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"We certainly see differences in approaches participants take to reduce their footprint."
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Reduce Your Footprint in 2010: a free community workshop
On Thursday, February 25 of this year, we are again teaming up with the City and the Energy Commission to host a similar workshop, this time with additional sponsorship from the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists. While this workshop, “Reduce Your Footprint in 2010” is intended for anyone interested, its primary focus is for community groups, such as neighborhood associations, congregations, businesses, and non-profits. Details below:
Are you part of a congregation, neighborhood association, workplace, PTA or other community group? Are you a concerned citizen? Come discover resources right here in Berkeley to help you reduce your personal and collective carbon footprint.
The City of Berkeley, the Berkeley Energy Commission, the Ecology Center, and the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists invite you to a fun and informative workshop to help you and your community reduce global warming emissions. At this workshop you will: - Find out how your lifestyle practices and the choices you make as individuals and community groups impact greenhouse gas emissions;
- Discover how you can significantly reduce your personal and community emissions though an exciting and no-cost 4-session program;
- Be given the opportunity to participate in, form, or have the Ecology Center facilitate a free Climate Change Action workshop series in your community;
- Receive information for implementing energy efficient and renewable energy options in your home, workplace, congregation, school, and other shared spaces.
Come and join in!
Date: Thursday, February 25, 2010
Time: 7 pm
Location: Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St (at Bonita), Berkeley
Cost: Free.
Info: 510-548-2220 x240, debra at ecologycenter dot org
RSVP requested but not required
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'In Berkeley, we are a land of plenty for environmental sustainability.'
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Event Circle Interview with Debra Berliner, Climate Action Coordinator, Ecology Center, Berkeley, CA – by Willi Paul
We usually think of one person, or a family or business in terms of eco footprint assessment. How did you come up with Climate Change Action Group idea?
As anyone who’s ever tried to go on a diet, kick a smoking habit, or commit to some other long term behavior change knows, the power of doing so in community can’t be overstated. Taking action in concert with others ensures a built-in support network, fosters accountability, and facilitates an exchange of ideas and knowledge. That said, addressing climate change is not only a function of changing individual behavior, but of altering the infrastructure in which decisions are made. Better public transit, for example, makes it easier for an individual to choose to take the bus rather than drive; fewer hurdles have to be crossed to integrate low-impact actions as a part of one’s daily life. Bringing people together in a group creates the motivation and provides the potential human power to advocate for and accomplish these sorts of large scale changes.
This philosophy is entirely consistent with what has driven Ecology Center programs since the organization’s inception in 1969. For the last forty years, the Ecology Center has been an action-oriented non-profit focused on achieving environmental sustainability and social justice by providing the public with the information and the infrastructure necessary to make sustainable practices possible. When Berkeley residents stepped up to the challenge of Climate Change in 2006 by overwhelmingly voting in support of creating a citywide Climate Action Plan, the Ecology Center asked, “How can we engage individuals, households, and community groups in achieving our collective goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?” We identified the Low Carbon Diet workbook, created by the Empowerment Institute, as one of the chief components of our curriculum, and we hit the ground running.
There are bound to be lifestyle conflicts in your groups. What do you think these will be and suggest how you might handle them.
We certainly see differences in approaches participants take to reduce their footprint. One person may aim to lessen her impact across the board by making modest changes in her transportation, food, goods and services consumption, home energy, and water and waste management choices: carpooling to work when possible, committing to a meat-free day each week, upgrading an appliance around her home to a more energy efficient model and installing a power strip, etc. Another participant might decide to keep all things status quo with the exception of one very substantial change, such as giving up his car, becoming a vegetarian, or moving to a smaller home with fewer energy requirements.
In our Climate Change Action workshops, we try to create a safe and supportive environment where judgment doesn’t get airtime. We try to help participants understand that they don’t have to live in a tent and only eat seeds to truly minimize their impact; that they can be effective agents of change in a myriad of ways, not the least of which is by being an informed and engaged citizen, as they are doing simply by showing up to the Climate Change Action Workshops. We actually haven’t seen the respect and judgment-free environment be violated in any significant ways.
What are the key Berkeley resources for community groups to reduce global warming emissions?
Here in Berkeley, we are most certainly living in a land of plenty when it comes to resources for environmental sustainability. We’ve got an abundance of: community gardens; three farmers’ markets each week; organizations like providing home energy audits (free through Rising Sun’s CYES program in the summer!); salvage and re-use stores such as Urban Ore and Omega Salvage, among others; fantastic organizations in downtown’s David Brower Center; great support for promoting alternative transit, including Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley Coalition and the East Bay Bike Coalition; resources for alternative transportation such as Biofuel Oasis, Green Motors, and City CarShare, and the list goes on. CSAs (community supported agriculture) through multiple farms and the Berkeley Tool Lending Library are other examples of the countless resources available in Berkeley.
The Ecology Center prefers not to recommend any one particular organization, so we suggest checking out our online EcoDirectory – a listing of businesses and organizations with information or services related to topics ranging from green building advice to pest control to water testing. The Bay Area Progressive Directory is another very comprehensive listing of Bay Area organizations by topic. Finally, the City of Berkeley is doing wonderful work to assist residents and businesses with home and building energy efficiency, and the City’s website is a great one-stop shop for information on topics ranging from solar power to green remodeling to policy background.
In addition to climate warming, what other green issues are important to local residents?
Water and air quality, food production and politics, toxic chemicals, wildlife preservation, and environmental, food and economic justice all top the list of issues at the forefront of residents’ minds, among other issues.
Please define “lifestyle practices” and the metrics that you propose to measure them.
We borrow the term “lifestyle actions” from the Low Carbon Diet workbook. Simply stated, these include the actions one takes from the moment she wakes up in the morning until she goes to sleep at night, involving hygiene practices, food choices, transportation decisions, waste production, and goods and services consumption. One can ask: “How many miles does the food I eat travel before reaching my plate? How do I get to and from work and around town? Could I limit my purchasing of products in non-recyclable packaging? How often do I unnecessarily buy new products?” And so on.
Can you give us the main points in the Ecology Center Climate Change Action Workshop agenda?
Since the summer of 2008, the Ecology Center has been offering citizens (regardless of city of residence) the opportunity to participate in our Climate Change Action Project by either joining us in a four-session workshop series at the Ecology Center and/or by getting trained to lead one’s own group with friends, family members, neighbors, or others. More recently, we also have the capacity to lead free workshop series at any Berkeley-based organization. The Ecology Center will gladly send a trained facilitator to a Berkeley workplace, neighborhood, housing complex, congregation, school or other community group of approximately ten people or more.
In each of these scenarios, participants begin by calculating their carbon footprints and creating personal action plans that include individual, household and community actions, using the Low Carbon Diet workbook as a starting point. Over the next three weeks, they engage in actions between workshop session and convene as a group to problem solve around challenges they’ve encountered, share successes, and brainstorm innovative action ideas. When we lead workshop series with organizations, the actions sometimes focus on collective changes that can be made around the office, congregation, neighborhood, school, or other shared environment. Regardless of setting, we try to incorporate fun and interactive components, such as a “BYOP” (Bring Your Own Plate) low carbon potluck and a skills share, always with the goal of keeping the process fun and engaging.
Are you teamed up with partner contractors and suppliers? How were these folks selected? (I’m going to only sort of answer this question, Willi)
The City of Berkeley and the Berkeley Energy Commission have consistently been excellent partners in carrying out our Climate Change Action workshops. Last year we put together a community-wide workshop “Learn How To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint”, which gathered approximately 125 Berkeley residents on a weekday evening to learn about some key ways to reduce their footprints, begin to dialogue with other community members on the subject, and hear about some community resources, such as the Climate Change Action Workshop Series.
Connections –
Debra Berliner, MPH, Climate Action Coordinator
Ecology Center
2530 San Pablo Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94702
Office phone: (510) 548 2220 x240
Cell phone: (415) 312 9720
Fax: (510) 548-2240
debra at ecologycenter dot org
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