Just a quick note in case any of you are looking for (part-time) work…UNH has couple of non-benefited part-time positions open for sustainability/energy-related work…go to www.unhjobs.com if you’re interested (please note that the positions are closing very soon…sorry for the short notice).

Great to meet all of you yesterday (and thanks to Jenn & Anne for coodinating a great event)!

Dovev

There is an article in this Sunday’s NY Times entitled “The Campus – Green, Greener, Greenest” that includes an interview with Clean Air-Cool Planet’s Jennifer Andrews.  Great job, Jennifer!  You can check it out at the link below.  See you all on Tuesday – Greg.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/education/edlife/27green.html?pagewanted=1&ref=edlife

I hope this finds you having a good summer, and I’m looking forward to meeting with most (all?) of you next week. Just a quick update on what I’ve been working on…I now have the major pieces (minus a couple of last interviews of actors and stakeholders for a few) of ten case studies, including:

*Plymouth Area Renewable Initiative: This is a very interesting action happening out in Plymouth, NH. It involves community “energy raisers” in which citizens install a solar hot water heater at a different residence each month. These installations are done free of charge for volunteers, so it’s a great illustration of community climate actin at work.

*Greenblocks Program: This is a municipal action of Missoula, Montana. It provides a variety of free home efficiency installlations for any neighborhood in which 90% of residences agree to participate.

*Low Impact Development: This is an approach to land development that works to manage stormwater as close to its source as possible. 

I also have a question…does anyone know of any literature which discusses the usefulness of municipality emissions inventory tools? One of my case studies compares a variety of these (e.g. WRI, ICLEI, NH Carbon Challenge, etc), and I’d like to provide some established literature on the applicability of different inventories to different municipalities (e.g. a city could have different needs from a small town when conducting an inventory).

Thanks!

Dovev

Also, during my interview, I heard that there was going to be a “networking” session at this last meeting, or an opportunity to meet with a variety of individuals who are working in this field.  Will this still be the case, or are we going to be presenting what we have been working on?

If anyone has any insight on this, that would be great.

Thanks!

~Ryan

I wanted to update you all on what I’ve been doing, plus ask for your advice!  I mentioned before that I am working on a powerpoint that will be presented to student activists talking about the importance of our new Planning Tool in the Campus Carbon Calculator.  Today I realized that the entire presentation assumes that carbon neutrality is the audience’s goal, but I realized not everyone may be on board with that.  In particular, people might be concerned about the use of offsets.  So I need to put in a slide explaining “Why Carbon Neutrality?”  Aside from the obvious impacts of climate change, what do you all think would be the most compelling arguments to put on it? 

Other than the slide show, I have been developing a spreadsheet of all the organizations and events that we should be outreaching to for the Planning Tool and developing the content for a video that we will be shooting for the campus website about the Planning Tool. 

Most importantly, Anne (from the campus program) and I are learning to surf!!

Thanks in advance for your updates and advice.

I have been spending most of my time buried in Excel. I am working on revamping the campus greenhouse gas inventory tool’s section on energy demand projection. Our challenge is to create a projection method that has enough detail to be useful and credible but that is also simple enough for the average user. I think Jenn and I have figured out a good plan of action, but now it is just a question of moving around all of the little Excel bits and pieces to get it into the new form. It will be super exciting when campuses across the country are using the new version to make their case for climate action!

I have also been working with Anne, Jenn, and Casey to make a plan for some outreach/educational videos and presentations to go along with the part of the Excel tool that allows you to weigh the cost effectiveness of potential emissions mitigation measures. I really enjoy this type of work (outreach, public speaking, training…) and it makes a great break after a couple hours of nitty gritty Excel work.

I’m helping to write a toolkit for local governments, which will serve as a guide for developing and implementing of strategies for municipal operations, land use, and local economic development related to mitigation and adaptation to…climate change.   So far, we have been weaving together the huge amount of information available in existing national or state level toolkits and resources for local climate action, such as best practices and model ordinances.  We’re going one step further by integrating New York related funding mechanisms, state level initiatives (such as smart growth) and case studies (New York-sizing, as my boss calls it).  I’ve been saying “we”, by the way, because the toolkit is going to (ultimately) be a collaborative effort between multiple NY state agencies (I am currently shared by two atate agencies, the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, though other agencies are on board as well).  So far we have been writing away, amassing an unwieldy document that one day (we are told) will look great and be useful to a wide variety of audiences (muni officials, citizens, etc).  I have been enjoying the writing process a lot, and am looking forward to collaborating with the other agencies.  Good to hear about what you all are doing!