Knowledge Powers Action
What specific actions can we all take to lower our carbon footprint and save money? We explore answers to this question and many others. Learn practicable and achievable actions that can move us along the road to carbon neutrality.
Jo Hand, co-founder of Giki Social Enterprise – creators of digital products to help people live sustainably, is joined by Dr. Tim O’Riordan, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, and President of the Norfolk Association of Local Councils, connecting all 722 Parish Councils in Norfolk encouraging citizens to reduce their individual carbon footprints by ‘Save a Tonne in ’21’.
Jo Hand demonstrates the Giki carbon tracking site and how actions such as changing your diet to more plant based foods; eliminating one of your family cars; improving your home insulation, can be measured to get you to saving a tonne in ’21. She will also show how corporations are using a special version of the site to move towards carbon neutrality by 2050.
Todd Litman, founder and executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative solutions to transport problems, demonstrates how integrated policies, such as smart city planning, can conveniently bring people to their destinations virtually carbon free. His research is used worldwide in transport planning and policy analysis.
Sandi Goldie and Jim Bronson are educators working with hundreds of people to implement specific projects which will reduce their carbon footprints. They are enthusiastic Drawdown facilitators who walk their talk. They share their personal experience with a new co-housing project they are involved with. To learn more about their Drawdown courses, please visit BCDrawdown.org, plus watch the TEDx video Creatively United collaboratively produced with them this past year.
Links & Resources
Call for Action and Dialogue on Old-Growth Forests
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
Vancouver Climate Emergency Action Plan
Affordable infill housing
Creating inclusive and efficient communities
Giki Earth
BC Drawdown
Drawdown Review
Countdown video with Creatively United and BC Drawdown
EarthFest Live: Creating One Planet, Self-Sustaining Communities
The Harmless Home: A Home Building Revolution
The Benefits of Co-Housing – Harbourside Sooke
Creating Resilient Green-Built Neighbourhoods
Creating One Planet Communities Livestream Event
Solutions: The Future of Transportation
Community Climate Connectors
Transition Streets Program
CRD’s new Transportation Committee
Books: The Carbon Buddy Manual, Sustainablish, Is it Really Green?
Additional Q&A
Q. The Peace River Site C Dam is the Fast Ferry Fiasco X FORTY!!! How will antiquated government choices catch up to your recommendations?
A. Todd Litman: Sure, this is one of many examples of public policies that focus on energy production rather than conservation. When energy is properly priced, much of the demand disappears.
Q. Do increased human populations contribute the most to un-sustainable transportation?
A. Todd Litman: Of course, the size of the human population affect environmental impacts. The good news is that population growth rates tend to taper off with increased wealth and security; the bad news is that growth is projected to continue for another few decades. Birth control is good. Genocide is bad.
Q. I didn’t have a car for 11 years and I walked, biked and used public buses to go everywhere. But lockdown changed everything. I bought a Nissan Leaf last September to start a delivery business. I haven’t started it yet for a few reasons, but I’ve been enjoying the freedom my car has been offering. Walking, biking, using public transportation is ideal, however, Victoria needs a reliable public transportation system before encouraging people to follow the ideal suggestion. I’m originally from a high population density country Japan. We have a great transportation system. We can travel much faster using public transportation instead of cars. Until we get a good public transportation system, people wouldn’t listen to the encouragement to walk, bike and use public transportation. We need the tools first.
A. Todd Litman: What comes first, the chicken or the egg? When it comes to travel changes, we need the chicken and the egg. We need improved resource-efficient mobility options and more accessible neighborhoods, but we also need incentives to choose them. Having been car-free for more than a decade, I can report from personal experience that it is perfectly possible, and a better quality of life overall, if you live in one of Victoria’s walkable neighborhoods. Public transit has a role to play, and we should improve it with expanded and more frequent service, nicer buses and stations, and more integrated services. However, we also need to develop incentives now: efficient parking pricing, Pay As You Drive vehicle insurance (www.paydinbc.ca), and commute trip reduction programs.
Q. Do you have a good plan around the lockdown? Many people stopped using public transportation out of fear. Which is a shame. We use more plastics because of the lockdown. It’s possible in Vancouver, because Vancouver has a great transportation system. But it’s very difficult to do the same thing in Victoria.
A. Todd Litman: It’s true that public transit ridership declined, but walking and bicycling increased, which is good because unenclosed modes have the lowest contagion risks (see www.vtpi.org/PRCP.pdf)
Q. EV’s can help power your home too, yes?
A. Todd Litman: No, EV batteries can store electricity that can be used in homes, but you still need a generation source.
Q. What about Hydrogen fuel cell trains & vehicles?
A. Todd Litman: Batteries and hydrogen are two energy storage systems, but both require some source of electricity.
Q. I’m interested to hear more about the “missing middle” housing.
A. Todd Litman: Here are some great sources:
- Ryan DiRaimo (2021), Seattle Has the Space, The Urbanist (www.theurbanist.org); at www.theurbanist.org/2021/03/25/seattle-has-the-space.
- Missing Middle Housing (https://missingmiddlehousing.com )
- Making Room Vancouver is the City of Vancouver’s program to create more affordable and inclusive neighborhoods.
- Cities for Everyone (http://citiesforeveryone.org )
- Sightline Institute is an independent nonprofit research organization that promotes inclusive and sustainable policies, including more Affordable Housing.
Q. Co-housing as you describe it seems to have a suburban focus: the community you discussed sounds like it’s envisioned as a sustainability-focused suburban subdivision. This seems to implicate the problem of piecemeal problem solving that Todd was describing. Could one argue that existing cities — especially densely populated ones with primarily MDU housing stock rather than single family homes, existing mass transit infrastructure (including pedestrian and cycle-friendly transportation schemes), existing public recreational and gathering spaces, and in situ employment opportunities — might be a better and more efficient way to implement the concepts you’re promoting?
A. Jim Bronson: Though we highlighted suburban River Song yesterday, cohousing is alive and well in many different settings. One of the most helpful to us in learning and planning our development in Eugene is 8 miles by driving north of the Washington Monument in a much more urban setting called Takoma Village.
What distinguishes cohousing is a commitment by all members to collaborate in solving problems together and to live in more modest personal dwellings while using the common house and common resources to make life rich and rewarding. At River Song we make decisions as a community (there is no hierarchy) and we use consensus or consensus-minus-one as our standard.
Q. I am concerned about what happens to all the batteries that are hard to recycle and the emissions from the heat pumps using refrigerants.
A. Jon O’Riordan: As of 2019, there was little re- cycling of lithium-ion batteries because battery technology is continuously changing and five times more expensive than mined lithium. However, this balance is now changing with an increased inventory of old batteries, new recycling technology and increasing prices of mined lithium. Once established, lithium-ion recycling will contribute significantly to net zero carbon.
Q. What about the noise level of Heat Pumps in a multi-family living situation similar to Co-housing? That is an issue barring heat pumps in my 34-unit Townhouse complex.
A. Sandi Goldie: This is no longer a problem. The old heat pumps were noisy, but the new ones are very quiet.
Q. What sort of structure is there for solving disputes within the co-housing community? Thank you!
A. Sandi Goldie: This varies among co-housing communities, but non-violent communication (from Marshall Rosenberg) is very common. Also, decisions are made by consensus. or consensus minus one–we use the latter already in our community, but always listen deeply to anyone (even just one) who doesn’t agree with a proposal, and talk through their reservations. We also have a consultant on call to help us develop the process skills to resolve any disputes, and she does periodic workshops for the whole community. It is a time-consuming process, but results in a high level of trust and mutual support. We also have a different teams which develop guidelines to avoid as many disputes as possible.
Q. Interesting tool, but operating a vehicle is much more expensive in the UK, so the pure financial benefit is less in a country like Canada or the U.S. For example, my understanding is that petrol is over $3 a litre in the UK versus a dollar in some parts of Canada. Does the tool account for these regional differences?
A. Jo Hand: Giki’s focus is on carbon rather than cost, but where there are cost savings we flag this. Swapping to an electric vehicle is not currently classed as a cost saving step, as these vehicles tend to be more expensive to purchase at the moment. However prices are coming down all the time, as new models come on the market.
Q. Follow up – is the Giki website set up in a way that would enable it to be customized for a different country?
A. Jo Hand: You can go into your footprints and add your own specific numbers, which will get you pretty close to a personalised footprint anywhere. We are also releasing a global version and US footprint version in the next month. For Canadians, the best option will be to opt for the global version. Over the coming months and years, we aim to roll out country specific footprints in many key economies.
Q. Can anyone go to giki zero or must you be a member?
A. Jo Hand: It is free to use for anyone – just sign up at https://zero.giki.earth
To use the Pro version for organizations, this requires membership, based on an annual subscription fee
Q. Many on this webinar have pensions. We could all influence how they are invested. Where would you start?
A. Jon O’Riordan: There are number of pension funds that are beginning to invest in clean energy. This article provides some background to one such fund. The transition for switching investments from safe heavens such as fossil fuel companies is still in its infancy. Through research, it is now possible to find funds that provide both security for investors and encourage the shift to net zero carbon economy.