Blog Action Day 2009: Colorado Carbon Fund Meets Climate Change Challenge Head On
Through Contributions And Actions, Colorado Aims To Offset Negative Environmental Impacts Of Air Travel And Home Energy Consumption
View from a hike from the Alpine Visitors' Center at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
GlobaLinks NewsWire Editor
It’s difficult to ignore evidence of climate change when it shows up in your own back yard as reduced snow pack and snowmelt, changing alpine ecosystems and shifts in wildlife.
But the signs of climate change are clearly demonstrated in a variety of studies on Colorado, the Rocky Mountains and the West, according to Susan Innis, manager of the Colorado Carbon Fund, a voluntary carbon offset that is the only statewide effort of its kind in the United States.
“There’s definitely been some impacts in the high country,” said Innis in a special interview this week with the GlobaLinks NewsWire for today’s Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change.
Blog Action Day - 2009: Climate Change.
In Colorado, the ripple effects continue from there. As evidence, consider:
- - A 2006 study by the Aspen Global Change Institute that indicates too-early snow melt and other signs of warming in the Roaring Fork Valley around Aspen.
- - “Hotter and Drier,” a March 2008 report by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization outlines a variety of changes, including reduced snowpacks, less snowfall, reduced streamflow, more drought, higher temperatures, more wildfires, loss of forests, glaciers, alpine tundra and impacts on wildlife.
- – And most recently, a report released earlier this month by the National Parks Service, “National Parks In Peril: The Threat Of Climate Disruption,” documenting climate disruption as the greatest threat ever to America’s national parks, including Rocky Mountain National Park.
Colorado Carbon Fund
Against this local backdrop, the Colorado Governor’s Energy Office in August 2008 created the Colorado Carbon Fund and Project C to reduce the carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.
“We are the first – and the only at this point,” Innis said.
Not that there aren’t many other carbon emission reduction efforts, she said. Some states tackle the issue regionally through regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. Some cities, such as San Francisco and Cleveland, have their own carbon funds, Innis said.
In Colorado, “we’ve had a tremendous response” to the fund, Innis said. “We have over 500 donors to the program.”
A mountain biker cuts through the golden Aspens outside Crested Butte, Colorado.
Donors include individuals, businesses and organizations, including GlobaLinks Learning Abroad, which in May of this year announced an ongoing program of regular contributions from student evaluation fees to help “green” the environmental impacts of student travel overseas.
Also adding support from the higher education field is the University of Colorado at Boulder, which was the first Colorado Carbon Fund customer and is projected to contribute more than $90,000 in student dollars over two years to support clean energy projects in the state, Innis said.
“The way this works is folks can make a tax deductible contribution to the Colorado Carbon Fund,” Innis said, “and we use the money to go purchase and retire carbon offsets from clean energy projects in Colorado.”
Why is the statewide effort needed?
To offset the carbon emissions generated in Colorado so the state can do its part. Air travel and home energy use are the largest emitters, Innis said. The fund’s Project C efforts provide participants with a three-step process to engage in a sustainable energy lifestyle.
- Calculate your “carbon footprint,” a measure of your emissions from energy use and travel.
- Reduce your emissions through energy efficiency and renewable energy.
- Offset unavoidable emissions through the Colorado Carbon Fund.
The alpine tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park.
In the most basic sense, carbon offsets reduce greenhouse gas emissions in one place to compensate for emissions somewhere else.
As an example, the Colorado Carbon Fund in September announced its first clean energy project, the production of electricity from methane gas at the Larimer County Landfill outside Fort Collins. The project, a joint effort with Colorado-based Timberline Energy LLC, uses a pipeline to capture the landfill’s methane gas generated from decomposition and channels it to a unit that burns the methane gas to generate electricity to power about 900 local homes.
It is the second landfill-to-gas energy project in the state, Innis said.
For more information on this statewide effort, visit the Colorado Carbon Fund.
For more information about ways you can reduce your environmental impact while studying abroad, visit GlobaLinks Learning Abroad’s green initiatives.
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