By Peter Nix

The Cowichan Carbon Busters had their first meeting last Monday night at my house. Mr. Guy Dauncey, head of the BC Sustainable Energy Association tutors us (http://www.bcsea.org/). Our experiences will help him finalize a book designed to guide others on how to reduce their carbon emissions.

The Carbon Busters objective is to make a plan for their families to reduce their carbon emissions as quickly as possible. We want to show that anyone can start a carbon reduction journey. Some families may try to reduce carbon emissions quickly, perhaps 50% in a few years. Others may need to take longer, depending on our different situations and financial resources.

But our common goal will be to make the unknown and possible scary concept of “carbon reduction” familiar and acceptable to others in the community. It is clear that the twin crises of fossil fuel depletion and climate change will force everyone to reduce their carbon emissions, perhaps quiet soon.

OK, it may well be that most people are not yet willing to make significant changes in their lifestyles to reduce their personal carbon emissions. However, those of us who voluntarily reduce their carbon emissions stand to save and even make money. We will save because the price of scarce fossil fuel energy is certain to increase, and so buying less fuel will be money in our pockets. And we can make money since taxes and government regulations on carbon emissions are inevitable. So the alternative energy businesses will boom. Some authors have described the energy and climate change crisis as the biggest investment opportunity in history.

In the Cowichan Valley, the subject of climate change was discussed at an Official Community Plan meeting last week, as well as within municipal committee meetings. In addition, the draft Environmental Strategy for the CVRD mentions the words “climate change” several times and ends with a commendable list of actions that individuals should take to reduce their carbon emissions.

So words like “climate change” and “carbon reduction” are in the wind. But is important to recognize bafflegab when you hear it from politicians who talk of 20 per cent reductions by 2020, or whatever formula they give. The simple truth from science is that we must reduce our carbon emissions as completely and as fast as we can - if we want our children to enjoy a high quality of life.

However, will the public see “carbon reduction” as something that somebody else does, something that governments do, something that big corporations are forced to do? Or will they see change as a personal responsibility? Hopefully, we can act as role models and show people that reducing their carbon emissions is not the end of the world.

The Cowichan Carbon Busters will meet weekly for 10 weeks to prepare individual carbon reduction action plans. The fact that the mayor of North Cowichan, Jon Lefebure, is a participant is a real act of leadership for the community.

Our task for this first week was to use a carbon calculator to find our how much carbon dioxide each family produces. Guy Dauncey says that the Canadian average is around 20 tonnes, but this includes all emissions from industry so is a bit unfair (for example, it would include tar sands emissions from Alberta, which exports much of its oil to the US).

On my first try, I came up with a personal emission of about 5 tonnes (5,000 kg) – we used the calculator at http://calc.zerofootprint.net/ but there are many others out there on the internet. I need to check this number again this week. But I hope that this relatively low amount reflects my efforts over the past year to reduce our family’s major source carbon emissions - oil and gas consumption. We have been using more wood for home heating (instead of fuel oil) and our gasoline consumption is way down since we bought a hybrid car.

Our homework for next week is to get a more accurate estimate of our family’s carbon footprint. In this way, we will have an initial standard to measure our progress in reducing overall carbon emissions in the future. We also are to start a Carbon Reduction Diary to record our thoughts, choices and difficulties, and read the text for next week which covers the topic of “Change the Way Your Eat” – oh, oh, things could get real interesting.