INC-Urban Resilience and Sustainability Committee

1-30-2019 Minutes

 

Attendees: George Mayl, Joel Noble, Taylor Moellers, Adrian Brown, David Rummel, Ernie Diedrich (Chair), Jim Slotta, Loretta Koehler, Thomas Herrod, Sarah Shaffer, Cindy Johnstone, Steve Hartey

The meeting was called to order at 6:35 pm at the Daniels Bldg

Introduction

George Mayl began by briefly speaking about INC and its impact on Denver and we then introduced ourselves. Diedrich referred to a couple of websites that explain resilience, and six foundations of community resilience in lieu of belaboring definitions of resilience and sustainability.

sixfoundations.org

resilience.org

Speaker: Thomas Herrod, Climate & GHG Program Lead

Denver’s long-term climate goal is to reduce GHG emissions 80% by 2050 from a 2005 baseline. (handout has charts demonstrating Herrod’s points)

What does a 2-degree average temperature increase mean in Denver? With an average temp increase of 1.5 – 2 degrees C means in the most extreme year, we could have 72 days of 100 + degree days in the summer! Even in the next few years, we’ll have over 25 days of 100 + degree days. In the last 18 years, we’ve averaged 2 days per year at 100+…since 2000, we’ve had 49 100+ days, but in the 120 years before 2000, we’ve had 33 or 34 100+ degree days.

Herrod talked about interim goals and their connection to GHG reductions, with decarbonization goals for buildings, electricity supply and transportation. Q-what does electrification mean? A-making electricity come from renewable sources. Q-how do the changes get enforced? A-building codes, electric vehicle infrastructure, goals for grid decarbonization, etc. Q-Denver’s code vs. intl codes A-city govt can change codes to make them compliant…the July, 2018 document (21 pages) talks about the methods for reaching this policy’s goals. Q- sustainability comes from a reduction in car use…what is being considered about this difficult step…need an 80% reduction in vehicle miles driven. We in INC can help you with the hard work to make 80X50 work when you take the tough stance on reducing cars. A-right sizing the transportation system will need to be done.

Pie chart on GHG emissions (2016) Inventory…the big numbers are Commercial and Industrial Energy Use: 35%, Surface Transportation:18%, Residential Energy Use:15%. We’re tracking what goes on in the city. A waste discussion followed…to be captured when we focus on waste at another meeting. Adrian mentioned that around 50% of the recycled material ends up in landfill. The problem is that the end-product has a low value.

Next couple of slides looked at a bar chart describing reduction in emissions…not by a lot, but going down. Reasons include mass transit is reducing car travel, fuels sales are falling, and we need more charging infrastructure. Where have the reductions come down includes demand side strategies, transportation strategies, rapid shift from cfls to leds. Last graphs show what we did compared to doing nothing.

Q- incentives and decreasing energy consumption…people need to see gains if they’re going to invest in energy conservation. A-grant dollars, etc are required to induce lower income folks to invest in energy efficiency. Biggest bang for the buck is insulation investment. Q-Mainly need to incentivize behavior change. A-start with voluntary action and then move to economic incentives and disincentives Q- tricycles and scooters A-it’s here now.

Vancouver was mentioned as an example and Adrian said it’s about a city’s mind-set…peds have priority in Vancouver. Policies to give peds priority are required here in Denver. Got to go between incentivizing and forcing in order to get the job done. Q-will crisis affect the timeline…we need to plateau by 2020…faster than in the current 80×50 document. Need to speed up the process.

Q—accounting of GHG…difficult to do…need to assure that double counting of the emissions doesn’t occur. For example, emissions are counted on a miles travelled basis, but congestion and sitting in traffic would result in more pollution that wouldn’t be counted. There’s no central machine sucking in pollutants and measuring…it’s done through many complex models that result in pollution estimates.

Adrian suggested that if the top graph on page 3 had its vertical axis altered to reflect reality with a starting point of zero, it would show that GHG emissions have barely fallen or most recently, not at all. As the IPCC reports reflect scare tactics, then rather than force a picture that shows success, we ought to see one that shows that more needs to be done. Responses would be that we’re getting the results in light of substantial population growth and that a graph showing nothing done would show dramatic increases in GHG. Adrian answers that these results, regardless of population or how hard we’re trying, won’t get us to 80×50 in time.

Diedrich then asked “what is to be done”? Herrod then asked what the appetite in the neighborhoods is for solutions to this problem. Diedrich then responded that the appetite depends on the perception of the urgency of the threat.

How about Accelerate Neighborhood Climate Action (ACOVA)? Having an ACOVA based forum is a way to engineer a consensus. There’s a basis for thinking that a shift in thinking is underway. Thomas then mentioned that it’s very hard for people change their daily pattern. If they could only do one thing that was less carbon intensive for one time. Adrian mentioned that public transport has disadvantages, but it also gives you some significant advantages. Public transport is actually pretty damn good!

What could INC do to help the city to cause changes? Cindy thinks we need to try some baby steps first. Adrian, thinks Americans can make great U turns in our behavior (prohibition and the 55 mph limit), but the city needs to provide us with good tools and that the burden of change cannot fall on the poor. Loretta suggested an eco-pass for more people to give folks an incentive to take public transport.

Finally, the city can derive political cover or support from us as we encourage actions that neighborhoods and the city can take.

Joel Noble was picturing what success would look like for INC. just mentioning things at a Delegate meeting will ensure it will die. Starting things in neighborhoods and then ratcheting up expectations over time may act as a force multiplier. In sum, we’ll need to keep bringing up this issue and specifying what we want to do in concert with the City and with efforts such as the Sustainable Neighborhood program.

Committee Method, Mission Statement, and Agenda

With a little time left in the meeting, Diedrich mentioned a few things about the committee:

This committee’s simple provisional mission statement that we can edit in later meetings to make it useful:

INC-URSC’s mission is to promote urban resilience and sustainability at the neighborhood and community level.

He then mentioned that the committee’s work will be accomplished in three ways:

1. Visit: we’ll organize field trips so INC and anybody else can learn about how the city is encouraging resilience and sustainability.
2. Spotlight: We’ll highlight and celebrate efforts in neighborhoods
3. Discuss/Evaluate: we’ll bring people and experts together to discuss and evaluate what’s being done in Denver to promote resilience and sustainability and how we can further those efforts.

Anybody recommend sites we can visit? GrowHaus, Metro Wastewater, Recycle Plant, Landfills, Compost Site….Can we have a project? High-Five Clean Up project for May 20^th. Adrian suggested that we tell other what we’re doing and suggest a project that they can do.

So what sort of topics should we consider this year? Here’s my list of possible topics:

1. Climate Change
2. Waste
3. Food
4. Air Quality Pollution
5. Mobility
6. Green Spaces
7. Energy
8. Built Environment
9. Public Health
10. Education

ACOVA’s 15 simple actions individuals can take

Here are 15 simple things that ACOVA recommends to personally combat Climate Change:

1. Adjust your thermostat
2. Unplug electronics when not in use
3. Replace 3 frequently-used light bulbs with CFLs or LED lights
4. Put your monitor to sleep
5. Only run your dishwasher when it is full
6. Wash your clothes in cold water
7. Plant a few trees
8. At least one day a week, use public transport, bike, walk or carpool
9. Fill your car tires
10. Minimize car idling
11. Reduce junk mail
12. Check your water heater thermostat
13. Reduce the water you use for showers
14. Recycle and compost
15. Carry reusable water bottles and coffee cups

AND…work to change public policies so everyone can help.

 

The meeting adjourned at 8:06

 

Respectfully submitted (2-17-2019),

Ernie Diedrich

Chair

DOWNLOAD FILE HERE

INC Presentation-sustain