Towns tackle global warming

Aim is to be model of green living

CARRBORO -- Instead of throwing a parade, Chapel Hill and Carrboro leaders spent Earth Day chipping away at one of the planet's biggest environmental dilemmas: global warming.

About 100 politicians, college students and green-minded residents spent Saturday brainstorming ways to cut pollutants.

They hope to make Chapel Hill and Carrboro an example for the Triangle and the nation, said Dennis Markatos-Soriano, director of Students United for a Responsible Global Environment.

"It's important that we're not just thinking about the Earth for a little while and then getting back to our regularly scheduled lives," Markatos-Soriano said.

Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County all have committed to reduce greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Leaders hope to cut local emissions by as much as 60 percent by 2050, and possibly as soon as 2025.

However, a county-paid consultant has not yet determined how much carbon dioxide Orange County emits. Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro expect official data on local greenhouse gas emissions by September.

A study by UNC-Chapel Hill professor Doug Crawford-Brown found that the average Chapel Hillian helps produce about 13 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, mainly by driving and using electricity. That's about the same as 13 hot-air balloons full of the gas.

The average North Carolinian produces 16 metro tons per year, according to his research.

"Nations, municipalities, institutions ... each makes a decision that influences global climate change," Crawford-Brown said.

The pollution summit at the downtown Carrboro Century Center drew town council members, mayors of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, parents and developers, as well as state Sens. Ellie Kinnaird and Bob Atwater and state Rep. Verla Insko.

Their ideas included forcing new developments to be environmentally friendly and demanding power companies turn out more wind or solar energy.

Others considered a bond referendum to improve the bike-lane network that snakes through Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Some state-controlled roads, though heavily used by cyclists, don't have lanes.

Some, such as Chapel Hill Town Council member Ed Harrison, suggested more school lessons on bike safety and the Earth-friendly effects of using bikes instead of cars.

"From my firsthand experience," said 11-year-old Shane Sater, "a lot of students don't seem to know why they should be inspired to bike."

There won't be one "silver-bullet solution" to reducing pollution, Markatos-Soriano said. But when more reduction efforts kick in, he said, other areas can use Chapel Hill and Carrboro as a model.

"We can send a clear message out like a lighthouse, helping guide communities around us," Markatos-Soriano said.