The Vanguard will have an ongoing series on the browning of Davis which will argue that Davis has fallen behind other communities in terms of environmental policies, notably with regards to climate change. Before the series has even begun, this notion has generated a considerable amount of debate and discussion from people in somewhat surprising quarters arguing that Davis is doing far more than a lot of other communities with regards to climate change.
By way of example the city of Davis presented last week a short presentation to a county climate action group on their Low Carbon Diet program.
As one person I spoke to put it, it is a great way to engage individual households in this issue, but it is not a serious way for the city as an agency to generate meaningful and long term CO2 reductions.
I would go a step further, and I will as I compare it to what cities such as San Francisco have really already done, it shows us what can be done with very modest changes in individual lifestyle, but it is really just a pre-step rather than a solution to the problem.
As a vegetarian, I find it interesting the impact that vegetarian meals have on CO2 usage. Other than the 20% reduction of vehicle miles, none of these changes are very intrusive into an individual’s life and 5000 lbs of carbon is not a huge amount, but it shows probably how easy it really is to reduce our individual impact on the environment and how much CO2 we probably use in a given time period.
The results of the pilot program were 47 households reported in an on-line survey. They saved about 5500 lbs per household on average. Total reported 115 metric tonnes which is equal to the energy used in about 21 Davis homes. About 34 households turned appliances all the way off. They found reduction of solid waste was most effective saving 14 MTs while only two households bought new windows.
We can think about the basic effectiveness of the program, but also what people were not asked to do. Few purchased new windows that would be more energy efficient. Solar panels would be another start. The transition toward either electric vehicles or alternative transport ion was not utilized although road miles were reduced.
The city is looking to expand the concept now to 1000 households. Again, I think this is a good program for two reasons. First, it makes people aware of their impact in ways they probably wouldn’t be otherwise. Second, it shows us how much impact we can have.
But now let’s compare to San Francisco’s 2004 Climate Action Plan that they have implemented and they are already producing below 1990 levels. Forget about the scale of the reduction that would not apply and look at the implemented policies.
The goal of the San Francisco plan was to reduce their equivalent carbon dioxide emissions (eCO2) from 9.7 million tons in 2000 to around 7.2 million tons by 2012 which would reduce the eCO2 by 20% from 1990 levels and 26% from 2000 levels. That’s an aggressive timeline, but they are on pace to do it.
To give one an example, on April 21, 2009 the city of Davis discussed the framework for beginning to reduce GHG emissions produced by new residential development projects. At the risk of reigniting the debate on Wildhorse Ranch, the city’s staff report found that only WHR met the proposed Davis standards for GHG emissions.
“Sustainability proposal includes reducing residential energy demand by 25% below 2009 Title 24 standards, photovoltaic systems with a total capacity of 460 kW, and exceeding the targets of the City’s Green Building ordinance by 10 points.”
Davis’ overall goals are much more modest than San Francisco’s trying (but not mandating) to get us to a 7% reduction or to the 1998 by 2012 which is in line with the Kyoto Protocols, but again San Francisco appears on pace to get to 20% by 2012. Davis would be mandated to get to 1990 levels by 2020 and has a desired goal of 28% below 1990 by that point in time.
In the future, we will be discussing more about some of the other programs in terms of solar energy usage.
I do not want to completely disparage the work done on the low carbon diet, I would just like to see much more much sooner in terms of community-based efforts at reduction of greenhouse gas. These are very modest goals that can be met, but we can clearly do much more.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
You’re missing a key framing context.
In these economically tough times, many of those “low carbon diet” measures yield a certain amount cost savings to the individual bank account. That is an additional positive incentive instead of *only* arguing that we should do these things to be good people.
My life doesn’t revolve around what San Francisco says, thinks, or does. For that matter, I don’t live my life based on some international treaty. I don’t answer to Iran and North Korea.
The comparisons were made not because our life revolves around it but for purposes of having a point of reference. That said, we need to do more in this area and I think the low carb diet shows us that we can relatively painlessly and without huge costs to the consumer, nay, as WDF suggests, even with savings to the consumers.
I think this story ([url]http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.html?_r=1&ref=europe[/url]) out of Germany offers an interesting vision: a town without cars. [quote]VAUBAN, Germany — Residents of this upscale community are suburban pioneers, going where few soccer moms or commuting executives have ever gone before: they have given up their cars. Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.[quote]What I would like to see in an experimental new development* would be apartments and homes built without any parking places. Such a development would have to encourage bicycles, electric golf carts and public transportation. They could have, like in Vauban, some private parking on the periphery — the cars could even be owned by a homeowners association and rented as needed to the residents. Obviously, many people don’t want to live that way. That’s fine. Let those who would like to give it a go live there.
What most people don’t realize is that parking requirements have a huge impact on land use — they prevent dense development. In a space where 100 apartments could easily fit without a parking lot (but say with green space), maybe only 25 can be built if they have to include 50 parking spaces. In other words, parking requirements can have the effect of quadrupling land usage, all else held equal. Compounding that, low density development makes public transit less cost effective.
Yet it’s a bit of a trap, because if you build without places for cars and people still need cars, you’ve created a secondary problem. What needs to be done, then, is to plan a development with non-car transit in mind and gear it to people who want to live that way.
*Maybe the PG&E site would be a good place in Davis to try this.
I don’t want my gov’t telling me where to park my car. Nor do I want my gov’t telling me to reduce my carbon emissions by so much percent. While reducing carbon emissions may be extremely important to some, it isn’t particulary important to others, such as China or India for instance. “Global warming” has become big business in the U.S. – literally. But it also deflects conversation from real issues. Let’s take a very local example. Mayor Asmundson talked about using the water a consumer boils rice in to make future soup; Councilmember Souza talked about using the water a consumer boils vegetables in to water the lawn. What was the topic under discussion? The fact that the citizens of Davis cannot economically support the implementation of both a sewer plant upgrade and a surface water importation project at the same time. Neither Asmundson nor Souza wanted to grapple w the real issue at hand and make difficult political choices.
Many conservation ideas are subject to diminishing returns. We are beginning to spend huge amounts of money to conserve very little. Take the water issue. Residents are being asked to conserve their rice water/vegetable water, yet residents only use 5% of the water. Yet farmers, who use 85% of the water – are laughing – as they dump thousands of gallons of water into open irrigation ditches, wasting water like crazy. I don’t hear much call for farmers to conserve!
Ditzy Berkeley called for the city to pay for solar panels for its citizens. Bet they are thinking twice about that stupid and costly decision in the current economy. Not only that, my understanding is that solar technology is going to change drastically in the next few years, and what they have now will be obsolete very soon. I agree with a previous commenter – we should not be worried about what other cities do, as if somehow this is a competition and we have to keep up with others. That is exactly how we got into our current budget mess in Davis with respect to public safety salaries – trying to keep up w the Jones salaries to get the most qualified employee!
What makes more sense to me, than thinking up little ways to conserve a little bit, is to develop a national energy policy. It would give incentives to develop alternative forms of energy – solar, fuel cell, wind, nuclear, electricity, whatever will get us independent of foreign oil.
Ed Begley Jr (an actor whose father was a famous character actor) walks the walk, and talks the talk of conservation. He powers his toaster with bicyle power, that sort of thing. His wife is fed up with it. Fine, if people want to live frugally, and conservatively (pardon the pun), whatever floats their boat. But I don’t want to be FORCED to live that way, bc I think it is a step backward and it is not for me. I think it is far more productive to spend my time encouraging the federal gov’t to start thinking globablly in the truest sense, and ENCOURAGE the development of alternative fuels. The sooner we become energy independent, the sooner we won’t have to be fighting foreign wars. Think about it.
“I don’t want my gov’t telling me where to park my car. Nor do I want my gov’t telling me to reduce my carbon emissions by so much percent.”
You must have been one of those people who complained about smoking restrictions and having to pay more for your car to comply with auto emissions so that we could actually see the mountains on the horizon.
Change occurs fastest when stubborn older folks die off.
“You must have been one of those people who complained about smoking restrictions and having to pay more for your car to comply with auto emissions so that we could actually see the mountains on the horizon.
Change occurs fastest when stubborn older folks die off.”
I would assume you are young, based on your discriminatory statement about “older folks”. Well us “older folks” have lived a lot longer than you have, and seen a lot more of life. We know a boondoggle when we see one. Notice I did not say I was not for conservation/pollution control. What I did say is that the current fad of everyone pitching in to conserve is mere window dressing/distraction from real issues/moneymaker for the likes of Al Gore and company – but does not address the larger issue of the need for a national energy policy that promotes and encourages alternative fuels. If this nation could become truly oil independent, think what that could mean. No need to get involved in foreign wars over oil, no more OPEC dictatiing the price of gasoline on a whim, FAR LESS POLLUTION. Why would you be against something so eminently sensible?
Or is it that you believe the only answer is for your gov’t to decide for you what is best? Well from where I sit, I see a gov’t that wastes too much money on paying whopping salaries to upper management whether they have done a good job or not, paying for highways to nowhere and other pork barrel projects, and do very little in the way of producing anything worthwhile. We need to encourage business to create alternative fuel cars, alternative fuel power sources, etc. That will have much more effect than insisting citizens save their rice water to use for cooking some soup. If you had half a brain, you would know more and more younger folks don’t even cook! It is us old fogies that still know how!
And by the way, I’ve been around long enough to know “change” in and of itself is not always a good thing.