Climate Mobilization Action Plan

the biggest thing: we need to increase housing density in boulder, increasing the housing stock and allowing more people to live here. all neighborhoods need to be zoned to (at minimum) townhomes permitted and (at minimum) 3 stories permitted. we should require all new developments to be gridded and have alleyways (easier to further densify if needed in the future). the whole city should allow commercial on at least street corners (commercial size restrictions would make sense in a lot of the city too, i.e. you can have a commercial building as long as it is no larger than the size house that would be allowed there). severely reduce minimum setbacks, reduce minimum lot size, get rid of limits on unrelated people living together, get rid of parking minimums. allow rentable adas and lot splitting by right throughout the whole city. Ban commerical spaces over a certain size (big box stores) and enforce parking maximums to encourage existing big box stores to sell off their existing flat parking lots. if you must, you can instead say, you are allowed to have more parking if it is a structure and the footprint is smaller. in that case you must also allow anyone to pay to park there (at least a certain percentage of the spots). these are all EASILY DOABLE ENTIRELY ADMINISTRATIVE things that can be done right away but will slowly transform our city into a more environmentally friendly, people friendly, place.
The second thing: take the model of Oslo and dramatically reduce street parking throughout the city. if there are less places to park people will not drive. ban the construction of new parking lots and put in more protected bike lanes throughout the city (paint is not protection). plant more street trees everywhere to create more shade and make it nicer to walk or bike outside.

HI
We need to be cognizant of our impact.  If we are serious about the climate, everybody needs to feel sacrifice, perhaps a little discomfort. I think we should start out with some obvious impactful changes.

Transportation as a whole is a major polluter in Boulder
- We make it too easy to drive in town.  Most trips are short.  Driving is not really required for most trips by most people in town.
- Some people complain about pollution while idling in traffic, but idling at the curb?  Do folks really need to sit in their idling vehicles on their mobile device or eating lunch even with moderate temperatures?
- In commuters (60,000 pre-covid) - I think we need tax or a fee to discourage in-commuting and encourage people to live local.

And a couple non transportation items that are very 'in your face' polluters.
- Gas powered leaf blowers pollute substantially more than motor vehicles. Make people pay for providers that use electric devices, if not doing it manually.
- Some stores leave their doors wide open with heat or cooling blow on us, inviting us in. Freedom yes, but not a good example of climate responsibility.

TY

No feedback.

You missed the target! Population growth is THE issue. Start in "our backyard". Shoot for a long-term U.S. population goal of 100-200 million inhabitants. To do this, significantly reduce immigration. Presently about 1.7 million per year. Should be 100,000 per year with VERY strict enforcement. Re-evaluate every 20 years to see if we are heading toward long-term U.S. population goal. Trying to get people to consume less will not work. Viewing green energy as a panacea is wishful thinking.

Big project! To succeed - everyone has to participate, to get everyone to participate they must begin to love the life envisioned by the climate action changes. Let's focus on the brave new world we are creating :).
1. Create a means to have every property owner take on at least two strategies from the focus areas.
2. Create carbon-neutral protocols so every resident can take measures to get themselves to a carbon neutral state with reachable goals and deadlines.
3. Stop demolition as an option to throw away buildings and allow only deconstruction; on new building - create a carbon neutral requirement on materials.
4. Consider ALL zoning for the reduction of consumption of resources, this would look different in residential zoning than commercial but all need to be viewed with this end game of reduced consumption.

Count me in to bring beauty to change. :)

1) Is there a way to subscribe to a Community Solar set up for a condo owner in Boulder? I would appreciate knowing how to subscribe, please.
2) When will the City consider offering incentives to parking lot owners to convert them to solar carports that a) feed the sustainable energy grid, reduce solar warming the ground, shade cars thereby reducing A/C use when the car is started, provide solar for any EV charging stations, possibly a new way to generate $ for parking lot owners.
4) Just curious - Why did the City choose to build an underpass at Broadway & Baseline as well as Colorado & Foothills. Both were affected by the flooding in 2013. Wouldn't an overpass make more sense?
Thank you.
3) Find a way to ban single use plastics bags entirely.

Great interface! I will replace the "i" on ecosistimas to "e" to read "Ecosistemas"

Convert all City Street lights to LED's.

The City Manager implied (December 3rd City Council Meeting) that it was Xcel who made the decision to reject the LED street lighting that would save Boulder money and reduce our carbon foot print. This Xcel Offer happened back in 2015/2016, and it was Boulder, not Xcel who decided against the conversion to LED street lights. All the towns around us have already converted! I asked Xcel about this and here are their responses in red. The attachment referred to is at the end. Please forward this to the fellow who suggested the conversion to LED’s and was told that it was up to Xcel to decide.

You state that the City has already installed some LEDs on City Property.

1. What is the color temperature of what you have installed? (e.g. 18th and Baseline, 11th Street walkway, Civic area).
2. Are those dimmable?
3. When did the other towns around us install LED’s and what was the color temperature of those?
4. Was the City Manager wrong when she stated that it was Xcel’s decision to install the LED’s, or has it been Boulder’s decision since 2016 (3 years ago) to not install the LED’s.
5. Exactly when did Xcel offer the revised option?
6. Your statement below that Plan A would at least be cost neutral begs the question, why not use that if your real goal is carbon reduction. Personally, I have found that Xcel’s calculations are always correct and Boulder’s calculations are always wrong. I will submit your statement below re: tariffs and riders to Xcel to see what they have to say. I doubt that your calculations are correct. Is the concept you are trying to sell is that we would use far less electricity but it would cost us more, or even the same at first? Show your calculations just like Xcel did.

Xcel Option A: No initial cost to Boulder.
Total cost savings: approx. $27,000
Energy saved: 1,146,000 kWh (enough to power 151 homes for a year, based on PSCo average of 632 kWh/month residential usage)
Carbon dioxide not emitted: 756 metric tons; equivalent to:
• 160 passenger cars driving for 12 months
• 1,800,000 miles driven by an average car (total City of Boulder fleet vehicle miles travelled was 2,835,000 miles in 2007, the latest published stats on the city’s web site)
• 807,000 pounds of coal burned
• 26,000 incandescent light bulbs switched to LED

Assuming a five-year process to municipalize, these numbers would be as follows:

Total cost savings: $135,000
Energy saved: 5,730,000 kWh (enough to power 755 homes for 1 year, based on PSCo average of 632 kWh/month residential usage)
Carbon dioxide not emitted: 3780 metric tons; equivalent to:
• 800 passenger cars driving for 12 months
• 9,000,000 miles driven by an average car
• 4,035,000 pounds of coal burned
• 130,000 incandescent light bulbs switched to LED

I appreciate the City's recognition that at this point our climate response must be more radical, and take the form of enabling residents to do radical things (taking off the brakes) as well as civic programs. We need a vision to move toward, not just an apocalypse to move away from.
Overall, we need an alternative, aspirational lifestyle that is very different than what late-stage capitalism wants to hand us, where happiness comes in a constant flow of Amazon boxes - one where our needs and wants are simpler; our needs are abundantly met with justice and clean air, water, food, and energy. One where everything we eat or buy contributes to the health of the land and society, rather than damaging it. One where we and our environment thrive. One that is connected, fun, and interesting.
Often our sustainability conversations in Boulder revolve around some pretty boring stuff: complaining about people sorting their recyclables incorrectly or voting all wrong. But what we need to find together is something to move toward. Let's move toward a life where we live in interesting, small spaces; make and repair things as creative outlets; know and honor our farmers and teachers. Make me want to live that way, by showing me it's *cool.* I'll make sacrifices for the climate, sure, but if you want a real movement it has to offer a vision of a place people want to be. I'm seeing that messaging more and more in the City's materials, and the more we can follow through on that the faster we'll pick it up, experiment, share, and move.
Ideas might include
- Legalize and promote tiny houses (fun!)
- Ryan Marten's experimental neighborhood
- Festivals around food, repair and reworking (BLDG 61, Resource, others already on this but maybe a city park kind of event?)
- Policies that make it easier to farm locally
- More collaboration w/the County around sustainability
(At the same time, the City is capable of political battles that it's of a size to fight.)

Team,
The five focus areas are wonderful to see as is your out-reach. By expanding to include these five areas, they allow for you to address our systemic issues with system multi-part solutions. The comment by Gerhard Koepf is a fine example of using open space for solar gardens. I fear most people will not think out of the box enough to come up with, let alone suggest these kinds of answers.

The Theory U process that we used at the Hub in 2018, ask Jonathan and Emma about it, did help people come to more systems solutions and major institutional change; however, the City was not ready to work with that kind of solution. If you are ready for those types of solutions, I suggest restarting Theory U efforts like the country of Scotland does for all civic problems. I also suggest considering doing a complete neighborhood redesign to help us all see a vision of what could be possible. This demonstration neighborhood could take a radically different approach to land use and street design to increase density, but also safety and decrease Vehicle Miles Traveled while containing storm runoff and generating engergy in the neighborhood.

The City needs to help the Citizens see what is possible or we are going to stay in learned helplessness until it is too late. Please find your way to doing a few bold things over the next few years. They do not have to be big, and they do need to get the ball rolling on building the new systems and institutions we need to create an ECO driven society, not an EGO driven one we have today.

Ryan Martens

Re: your article about “Shaping our climate future – together” in the Community Newsletter:

I agree, going renewable is a necessity - we owe it to our children and grandchildren.
To go fully renewable, we must take actions that require us to make substantial sacrifices: we will have to spend substantial amounts of money and change some of our habits. As individuals, we need to phase out gasoline driven cars*, improve home insulation, and replace gas operated heating and cooling with electric solutions. As a community, we need to provide green public transportation, including for the “last mile”, encourage construction of charging stations, and provide 100% renewable energy for all of us.

The city is and has been fully aware of all this. However, with the municipalization effort, the city has gone down a very slow and indirect road towards renewable power provision. A final deal with Xcel is not in sight and when it happens, aside from the enormous amount of money spent, does not guarantee us 100% renewable energy. Instead of fighting Xcel (who is perhaps not doing enough, fast enough, but is definitely making an earnest effort to get to 100% renewable energy by 2050) and instead of telling us that we should put solar panels on all our homes and businesses, the city should have looked at ways to produce renewable energy. A community solar plant built 3-4 years ago could have become a profitable operation by now. In terms of cost, the cost per panel in a solar plant is now a third or a quarter of the cost of a panel installed on a rooftop.

But here is the crux of the matter: A community solar plant – potentially financed by homeowners who “own” the needed number of solar panels for their home size – needs space. I suggest it’s time to consider a non-monetary sacrifice and seriously look at our open space. One can compare our open space with a savings account: a “bad-weather fund” to be kept until an emergency happens. Well, this emergency has come in the form of global warming.

The city and county purchased this land for a mix of reasons: 1) to preserve the natural beauty of our mountain backdrop, 2) to keep urbanization all around us in check, particularly against the mountains but also towards the surrounding communities, and 3) to preserve prairie and farmland. The time has come to objectively review the use of open space lands for Solar Farming**, identify suitable acreage and then let the voters decide and show their commitment to renewable energy.

* Spoiler: It has been shown that in terms of total carbon output, electric cars are not significantly beating gasoline operated cars unless batteries are charged from renewable sources. Also, the mining and refining of the rare earth minerals needed for rechargeable batteries is difficult to envision without fossil fuels. A long-term sustainable solution would be Hydrogen-operated engines that require no battery storage (Hydrogen can be produced with electricity and stored in tanks).
** It is being demonstrated that crop farming in the shade of solar panels can provide higher yields with less irrigation water.