Everyday people finding solutions to global warming

PT action group considers creative ways to reduce vehicle emissions

by Scott Sands

April 16, 2008 | Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader | Port Townsend, Washington

Originally published on 4/7/2008

How many environmentally concerned citizens does it take to change a light bulb?

People concerned about global warming hope the answer is: one. But some who switch to fluorescent lights to save electricity might wonder if it's really going to make a difference.

That's where a grassroots organization such as the Seattle-based citizen's network 2People.org comes in. Its goal is to "build an overwhelming public mandate for real solutions to global warming." And in order "to build the kind of political will we need," said Phil Mitchell, the group's founder, each person has to talk to just two more people.

When Mitchell talked recently with Port Townsend's Joanna Loehr at an event for the environmental group Sustainable Cascadia, he gave her the materials to start a study circle to discuss global warming.

Known as the climate dialogues, these study circles focus on the sources of greenhouse gases, how much of a threat they are, and the costs of reducing them versus the risk of not doing so.

Since that meeting, Loehr has facilitated four climate dialogues in Port Townsend, and from those four groups nine participants have returned to take part in the evolution of the dialogues: the climate action lab.

"A lab is a place where you experiment," Loehr said. In this particular lab, members experiment with something more than changing a light bulb. Their ambition is to bring about solutions to what they've identified as the biggest threat to climate stability: greenhouse gases from automobiles.

According to the state Department of Ecology, every gallon of gas combusted in a motor vehicle causes more than 1 pound of air pollution.

The question asked at the first action lab meeting was, "How do we get people out of their vehicles?" recalled Anne Bishop, one of the participants.

"We were bouncing ideas off of each other," she said. "It was a fun evening." They discussed creating street theater, encouraging people to ride the bus, proposing stories to the paper, and even changing parking requirements in the city and county building codes.

Anne's husband, Dan, said that increasing ridership on the buses is "probably the easiest important thing that can be done in the short term."

Member Scott Walker, who has been focused on environmental issues for the past 20 years, said, "We haven't nailed anything down as to what our plan is." But the group seems enthusiastic, he said.

One of Walker's objectives is to make other forms of transportation in the city more convenient. "I'd like people to recognize that we can't get a healthy environment by driving our cars."

Another suggestion from the group was to throw special events on Taylor Street, turning it into a car-free plaza on these occasions, as is done for the Port Townsend Film Festival.

A few of the dialogue groups in Seattle have also begun their own labs, starting letter-writing campaigns and community outreach to "green" their neighborhoods from the ground up.

Mitchell said the climate action labs are a way of reaching out "rather than being a small meeting in a living room." The idea is to invite the whole neighborhood and provide neighbors with the tools they need to be effective citizen advocates. Members give advice for writing letters and for having productive meetings with political representatives.

The climate dialogues and action labs are a nonpartisan effort. "We're not advocating a particular packet of solutions," Mitchell said. "We work with people across the political spectrum and support them in what they're comfortable with."

Yet Mitchell admits he has "strong opinions on what we should be doing." He believes the United States should ramp up its investment in the technological development of clean energies, such as wind and solar power, and there should be ways to tax polluters by putting a price on carbon emissions. "A carbon tax tells the marketplace that the atmosphere is not a free dumping ground."

While China and the United States are the biggest polluters of the atmosphere, Mitchell said that integrating the developing world into the international carbon market is also part of the solution. Brazil and Indonesia are in third and fourth place as polluters, in part because of the burning of rainforests for unsustainable farmland, Mitchell said. These countries are still developing their industries and their use of the automobile, and the "biggest piece of climate change is assisting the Third World in not following the fossil fuel path," he said.

"In the United States, it's safe to say a vast majority of the public accepts that global warming is happening," noted Mitchell. Yet in Europe, that awareness is "certainly higher," he said. "The European Union is pretty far out in front of us in taking active steps to deal with it." All the nations that signed the Kyoto protocol are participating in an emissions trade system. Denmark and Germany are world leaders in solar and wind power.

But the dialogues and the labs encourage people to develop their own perspectives and methods of action. 2People.org provides a suggested mini-curriculum that asks four questions: What is happening to the climate? How serious is it? What are the solutions? What are the choices?

It also provides some scientific and economic background, and compares the environmental and financial costs of varying degrees of action.

2People.org also provides guidelines for facilitating the discussions to keep the dialogue moving and to support a respectful atmosphere in which people can express themselves.

Of the four dialogues that Loehr facilitated, she said every group came to the same conclusion: The risk of doing too little was unacceptable.

"It was a given. That really surprised me," said Loehr. "It really motivates people to do something."

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