WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. By John F. Bailey. February 26, 2008: Over 300 persons including county officials, environmentalists, educators and concerned citizens gathered at Manhattanville College in Purchase today to hear County Executive Andrew Spano, and Reese Berman, Chair of the County Executive’s Task Force on Global Warming introduce a Westchester Action Plan that calls for the County to reduce its “carbon footprint” by 20% by 2015 and 80% by 2050.

The County Executive at the podium, emphasized "We can and must do this. We cannot fail." His plan introduces steps the County, Municipal, Business, Education and Housing sectors can take to reduce their carbon emissions to begin to address the global warming crisis.  The plan and its suggestions may be viewed at www.westchestergov.com/globalwarming.

The County Executive said that institutions, businesses and communities and individual residents can find specific actions  on this site, that they can take to limit collectively the county output of greenhouse gases. Executive Spano reported the county’s next step involves municipalities and towns conducting an analysis of practices in effect now in their areas to assess the extebt if their community  Carbon Dioxide impact and consider/take steps to lower it by 2% a year.

County Executive Spano told WPCNR that existing county departments would monitor municipality and town efforts to analyze their community “carbon footprints.”  Executive Spano emphasized he was not anticipating creation of any new departments or personnel added to the County to administer this task, that present county departments would undertake the monitoring and whatever comes next.  

It was not clear from today’s conference the timelines communities, businesses and institutions would be given to cutback on their carbon emissions and how the county would address the situation if communities failed to reach targets, if they fell behind or did not comply.  The timelines were said  to be included in the plan on the website (the front page of which is below, http://www.westchestergov.com/globalwarming.

Reese Berman, chair of the Task Force said additional information for households, businesses and schools will be added to the on line website and more actions by the county will be forthcoming.  She said the county is setting a goal of 2% or more reduction a year in carbon emissions to cut them by 20% by 2015.  

Berman showed a slide indicating the 2005 County Collective C02 Emmissions. Residential Energy accounted for 30%; Transportation 38%, Non-residential energy, 29%, Waste, 3%. Spano noted that the county recycles about 80% of its garbage accounting for the 3% waste.

This she said would put the county on target for 80% reduction in the emissions by 2050. She spent most of her talk  explaining how the carbon-emission cutback steps are presented on the website for each sector: Municipalities, County Government, Education, Business, and Housing, and how they could be utilized by the sectors to  begin the carbon emmissions reduction.

The conference broke up into individual sessions on what the five sectors of Westchester would be expected to do to reach that goal.

Housing Panel unfolds in The French Parlor at the Manhattanville Castle in Purchase.

In the Housing segment WPCNR attended from 10:45 to 11:30 AM, the task appeared daunting. WPCNR observed that the individual homeowner has a long way to go. Dani Glaser of Croton-On-Hudson, the lead panelist emphasized that "Awareness is the first step to change."

Susan Cember of Action for Tomorrow's Environment,  observed that  “We should not underestimate the power of one,” and pointed out that the residential sector through their energy use is the largest contributor to county Carbon emmissions (37%).  She said the individual resident first has to determine their annual output of  the number of tons of carbon emissions their household puts out into the environment each year by going to the Nature Conservancy site, www.nature.org and clicking on the “Carbon Calculator.”

The Carbon Calculator Link is at lower left corner of the Nature Conservancy homepage which links you to the Calculator below:

Ms. Cember said her family’s  personal carbon footprint was 51 tons of CO2 per year. She said the average American family of four put out 110 tons of carbon dioxide per year, and that within the county the target was for each resident unit to limit their output to 22 tons of C02 per year. The goal of course would be to reduce to zero. The Calculator shown above  asks the consumer the amount of consumption of various energy sources each family uses.

Mary Ann Gallagher of Briarcliff Manor CAC, noted the enormity of the task facing the home consumer in cutting carbon dioxide output. She said that each homeowner would have to plant 30 trees a year to offset one year’s worth of carbon dioxide emissions. (For those of you who remember eighth grade Biology, trees take in carbon dioxide during the process of photosynthesis, and turn it into oxygen. )

Gallagher suggested how carbon dioxide emissions could be limited by cutting lawns to 3-inch heights, leaving grass clippings on the lawn, creating a compost pile where organic garbage could break down into fertilizer to mulch plants. She suggesting sprinkling and watering only during evening hours and working with your landscaping caretaker, or if you do your own yardwork, cutting back on fertilizers and using more environmentally friendly methods to nurture your plants. Organizations and businesses that can help you with this are provided on the website explaining the plan, if not now, they soon will be, the panelists assured the audience.

Judy Martin of  Green Home Consulting.

On what the individual homeowner or apartment dweller or apartment owner or residential dweller can do, Judy Martin suggested the major effort would involve saving energy. She said the most effective measure homeowners can do immediately is install high efficiency insulation in their homes. Next, would be lighting (switching to LED or CFL bulbs) and hotwater use measures, and to target heating and air conditioning use. Air sealing and duct sealing was recommended. Recycling was encouraged. If a major home renovation was to be considered then it would make sense to examine solar energy, a new hot water heater, a new furnace and other measures.

The Global Warming Task Force was made up of 34 persons and they were assisted by over 70 volunteers with expertise in various areas. County Executive Spano, in his talk , referred to criticism the county had received for spending $100,000 to prepare the report with a business that had contributed to Mr.  Spano’s political campaign,  saying that “We did not pay them enough for the job they did. It’s not the money. The someone who has to ask that question: They don’t get it. It’s not about the money. If the effects of global warming occur, our expenses are miniscule.”

Ms. Berman said, “What we do in Westchester will have wide influence,” meaning Westchester would set an example for other counties to follow in reducing emissions.

It was unclear from the official part of the program WPCNR attended how progress would be monitored, whether the county would eventually put teeth into the program as they have with their mandatory recycling program, and how communities, businesses and residents would be monitored.