Maryland CRAG Meeting held 11/18/07, goals set, let the games begin!

Hello everyone!

A bunch of us met yesterday to estimate last year’s carbon emissions to see where we are at with national goals, set goals for our carbon year, and hash out some tracking issues. Here’s what we learned about ourselves:

• The per capita national average for greenhouse gas emissions from driving, using electricity, and using fuel in the home is 21,073 pounds. Our average from yesterday was about 19,000. So we would be under-except- we don’t have a national average for flying and our emissions from flying nearly DOUBLE the rest of our emissions (people travelling home to Korea to get married, two long-distance love affairs, and lots of fun travellers).

• We also discovered that most people with long commutes took the train. Elin Ross will look to see if we can get an estimate of MARC train emissions.

• I will put out final numbers for our emissions once I get the absentee counts. The group was concerned with basing our goals on national averages that don’t include flights, so Steve Small and I are going to look to see if we can’t find numbers.

• We agreed to set a 10% reduction for this year from national averages for driving, using electricity, and using fuel in the home. We will also do a 10% reduction from national averages for flying if we can find those numbers. Otherwise we will have to be creative. People asked if we could develop a tracking tool electronically for emissions. We have one at www.carbonrationing.org.uk/maryland in the files tab.

• There was some discussion about whether we should count flying because it is an indirect fuel use. I explained that electricity is also technically indirect because someone else is burning it for us also; however, since we know how much is burned per kilowatt hour, it is part of the CRAG scheme. The same is generally true for flying. In fact, the more emissions we can do this with, the more we will understand the control we have over our footprints.

• I think we were also frankly in shock about how many pounds we were emitting from flights. I promised to find a better calculator for flight miles and here is one I would propose we consider: http://www.terrapass.com/flight/flightcalc.php. For those of you who want to recalculate those numbers and resend them to me, this would be great.

• We talked about some big carbon reducers you can do to meet your goals for this year: crack sealing and insulating, reducing car trips, using a drying rack/line drying clothes, and replacing incandescent lights with CFLs. All of these things are on the carbon reduction sheet available in the files tab. I also have a bunch over at www.local-warming.blogspot.com

• We discussed how we choose the amount of energy we use, but not the source of the energy. For example, over 99% of our electricity in our region comes from burning fossil fuel, predominantly coal. We talked about how our group could become more vocal in the political process to advocate for different types of energy sources. We also decided that we ourselves wanted to learn more about solar energy. A great site to figure out if solar is right for you is www.findsolar.com.

• I suggested we meet every 3 months but people wanted to meet more often than that. We settled on every month and a half. Our next get-together will be in mid-January. We will try to have speakers to talk about solar installation (including issues with the historic district), home energy audits, and HVAC. We will talk to the Library about cosponsoring this event and also about helping the Library put together resources for the public, including a display. Maria Manzoni is going to plan the next meeting. I will work in getting a meeting space and coordinating with the Library.

• Maria suggested that we put together resources in a file so that some day we could write a book. We agreed it would be fun to keep track of our practical experiences with carbon reduction, and I reminded people that we have a place for electronic files, images, forums, etc at www.carbonrationing.org.uk/maryland.

Thanks to all who came- to those who were busy shivering at marathons, installing insulation, or taking care of people with the flu- we missed you and will see you in January. Make sure to get your estimates to me for last year’s emissions so I can tally up.

Please comment on this thread if I forgot anything.

And everyone- don’t forget our Carbon Year begins December 1!!!! Remember on this day to check your fuel levels (so you can measure later how much you used) if you are on fuel oil, wood, etc. Also remember to write down your beginning mileage on your vehicle (and keep track of business travel that is not your regular commute).

Have fun!