PORT TOWNSEND — A climate action group plans a competition to raise awareness and increase involvement in decreasing Jefferson County’s carbon footprint.
Taming Bigfoot is planned to begin in January and end on or around Earth Day on April 22.
The scientific game will be organized by the Local 20/20 Climate Change Outreach Group.
The group is a subset of the Climate Action Committee formed by the city of Port Townsend and Jefferson County to cut greenhouse gas emissions to a point that is 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, warming the Earth’s average temperature and causing a change in climate, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
A “carbon footprint” is the degree to which daily activities — such as burning gasoline, heating homes and using electricity — create greenhouse gas emissions.
In the Pacific Northwest, climate change “will likely result in continued reductions in snowpack and lower summer streamflows,” the EPA says on its website at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-EPAclimatechange.
Higher temperatures will led to an “increase in pests, disease, and wildfire will threaten forests, agriculture, and salmon populations” the EPA says, and sea level rise is projected to increase erosion of coastlines.
The primary greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. That gas constituted 82 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2013, the EPA says.
Others are methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases such as hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride and nitrogen trifluoride.
In Taming Bigfoot, teams of six or eight people will compete to determine who has done the most to reduce their own carbon footprint.
“We are trying to make it fun,” said Bob Bindschadler, a retired NASA scientist living in Quilcene.
“People around here are aware of climate change but are wondering what they can do to improve the situation.”
Bindschadler said each team will represent the diversity of the county with at least one prominent member, one person from a climate action group in the county, a person who has only just begun to consider how to reduce his or her carbon footprint, a Port Townsend resident and a resident of the county’s unincorporated area.
“If we get 100 people involved, that would be great, but we can make this work without 50 people,” Bindschadler said.
Participants will track their individual carbon footprint, develop ways to decrease it and measure their activity tied to points.
At the end of the competition, the team with the highest score will get prizes, although the awards will be spread around to all participants.
“I’d like to see everyone get something,” said Bindschadler, who will analyze the data from each participant.
Each activity has a predetermined score. A trip to Sequim in a fuel-efficient DaimlerChrysler smart car will get a higher score than a trip in a Hummer, for instance.
Bindschadler said the group will begin soliciting participants in early December, distributing a questionnaire that measures each participant’s current carbon footprint.
Bindschadler said the game will require participants to track their activities and attend about three hours of meetings a month.
The game won’t cost anything, he said, since it will be run by volunteers and several business sponsorships are forthcoming.
He will spend the next few months refining the program and presenting it at public meetings.
The concept has been endorsed by the Jefferson County Public Utility District board and the Port Townsend City Council — which heard about it Sept. 21.
He plans to approach the Jefferson County commissioners and the Jefferson Transit board.
Once concluded, the competition will produce a winner — but all participants will benefit, Bindschadler said, by learning how to reduce their carbon footprint and picking up habits they can continue after the contest ends.
Data about what methods work best will be published for others to emulate, Bindschadler added.
For more information, email Laura Tucker at ltucker@co.jefferon.wa.us.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
