Carbon Cutting Gets Personal

Everyone loves a good challenge. 

That’s what the co-founders of the New Hampshire Carbon Challenge (NHCC) are banking on; they’ve thrown down the gauntlet for local residents to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 10,000 pounds per household per year. 

A daunting task – but here’s where NHCC really comes into play.  They’ve developed a detailed Carbon Estimator™ calculator so that Challenge participants can understand their current environmental footprint, and also provide an extensive list of easy, executable ways in which to reduce that footprint – and shed the pounds.

Denise Blaha, co-founder and co-director of the NHCC, shared her thoughts with us about the importance of making environmental impact personal … and how her organization is helping to motivate positive change:

Households are an essential player in reducing emissions. Our electricity usage, home heating, and vehicles contribute roughly half of all greenhouse gas emissions. We can’t stabilize our climate without engaging residents. There wasn’t an organization in New Hampshire that was focused on helping households reduce their energy usage, so Julia (Dundorf, NHCC co-founder and co-director) and I decided to create one: the New Hampshire Carbon Challenge.  Necessity IS the mother of invention.

The typical household that takes the New Hampshire Carbon Challenge is reducing its emissions by 17% and saving $853 a year in energy costs. Protect the environment and protect your wallet… the classic win-win that we all seek.

One of the most valuable lessons that we’ve learned since starting the Challenge is the power of competition and communities in galvanizing change. While we are focused on the household, we can link households together through the communities of which they are part (a town, a business, a church, or school) to show the collective reduction in CO2 and energy dollars saved.   (See our map of Challenge-takers by community here.)

 We strongly believe that we must all take action now to reduce the risks of climate change. The five key words in that sentence are “we must all take action” … all of us, not some of us, not somebody else, but all of us, acting in our homes, in our businesses, in our schools, churches, and communities to significantly reduce our use of fossil fuels, and demanding action of our political leaders at the state and federal level. That alone will result in the emissions reductions that are essential to slowing climate change. Actions matter, not reading about the problem or listening to a segment on NPR…only actions.  Ask yourself “What am I doing to reduce my emissions?” and set a goal to continually add to that list.  We must all take action now (and at every level of our society) to avert the worst impacts of our changing climate. There is strong agreement among scientists that we are running out of time.  Our children and grandchildren will likely inherit a badly damaged planet if we fail to act now.

Denise Blaha
New Hampshire Carbon Challenge

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