Please see the OC Global Warming Committee website
Also see Facebook Page
Hope to see you all at the meeting on Sunday, March 11th at 3 pm!
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Upcoming Events:
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From Chuck Buck/Sharon Koch:
Good Jobs, Green Jobs -
Thursday and Friday, March 15th and 16th in Los Angeles, CA
at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites.
Registration is $195, but if you volunteer for six hours for either day, registration is free.
The second of these conferences, Good Jobs, Green Jobs West in Los Angeles, will feature more than 40 workshops covering:
- Business, Investments and New Markets
- Clean Energy Manufacturing
- Emerging Green Sectors
- Infrastructure and Cleaner, More Efficient Transportation
- Regional, State and Local Initiatives and Partnerships
- Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
- Responsible Investment and Workers’ Capital
- Workforce and Economic Development
- Youth, Education and Green Schools - Building a Clean Energy Movement
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MEETING HIGHLIGHTS
OC GLOBAL WARMING COMMITTEE, SIERRA CLUB
SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 2012
3 TO 5 PM
REI TUSTIN COMMUNITY ROOM
Communicated at Chapter Meeting at the Los Angeles Sierra Club headquarters: George Watland, Conservation Program Coordinator for the Sierra Club in Los Angeles, indicated that they are interested in using Juicing Orange County as a model to develop a similar structure of programs for the entire LA County area. Juicing Orange County was developed by the OC Global Warming Committee as an effort to engage city leaders in Orange County to enact responsible, climate aware policies and programs. Mr. Watland and the Los Angeles Chapter are particularly interested in the City Survey and the Solar Installation Decal programs our committee conceived and developed.
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Paul Carlton, Co-founder of the OC Global Warming Committee, brought up the fact that two years ago, more people believed in the threat of Global Warming/Climate Change than do now (60% threat believers to 40% threat deniers). Big Oil, Big Coal and the Republican Party have waged a relentless campaign to change the perception that Global Warming is real, is man-made and is a threat to the planet (40% threat believers to 60% deniers).
Read more from Paul Carlton: San Clemente Times - Letter to the Editor Global Warming Persists Despite Efforts by Right Wing
Also see:
"Deniers continue to insist there's no consensus on global warming. Well, there's not. There's well-tested science and real-world observations"
"The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming."
"Researchers have proved that the temperature of the earth’s surface is rising, and they are virtually certain that the human release of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, is the major reason. For decades, they have predicted that this would lead to changes in the frequency of extreme weather events, and statistics show that has begun to happen."
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Community LLC to Generate Solar Power
A group of people in Maryland got together and converted their neighborhood church into a solar-power generation site by installing solar panels on its roof. The Limited Liability Company model offers benefits to all:
- the church, which receives power free of charge
- people who invested in the LLC, who will receive an eight percent return on their investment over the life of the solar panels
- and last but not least, the rest of the world who benefits because of the reduced greenhouse gas emissions
You might say it was a win – win – WIN situation
The church group in University Park, Maryland formed a Limited Liability Company in which members buy-in starting with as little as $2,000. The entire installation cost around $130,000. The LLC sells excess power back to the grid at wholesale prices. This model could, of course, could be extended to community groups who share a common roof or have ownership rights to a large rooftop area on any building. The group in Maryland is currently in talks to put panels on top of a school, a synagogue and another church.
The installation went live on June 12, 2010, and as of November 30, 2011, University Park Solar LLC generated 37, 169 killowatt-hours. Net Meter showed 9,520 kwh into the local utility grid.
For a great video recap of the project, see:
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UC Davis West Village: Net Zero Energy
The new campus community is poised to change the way communities are designed, built and lived in — throughout California and around the world. West Village is planned as the country's largest "zero net energy" community, which means it is designed to generate as much energy as it consumes. Zero net energy has never been attempted on a scale the size of West Village. Anywhere. It is an experiment, a "living laboratory," as one campus official says.
West Village is not some ivory tower utopian community. It is market-tested and supported — most of the $300 million needed to build the site came from San Francisco real estate developers Carmel Partners, which joined forces with Urban Villages of Denver on the project. But whether due to financing issues or navigating the regulatory maze, it was never easy (see sidebar, "Overcoming Obstacles.")
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Also In the News:
Online Map Shows Biggest Greenhouse Gas Emitters
PREVIOUS MEETING NOTES
OC GLOBAL WARMING COMMITTEE, SIERRA CLUB
FALL 2011
Solar Panels - installed with very little up front cost
Sun Run Solar: Sun Run has partnered with the Sierra Club on a pilot project, which ends October 31, 2011, whereby the company will essentially lease or rent a homeowner’s roof to install solar panels and make it cost effective to go solar. Per Sharon Koch, if you request a quote through the Sierra Club’s website, the Sierra Club will receive $50, $25 of which will go the national Sierra Club, $25 to the Angeles Chapter. If you go ahead with the installation, the Sierra Club gets $1,000, $500 will go to the national and $500 to the Angeles Chapter. The company uses a Power Purchase Agreement business model whereby homeowners pay for electricity usage but do not buy solar panels outright. Laura Jackson hopes to get a representative from Sun Run to attend the Plug-in America event in November because if you have solar at home it makes the idea of owning a plug-in vehicle very attractive.
Update from Laura Jackson, Mission Viejo resident
Laura is working with the city of Mission Viejo on community oriented, green projects to get sustainability information out in the community and engaging its residents to participate in sustainability. Laura has recently gained the City of Mission Viejo’s agreement to include a sustainability program in a city training agenda. The sustainability training program will be developed in collaboration with Chris Lunghino, founder of Community Sustainability USA (aka It’s the Little Things). The city employees (over 100) will be participating in a whole day of training.
More information on Chris Lunghino – Huntington Beach resident and founder of Community Sustainability USA (aka It’s the Little Things):
Community Sustainability Non-profit in Huntington Beach
Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Community-Sustainability-USA-Inc/197048646972392?sk=info
Website:
http://www.itsthelittlethings.org/About.html
It’s the Little Things
A project of Community Sustainability USA, a 501(c)(3) tax exempt, non-profit corporation founded in 2010
Sustainability is:
- Behaving in a way that allows the current generation to meet its needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
- Reducing the use of fossil fuels and heavy metals from earth’s crust.
- Reducing the use of man-made materials.
- Reducing the destruction and damage of nature.
- Advancing the fair distribution of natural resources so that all people can meet their basic needs.
It’s the Little Things’ (“ ILT”) works with residential groups, clubs, teams, school community, city staffs, or other small group. They help these groups learn about sustainability and the science behind it, because most people don’t have any association with the term sustainability and are confused by the complexity of it.
Research shows that people are much more likely to change behavior and follow through on commitments if they commit in a group in writing and publicize that commitment. The ILT organization helps these small groups come up with a plan for behavior changes. A typical plan would be for a period of one year and would include an electronic baseline assessment of the group’s current behavior on all sorts of actions that impact sustainability. Then at the end of every month, ILT collects data to track their behavior changes over the commitment period. ILT then publicizes the group’s commitments and accomplishments.
Current projects in progress:
- Two residential group
- One business (hair salon)
- One elementary school in Huntington Beach
- One high school (later in the year)
ILT is constantly learning and adapting the program as they go.
Other nearby
