, the mayors aren’t working alone. Many have turned to ICLEI: Local Governments for Sustainability, an organization that predates the Climate Protection Agreement by about 15 years with a stated mission “to build, serve, and drive a movement of local governments to advance deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and achieve tangible improvements in local sustainability.” ICLEI provides a city with a whole slew of tools and resources for reaching its climate ambitions—emissions analysis software, policy templates, and plenty of “best practices” case studies chock full of smart, sustainable planning ideas.

So what exactly are the mayors getting done? Here’s a taste: The AlbuquerqueGreen program requires all new construction projects to be carbon neutral and powered by 100-percent renewable energy by 2030. Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC is working to expand the city’s hybrid taxi fleet, improv the efficiency of existing buildings, promote solar and wind development within the five boroughs, and drastically reduce private vehicle use through tolls and reducing traffic lanes. Three weeks ago Chicago unveiled an ambitious plan, which corrals many programs already underway—including promoting alternative fuels, adding green roofs to the skyline, educating the public about energy conservation and shutting down two local coal-fired power plants—into one comprehensive goal: cutting the Windy City’s greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

ICLEI has a popular slogan: “Cumulative local actions can have global impacts.” The Mayors Center’s efforts are becoming proof of that principle. When the next administration finally delivers a national climate plan (and they will, regardless of who’s in charge), I expect that most of the innovative action will still be born in cities.

October 10th, 2008 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Coming soon - two weatherization workshops in Portland area.  Click on flier to learn more.

October 7th, 2008 by Eric | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The next meeting of the York Energy Efficiency Committee will be held on Tuesday, October 14th at 7pm in the York Public Library. 

New members are always welcome.

On the agenda:

• US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement - next steps
• Using our website “Yorkgoesgreen.org” as a way to get more information to the community.
• Discuss upcoming events for winter/spring - possible energy fair, speaker 

October 6th, 2008 by Eric | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In his presentation to the selectmen, Eric suggested that the town join ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) Local Governments for Sustainability. Below is a brief summary of what the organization can do for the town. It is taken from an interview with Timothy Burroughs, an ICLEI Program Director.

For the US, the Cities for Climate Protection campaign is the main campaign through which ICLEI provides assistance to its members. The main way the campaign assists cities is by providing them with a methodology by which cities can measure the emissions a city is responsible for in a given year, manage those emissions and reduce them. We call this our five milestone methodology.

The first milestone is conducting a baseline greenhouse gasses emissions inventory. The inventory is a snapshot of a local government’s emissions in a given year. Those emissions result from transportation, waste, and energy consumption within the geographic boundaries of the community.

The second milestone is setting an emissions reductions target. The target is important for a number of reasons. One really important reason is that it tends to rally community support. A city like Berkeley, for example, has set a really aggressive target, and now community members are getting excited about how they can reach that target. It also means the city has to be accountable: they have set a target and now they have to figure out how to meet it. And the people are going to hold them to that.

The third milestone is developing an emissions reductions action plan; this consists of policy measures that, when implemented, will get the city to its targets. Policy in the plan could be transportation measures, waste prevention measures like recycling, and energy measures like giving residents incentives to increase energy efficiency.

You put all this into the plan and have to figure out how to implement it – this is the fourth milestone. Implementation is key. I mean, you don’t want everything to just be recorded and then sit on a shelf. Its great to have an action plan but it’s meaningless unless you actually implement it.

The fifth milestone is monitoring, verifying, and recording the results of the policy being implemented. Basically this consists of doing another inventory. So it comes back to the first milestone of conducting an inventory. What the inventory allows a city to do is to establish a trend for what its emissions are doing over time. If I take a snapshot of emissions in 2005, another in 2006, and one in 2007, I’m able to establish a trend for what the emissions over time.

We assist cities through each of the milestones in a number of different ways. One is we provide a software tool that enables cities to quantify their emissions and conduct the emissions inventory. The software — designed specifically for cities – is basically a big calculator. You plug in a lot of data that includes how much energy your city is consuming and how much waste your city produces. The software tool gives you numbers on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions your city is producing.

As you said, we have member cities all around the country and world, and all of them are in a process of implementing one policy or a number of policies. When a city becomes a member, they gain access to the entire network of member cities. This is a huge benefit. Some of the first questions a city always asks when thinking about what to do when reducing emissions are “what have other cities done?” “How much has it cost in other cities?” “What has the benefit been to other cities?”

Read the rest of the interview.

October 3rd, 2008 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In America, 38 per cent of energy is consumed by private households - far more than is consumed by the entire industrial sector. Now, in a new article for Environment magazine, a pair of researchers have published a list of the most effective ways for households to reduce their energy consumption.

Studies have found that most U.S. residents want to make behavioral changes that reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but they “lack accurate, accessible, and actionable information on how best to achieve potential savings through their own steps.” The authors claim that “without waiting for new technologies to appear, making major economic sacrifices, or losing a sense of well-being, households can reduce energy consumption by almost 30 percent—about 11 percent of total U.S. consumption.” How? By changing their selection and use of household and motor vehicle technologies.

From the article:

A comparison of energy saved by curtailment and by increased efficiency…reveals that efficiency-improving actions generally save more energy—and reduce carbon emissions more—than curtailing use of intrinsically inefficient equipment. For example, buying and maintaining a highly fuel-efficient vehicle saves more energy than carpooling to work with another person, lowering top highway speeds, consolidating shopping or errand trips, and altering driving habits in an existing gasoline-inefficient motor vehicle. This general finding challenges the belief that energy savings entail curtailment and sacrifice of amenities. Not only is efficiency generally more effective than curtailment, but it has the important psychological advantage of requiring only one or a few actions. Curtailment actions must be repeated continuously over time to achieve their optimal effect, whereas efficiency-boosting actions, taken infrequently or only once, have lasting effects with little need for continuing attention and effort.

To read the whole article, go to Environmentmagazine.org.

October 1st, 2008 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

From my letter to the editor from today’s York Weekly

Work-force housing an energy-efficient idea

To the Editor:

If we were somehow able to capture all of the heat generated from the debate over work-force housing in York, we’d probably have enough energy to keep us warm all winter.

Unfortunately, we don’t have that technology available to us, so I guess we’ll need to look at the facts as best we can, and try to make an informed decision on this very charged topic.

To that end, I’d like to look beyond the rancor coming from both sides of the debate, and make the simple point that we are currently living in an energy-crisis that probably won’t be solved anytime soon.

The reality of that crisis means we’d be wise to start making our community more energy efficient as a whole. Work-force housing is one way to do this. A local work force doesn’t have to commute, so gas is being saved. Energy-efficient construction means lower heating and electricity bills. Higher density means fewer trees need to be cut down to make room for giant houses on giant lots.

If voters approve the work-force housing measure in November, it means that each year there will be 15 more energy-efficient units built in York that are affordable to buy, affordable to heat, and affordable to keep the lights on.

It’s worth some thought.

Eric Hopkins

York Energy EfficiencyCommittee

September 24th, 2008 by Eric | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Under the Agreement, participating cities commit to take following three actions:
1. Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities, through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns;
2. Urge their state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol — 7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012; and
3. Urge the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system

You can read more about the agreement here

885 Cool Cities across the country!

September 23rd, 2008 by Eric | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

An excerpt from the Sept. 23, 2008 news story in Seacoastonline.com:

YORK, Maine — The town has joined 14 other Maine communities and 900 others nationwide — including Portsmouth, N.H. — in adopting the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement.

Selectmen voted unanimously Monday night to enter into the agreement, following a presentation by Eric Hopkins, chairman of the York Energy Efficiency Committee. And while they had a number of procedural questions, none of them voiced any concern about signing the agreement.

According to Hopkins, the nonbinding agreement calls for three things: that the town strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012; to urge the state and federal government to do the same; and to urge Congress to pass bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation.

“It is nonbinding, but it’s a statement of intent that we’re interested in protecting the environment, using energy more efficiently, polluting less,” said Hopkins.

The agreement covers municipal government only, not private businesses or property owners.

Hopkins said the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a worthy goal for the town. He suggested that town consider joining ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, a consortium of municipalities that have signed the mayor’s agreement. The cost for York would be $600 a year. Once a member, he said, York could receive free software that would allow the town to figure out its 1990 greenhouse gas levels and its current levels.

Read the whole article.

September 23rd, 2008 by wayne | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)