By Tom & Carol Braford
Since the Cool St. Louis Climate Summit in October, we have been in action on several fronts. We had a full team of workers on 10/10/10, winterizing the Green Beings garden. The first EcoTeam is in full swing, aimed at lowering our own carbon footprints and discovering where the holes were in the plan to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2020.
At the first EcoTeam meeting, after a great spaghetti dinner, we created our team focus: ‘We are a supportive community, sharing our love for the planet, creating transformation for current and future generations.’
We shared what we were already doing. Gale, who commutes from the east side to her job in Clayton, switched to riding a motorcycle that gets 60+ miles per gallon. Jeff, a retired electrician, said he had lowered his energy bills substantially by just tightening things up. Don, an avid recycler, composter and raw food eater, actually had his landlord disconnect the stove in his apartment.
We followed David Gershon’s book, Low Carbon Diet, to create plans for the next few weeks, first looking at lifestyle changes, then at household systems. We project that we will lower our collective carbon footprint by over 40,000 pounds in just a month! The final meeting of this first EcoTeam will be a party on Friday, December 3, where we will celebrate what we’ve accomplished and invite others to start their own teams. Let us know if you would like to join us.
Adam, who reported for the residential segment at the Climate Summit press conference, wanted to create a think and do tank as the vehicle for keeping the 80% by 2020 fresh and moving forward. Since then he held the first meeting where we divided up into teams to cover three areas, energy conservation, connecting people and ideas and innovations in finance. We are anxious to get others involved to help come up with how to implement all the good ideas.
At the Culver Way Ecovillage meeting in November, we formed teams to focus on creating plans for several enterprises there. The next meeting will be on Saturday, December 11, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. You are welcome to attend our regular monthly tour and open house at 11:00 and the potluck lunch at noon that day.
Contacts:
Culver Way Ecovillage:
Tom & Carol Braford,
314-534-4780.
Green Beings Urban farm:
Jess Peter,