CAT, Carbon Neutral, 12/18/23

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Date/time/location: Dec. 18, 2023, 1 pm – 2:30 pm, the David Eberly room at the Bown Crossing Library

Attending: David Shropshire, Lisa Hecht, Jim Bigelow, Carol Ogburn, Claudia Fernsworth, Tom Neale, Cathy Sandstrom, Erin Logan

Agenda:

  • November meeting notes
  • Claudia recommends this book from the Boise Public Library: Nature’s Best Hope, How you can save the Worlds in Your Own Yard. by  Sarah L. Thomson (Adapter), Douglas W. Tallamy (Author)
    • Suggestion: people on the team bring recommendations & summaries of books/information  to the team of interest to our work.
  • Reference Material for Climate Action Team:
  • Set Jan & Feb meeting dates and places
    • Hybrid – Lisa will provide the zoom account, (get camera/mic  – Jim)
    • Monday Jan 22 at 2:30 pm  Bown Crossing Library
    • Feb 26 – downtown library, 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm, 3rd floor, Marion Bingham Room
    • March 18, downtown library, 1 – 3 pm, 3rd floor, Marion Bingham Room
  • Becoming a Carbon Neutral Congregation
    • Household Carbon Footprint class
      • Logistics – Lisa
        • Would start some time in Feb – early May  – our choice
        • What we need to send to Sandy Cruise
          • Class content/description
          • Proposed dates & times
            • day/evening/weekends
          • Format
            • In-person only & BUUF room preferred
            • Zoom only
            • Hybrid – we need to manage AV and zoom
          • Materials required for class, ex. Energy bills, 
      • Let’s cap the attendees at 10 for the first class
      • Lisa – will have a course baseline for review
      • What is the Goal?
        • To introduce carbon footprint, ways to reduce it and incentives to help pay for the reductions
        • Content is flexible depending on needs of the attendees
        • What’s your baseline: Ask them to calculate their footprint
        • How you can reduce, what will it cost
      • How to motivate people
      • Content
    • BUUF households
      • Planning for class/workshop with Lisa Hecht & Erin Logan
      • Develop a short speech or video to be played at for the annual giving drive meetings
        • Could we use a portion of the Imagining a Carbon Neutral World video?
      • Develop a  small grid of options and stickers for accomplishments  for those who don’t find the numbers and graphs of a carbon footprint appealing – base this on UCC’s electrification initiative?
        • Who will take this on?
      • Develop a large grid for the congregation to put up on a wall where it’s visible on Sundays
      • A roll of 50 BUUF carbon neutral project stickers from vistaprint: $27.99
        • Team members put a sticker on their BUUF name tag.
    • Building and grounds
      • HVAC replacement project
        • What rebates and incentives apply?
      • Tree inventory to refine Outdoor Sanctuary carbon capture
        • Complete inventory early next year
        • Averaging of the trees we measured,
          • It takes 20 or so trees to capture 1 MT/yr of CO2e
          • This is a rough estimate
      • Increasing BUUF’s carbon capture by planting trees, where?
        • in a belt 2 trees deep in front of the grove
        • fill in around the perimeter of the property
        • On the South and West side of the building (can we make the South parking set back more from the building so that the trees aren’t too close to the foundations?)
        • In the courtyard so that eventually we won’t need canopies to shade events and it will shade the South side of the North wing?
        • In the gravel bed in the middle of the North parking lot
        • on the east perimeter of the North parking lot
        • on both sides of the path to bridge
        • around the utility shed
    • Transportation
      • Need a person or persons to start developing a carpooling program.
        •  This is the fastest way to reduce the carbon footprint-
  • Community Outreach
    • United Church Of Christ, Liz Roberts
    • Interfaith Power & Light, Dec 5,  God’s Creation, Faith and Our Responsibility
    • 100 Carbon Neutral Project cards for Jim to use during outreach, has name, contact info, BUUF’s name and url of project’s web page.  From vista print: $14.40
    • Table at Idaho Energy Freedom will host Energy Freedom Education Day at the Capitol building’s second floor rotunda on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
  • Cool Congregations Challenge
  • Green Sanctuary 2030 Celebration
    • Wed. Jan 17, 5pm Mt
    • Everyone is invited
    • We’ll give a 2-3 min  presentation on our work