Yeay, we've chosen a President! Now, let's get to work on critical issues!

Day two of this week has come to a close after some great time outdoors (and in the rain!), contributing to an important long-term forest research project. We are a very tired, but very happy HSBC Climate Partnership team, especially now that we've enjoyed watching the incredibly inspiring, emotional and visionary speech just given by our President-elect, Barack Obama. He himself stated that we have a "planet in peril," and that it will be up to us, following his new leadership, to envision and meet the challenges we'll face in the next one hundred years, alongside our friends in the world.


Those of us participating in this fellowship not only believe in the strength of our individual passion and efforts to reduce the impact of climate change and protect the environment, but more importantly we believe in what we can accomplish as a team, community, nation and world. With that in mind, I've offered to list a few of the ideas that have already been tossed around as potential projects or campaigns that we can develop which might shape the future of our respective communities as we meet the challenges of climate change and its effects on our world.

Community Project Ideas

· Identify Climate Champions, local and national leaders who can call/inspire people to action-oriented solutions to the climate change problem.

· People think technology is the magic bullet – it’ll solve everything. What project can we create to identify/support new technologies, but make sure that other options and behavior is also on the table?

· There are at least three types of people: those who are ignorant about the issues, those who are on board and agree that climate change is a problem and have a desire to make a change, but need direction/help in how to make a change, and those who are full-force climate champions/leaders who can get people moving and lead/inspire all the others.

· As the Climate Team, we should address ourselves first and reduce our own footprint, dig down deep and really spend the time to walk the talk as part of going out into the rest of the company.

· Create a national campaign to place little images/numbers on energy-consuming products that will compare one hour of usage with the amount of gas/coal/non-renewable resources it literally consumes in that amount of time. Connect people back to the environment and our natural resources, especially how/where we get them. Connect peoples’ behavior back to the natural resources being used to produce the energy being consumed.

· According to the World Resources Institute, Electricity and Heat-related activities take up 24.8% of the global greenhouse gases globally, and specifically, residential electricity/heat usage makes up 9.9% of the GHG emissions (see other points on reduction of electricity/energy usage).

· Create a local/national/federal level incentive and educational program to build recycling into our daily activities. Connect with corporate partners/champions and manufacturers. Get kids involved and influence them.

· Create a policy or tax break for methane harvesting by small businesses and/or cities so that their dumps can be put to better use. Encourage and support better technologies for harvesting methane to help self-sustain a business/county/city.

· Create more formal, federally supported life-cycle assessments of major appliances and energy-consuming products. Create cradle-to-cradle relationships with major corporations as part of a national strategy to recycle and/or repurpose old appliances.

· Use the GHG World Emissions map to create an online interactive tool that will adjust the changes in habit and energy and land usage to show the output in CO2 in comparison.

· Reduce the impact of urban heat islands. Work with local cities and their builders and existing smart/urban growth groups to push for green roofs, LEED buildings, more bike lanes, walkable communities, etc. to reduce the heat island effect, as well as our output of CO2 emissions and over consumption of goods.

· Each one of us needs to identify three organizations to which we’ll present a modified PowerPoint presentation about climate change science, cultural perceptions and our experiences in the field to create awareness about climate change and its solutions, based on the CD we’ll be given at the end of the week.

· Brainstorm the idea of creating a Geotourism MapGuide specific to the region, with a special section/emphasis on reducing our impact on the environment and consumption of non-renewable resources.

· Legislative activism to reduce CO2 emissions nationally in a more comprehensive way (through technological ingenuity – a grant encouraging technological advancement?), if not just locally.

· Promote staycations, less consumption, acting locally, thinking globally.

· Help establish some sore of a carbon tax based on your household’s carbon footprint.

· How do we get kids involved in reducing CO2 output? The public first needs to understand where those CO2 and other GHG emissions come from.

· Changing transportation behavior: biking, carpooling, other types of driving, public transportation, flexible work options, etc.

· Push for use of automatic shutoff of buildings’ energy output and unnecessary energy vampires. Promote new surge protectors with a visual wattage count built in that will help people visualize the energy that they use on a regular basis – push to make that a part of their in-home systems, e.g. a requirement of all newly built homes?

· Push national home builders’ organizations to focus on creating sustainable homes with efficient (and less) appliances.

· Push for solar power in our communities – tax breaks, education and awareness, self-installation, building solar power into new condominium and other developments, plus building investment in solar into existing condo boards for future installation. Must work with energy companies to ensure they are friendly to such efforts.

· Create a few specific social marketing tools to implement in conjunction with any of the above projects as a way of inspiring members of the public to become Climate Change Stakeholders in their own right.

Tomorrow truly is another day!

Danielle Williams