This was in today’s paper. It’s good to hear that the City is making a real effort to curb CO2 emissions. A big source of CO2 emissions besides electricity are mobile sources aka cars and trucks. The City could really help reduce these mobile emissions by investing more dollars in biking and walking infrastructure and education. 40 percent of all urban trips taken in U.S. are 2 miles or less. A quarter of all trips are 1 mile or less. A far greater percentage of these 1 to 2 mile trips should be converted to bicycling and walking. It will clean our air and get our citizens healthy.

If you care about biking and walking, please make an effort to show up to these Green Government Task Force meetings. The next one is on Sept. 5 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Wightman Community Building, 5604 Solway St. in Squirrel Hill.

Pittsburgh joins international initiative

Friday, August 17, 2007
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

An air-conditioning unit sits in most every office window at the City-County Building on Grant Street, Downtown. Some windows open but usually not far enough for fresh air to counter the overactive heating system.

“Sometimes in winter,” said city Councilman William Peduto, “you have to turn the AC on.”

Such incongruence is a climate protection no-no that the city can take the lead in correcting, said Mr. Peduto, a founding member of the Green Government Task Force, which has embarked Pittsburgh on an initiative to reduce the use of fossil fuels and their emissions.

One payoff of the Pittsburgh Climate Protection Initiative is that there are millions of dollars to be saved.

What began as a project to reduce the environmental cost and waste in city government became an imperative for all sectors of the city after a Carnegie Mellon University study last year showed municipal emissions to be a 4 percent slice of a pie dominated by residential, commercial and institutional emissions. These include carbon dioxide and methane.

The processing and use of petroleum, natural gas and coal for electricity all result in emissions that are largely responsible for the increase in the Earth’s temperature and many health problems.

Pittsburgh is one of 160 U.S. cities that have joined an international movement, Cities for Climate Protection. The goal is to produce a plan for all sectors to inculcate in their decision making about spending on buildings, vehicles, waste and goods in general.

New England-based consultant Clean Air-Cool Planet is directing a local task force of 43 representatives from government, business, institutions and nonprofit agencies, with funding from The Heinz Endowments and the Roy A. Hunt and Surdna foundations. The Green Building Alliance is the project manager.

The task force has begun holding informational meetings in 10 neighborhoods for residents to offer input. The first three were this week in the South Side, Mount Washington and East Liberty. Squirrel Hill’s meeting is next, on Sept. 5 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Wightman Community Building, 5604 Solway St. Future meetings will be announced.

Rebecca Flora of the Green Building Alliance and Caren Glotfelty of The Heinz Endowments started the first discussions with Mr. Peduto, late Mayor Bob O’Connor and state Sen. Jim Ferlo. After Mr. O’Connor’s death, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl became a co-chairman.

Ms. Flora’s students at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon researched and analyzed the data and wrote an inventory with recommendations. They chose 2003 as the base year for subsequent comparisons because it was the year for which they could get the most complete information.

The study indicated that electricity outpaces other energy in its emissions, that the commercial sector consumes and emits more than any other, and that across all sectors, buildings use the most energy and emit the most gases.

After input from residents in separate meetings in all nine City Council districts, the task force will write a “local action plan” and oversee its function.

Eamon Geary, the project manager for Green Building Alliance, said a software program will break all the feedback down into an analysis of costs, savings and emissions, with comparatives for the task force to consider. The plan should be ready for City Council’s consideration by the end of the year, he said.

Ahead of this effort, the city has started on several innovations.

City Council last week approved contracting with a local company, CLT Efficient Technologies, to replace all traffic lights with light emitting diode, or LED, lights. The estimated $2 million cost would come from the state’s Guaranteed Energy Savings Program as a loan that the city would pay back from the savings it reaps in operating the lights. The International Facility Management Association estimates the savings would be $325,000 a year.

After completing the project, CLT will audit municipal properties to see what retrofits may be needed, according to Mr. Ravenstahl’s office.

This summer, Pittsburgh was chosen as a Solar America City by the U.S. Department of Energy and awaits a $200,000 grant to begin planning the use of solar energy in city buildings.

The city will also begin converting its public works vehicles to run on bio-diesel fuel, which is produced from vegetable oil. A $300,000 state grant to start the conversions was approved last year, but the city has not received it yet.

In conjunction with the city’s plan, the Pennsylvania Resources Council is working with Steel City Biofuels to create a demonstration delivery system, for wider use of bio-fuels, at Construction Junction, said task force member Dave Mazza, regional director of the council.

Ms. Glotfelty at The Heinz Endowments said it shouldn’t take long to see great savings.

“I think the city could achieve significant reductions within a year,” she said. “It is my sense that the city is committed to doing this.”

Bill Burtis, a spokesman for Clean Air-Cool Planet, said it is critical that the city not “do a ready, aim, fire type of thing. You need a thorough inventory,” then systematic implementation — a long-term approach to keep reaping savings while chipping away at the to-do list.

“If you do all your lights and stop, you don’t have money in your budget to pay for more work,” he said.

Mr. Peduto said a facilities management study is a most glaring need. It would indicate how many buildings the city needs, how to operate them most efficiently and how to update them for long-lasting savings, including elimination of the need for air conditioning in winter.

Among other cities in the Cities for Climate Change network, Frederick, Md., as an example, has saved $1 million in air conditioning costs just using reflective roofing and planting trees.

Andrew Watterson, Cleveland’s manager of a sustainability program that has been in place for two years, said the city has saved $1 million in fuel costs so far.

Cleveland has facilities management plans that guide energy-use decisions for every building project and every capital purchase, he said. It is also replacing the sport utility vehicles supervisors use in inclement weather with sport utility hybrids, he said. The city expects to save approximately $40,000 a year on operation, maintenance costs and reduced gas use.

“We’ve also identified a potential savings of $30,000 a year by turning off 1,000 computer monitors overnight,” he said. “With compact fluorescent lighting retrofits, we’re saving $15,000 a year on 1,000 fixtures. It’s impressive that you can save so much just on light bulbs.”

For more information on the initiative, visit www.PittsburghClimate.org.