Yesterday was the international day of climate action, sponsored by 350.org; 350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide—measured in "Parts Per Million" in our atmosphere. 350 PPM—it's the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.
People came out for the event and shared ways that individuals and city/county and state government can help make a change. This man built a solar oven that uses square mirror tiles to focus the sun on a piece of sheet metal that heats the oven. Fresh chocolate chip cookies....mmmmm
this was a smaller, more portable oven....more cookies
Numerous speakers talked of what Longmont, Boulder County and the state are doing to help with climate change as well as easy things that each of us can do. The beautiful trees in this one city park sequesters over 150,000 lbs of carbon. The city has a good recycling program and next year will begin a large scale, city wide composting program. They are fostering a new community garden project as well as retrofitting city buildings with energy efficient, solar panels.
This array of solar panels is at my dad's house in southern Colorado. With the help of an incredible local city energy program that paid him a set amount for each watt of energy he will generate. This along with federal tax credits for individuals who act to make their homes more energy efficient amounted to an out of pocket cost of $2500 for this $50,000 system.
This array will not only power his home 100% but he will sell back the extra energy to the city for others to use.
We can each do little things that help the health of our planet....compost food waste, ride your bike instead of jumping in your car when you can, hang your laundry to dry instead of using your clothes dryer, recycle, eat locally, plant trees...
what are you doing?
