SUMMARY MINUTES OF A WORK SESSION OF THE CHAPEL HILL
TOWN COUNCIL ON CLIMATE PROTECTION CAMPAIGN
AND URBAN GROWTH MODEL—UGROW
MONDAY, MAY 10, 1999 AT 5:00 P.M.
Mayor pro tem Joe Capowski called the meeting to order at 5:05 p.m.
Council Members present were Joyce Brown, Pat Evans, Julie McClintock, and Lee Pavão. Council Member Edith Wiggins was absent, excused. Council Member Kevin Foy arrived at 5:10 p.m. Council Member Flicka Bateman arrived at 5:13 p.m. Mayor Waldorf arrived at 6:25 p.m.
Staff members present were Town Manager Cal Horton, Assistant Town Managers Florentine Miller and Sonna Loewenthal, Assistant to the Manager Ruffin Hall, Planning Director Roger Waldon, and Town Clerk Joyce Smith.
Item 1 – Presentation by Abby Young, Program Coordinator for the
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI),
on the Cities for Climate Protection Campaign
Mayor pro tem Capowski introduced the three guests who would address the Council: Ms. Abby Young, Program Coordinator for ICLEI, who would describe the campaign and indicate how Chapel Hill could participate; and Mr. Wilson Orr and Mr. Hoyt Johnson of the Prescott (Arizona) College Sustainability and Global Change Program on an Urban Growth Model (Ugrow).
Ms. Young said that ICLEI was created in 1990 at a meeting at the United Nations, comprised of cities, towns, and counties around the world. She said that they were a membership organization, but a city need not be a member in order to participate in many of the programs, which included the program which she was talking about tonight. Ms. Young said that in 1993 ICLEI held a local leaders international summit on the issue of climate change to which elected officials were invited to participate. She said that at that meeting the subject of the increase in severity and occurrence of weather events was discussed, and how these events were causing an impact on local communities, thus causing local officials to call on the organization to do something about it. Ms. Young reported that ICLEI formed the Cities for Climate Protection campaign, for which the idea was thinking globally but acting locally. She said that the Greenhouse Effect was comprised of gases that kept a balance of the sun’s penetration, but human activity put gases into the atmosphere causing the balance to be affected and the temperature to slowly rise globally, noting that 1994-1998 were the warmest years in 600 years. Ms. Young said that the weather events caused large economic impacts on local governments because of large property damages. She said that the gases that cause damage to the Greenhouse Effect were caused by fossil fuel emissions from cars, which emit carbon dioxide, and methane from landfills and organic waste. Ms. Young said that local governments could control these emissions through regulations.
Ms. Young said that if the Town of Chapel Hill were to participate in the Cities for Climate Protection Campaign, the municipality would commit to:
(1) community-wide baseline emissions inventory;
(2) set Green House Gas (GHG) reduction target; and
(3) develop/implement actions to meet the target.
Ms. Young said that there were 60 cities in the United States, many of which were considered the most livable, participating in the program, all of which could be called on for help, and one of which was Durham. She said that many of the cities participating were finding that GHG reductions action were cost-effective and practical, and appropriate and transferable. Ms. Young said that many of the cities were testing technology for lower emissions. She said that some ways to reduce emissions were to use LED traffic lighting and pedestrian malls, solar energy, recycling, and cogeneration facilities for methane recovery to produce power. She said that the cities participating in the program reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 5.4 million tons, cut energy and fuel cost by $25.7 million, and cut air pollutants by varying but significant amounts.
Ms. Young said that if Chapel Hill were to participate in the program it would receive information and an assistance network, possible grants for funding, and technical assistance. She said that the program paid for expenses for participants to attend the workshops.
Item 2 – Presentation by Wilson Orr and Hoyt Johnson of the Prescott College Sustainability and Global Change Program on an Urban Growth Model (Ugrow)
Mr. Orr said that they would
discuss Mega-issues/decision environment, ENSO-flood and fire events, regional
growth models, 3D visualization, and decision support software. Mr. Orr said that Mega Issues included population growth and global warming, the two most defining
issues. He said that there were things
that we know, things we do not know, and some predicted things. Mr. Orr said that among the “Do Knows” were
increases in carbon dioxide, precipitation, and how much of each was
tolerable. He said that there was an
historic warming of the ocean temperature.
Mr. Orr
said that the extremes of the “water continuum,” on the one side, caused floods
and on the other, fire and drought. He
said that the context for tomorrow’s decisions would be driven by three
essential trends: (1) the temporal dimension; (2) the spatial dimension; and
(3) the social dimension. Mr. Orr said
that some of the technology and tools with which they worked were with the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) program. He said that the Urban Growth Model they
worked with could: (1) forecast the long-term consequences of current decisions;
and (2) provide a single metric of sustainability: EFOOT (Ecological
Footprint).
Mr.
Johnson described the processing of the model used: a system dynamic model;
runs 300+ equations; beginning with 1950; policy interventions at 1990 and
2030; runs out to 2100; can be stopped anytime to give a community
profile.
Mr. Orr
and Mr. Johnson demonstrated through the use of computer software slides how it
would be possible for communities to foresee how certain decisions made in the
present would play out in the future.
Mr.
Johnson quoted a statement, “The demands of our generation now exceed the
income, the sustainable yield of the earth’s ecological endowment,” which he
said drove a social agenda that drove a political agenda, which then drove
other economic and military agendas around the world. He quoted another statement, “Sustainability involves the laws of
nature, physics, chemistry, and biology—and the recognition that the world is a
closed system. What we thought was boundless had limits and we’re beginning to
hit them.” Mr. Johnson said that
anything that reduced the consumption of resources was an opportunity for
families, communities, and businesses, and it would be wise, in the long term,
to lower resource consumption.
Responding to a question from an audience member regarding how models are developed, Mr. Orr said that they adapt the model to each individual community.
An audience member asked why the question of ozone had not been addressed. Mr. Orr said that it was embedded in the model and was a very important issue.
An audience member asked how Mr. Orr saw his work integrating with changes in the cultural norm. Mr. Orr said that was in the model, but that social conditions were difficult for a mathematician put into a model, and work had yet to be done to get that into the model.
Mr. Orr said that the model could run many different comparisons, and when the model was completed it would generate 3D.
Council Member McClintock asked about the availability of the model. Mr. Orr said that his company would give the Town the model.
Council Member McClintock asked how the Town would use it. Mr. Orr said that the strategy in bringing the model to a local community was to help the Town input the right data; determine the right factors in drivers of future growth, and modify them to a model accordingly; equip the Town’s own planners to deal with the model; at which point the company would leave to continue research and development. He said that the process took about three years.
Mr. Orr said that the model ran on two laptop computers. He said that the only way that they could do the average community any good would be to build the model on a PC. Mr. Orr said that the model was flexible for every community.
Mayor pro tem Capowski asked how local the ozone phenomena was. Mr. Orr said that he would defer to Chapel Hill’s transportation experts for that question. He said that the model was not a detailed model, and that they would have to work with the people who were expert in that area, in order to put that into the model.
Council Member Evans asked whether it would be more valuable to look at this on a more regional basis. Mr. Orr said they found that to be the case in dealing with the Santa Barbara, California area, so they developed a larger area of surrounding communities. He said that the data had to be consistent with the boundaries chosen.
Ms. Young said that in many cases there were counties and cities working together, and that had seemed to be very successful.
Mr. Orr said that he had booklets describing the model available for the Council.
The meeting adjourned at 6:31 p.m.
The minutes of May 10, 1999 were adopted on the 28th day of
June, 1999.
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Joyce A. Smith, CMC