INC NEWS - Greenhouse Gas Inventory

[pat carstensen]

The Greenhouse Gas Inventory is available at
http://www.dchcmpo.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=35

There will be a hearing either June 20 or 21 -- check the website on date as 
well as other ways to comment.

A little background: the optimistic scientists say we need to keep the level 
of greenhouse gases below 450 parts per million if we aren't (literally) 
going to be toast.  Also the realistic and hopefully good-enough goal is 80% 
reductions in greenhouse gases by 2050.

It says we released about 6.8 megatons of greenhouse gases in 2005 and if we 
keep going as we are going, we will be doing much worse by 2030.  About 1/2 
of the greenhouse gases come from using electricity and about 1/2 of THAT is 
from commercial development.  The commercial contribution is about twice the 
national average (my PERSONAL guess:  this is partly because we have a lot 
of high-tech commercial stuff in RTP and other places and partly that 
electricity has been cheap so we didn't build things as efficiently as we 
should have.).

We also have higher than average releases from transportation and our 
development patterns are making it worse.

The good news is when you look just at governmental operations (city, 
county, schools) we have already done or made commitments to do things that 
keep emissions from governmental operations from growing, in spite of growth 
in the community  -- and also saving a lot of $$.  If we do the moderate 
level investments they suggest, we would be on track to the 80% by 2050 
target.

The two prongs of actions that someone could take in response to the report:
* Look around how to reduce your own carbon footprint (some websites to help 
you figure out how much you contribute are below):
  http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/
  http://www.earthfuture.com/climate/calculators/
  
http://www.conservation.org/xp/CIWEB/programs/climatechange/carboncalculator.xml
* Submit comments to support bigger commitments for reductions, having 
sustainability people on government staff, and thinking harder about our 
development patterns (or whatever your preference in what we should be 
doing)

Regards, pat

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