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 May 4, 2007 will forever be remembered by the 1400 citizens of Greensburg, Kansas with terror. An EF-5 tornado destroyed their town in a matter of 15 minutes, its 200 mph winds flattening 95 percent of the town's buildings, killing 11 people, and leaving a path of wreckage 2 miles wide.
In the storm's aftermath, it was difficult for these people to find hope in the ravaged debris that had once been their homes and most precious possessions. Many seriously considered picking up and starting over somewhere new. There was nothing left of their hometown so they found it difficult to stay. But, in an amazing act of perseverance and strength, they decided to make something to go back to. They have united as a community to turn a nightmare into something great, rebuilding Greensburg, literally from the ground up, into "the greenest town in America."
The notion of a 100% sustainable town was born of the desire to make Greensburg even better by keeping and building upon what had made it great before the disaster. Its recovery plan is the culmination of twelve weeks of deliberation between local, state, and federal officials, as well as civic groups and some of the townspeople and business owners. The plan establishes exactly how Greensburg will rebuild its infrastructure and community to become the "greenest" town in America.
A highlight of the recovery plan is the Greensburg Wind Farm. Greensburg, Kansas Power Pool, and John Deere Renewables have officially agreed to develop this ambitious project, which aims to power all of the town's homes and businesses with 10 wind turbines. It calls for collaboration, with energy agency Kansas Power Pool buying the produced electrical output. The wind farm development is made possible in part by a partnership between Clean Air-Cool Planet and NativeEnergy. NativeEnergy sells high-quality carbon emissions reductions (offsets) to fund the construction, and Clean Air-Cool Planet is responsible for the permanent retirement of carbon reductions from the project.
Though initially turned off by the lengthened planning time and increased upfront costs of an environmentally friendly town, the project has opened the eyes of many Greensburg residents to how cost-effective sustainability can be in the long run. Most of the town's major projects are underway, including a new ecologically cutting-edge school. More than 800 of the town's pre-tornado residents have returned, and last fall Greensburg's school experienced its biggest influx of new students in years. Thanks to a lot of patience and hard work, things are certainly looking up for Greensburg.
 Great headway was made for the Arctic in late April when ministers of the Arctic Council agreed at their sixth annual meeting in Tromsø, Norway, to limit short-lived forcers (SLFs)--black carbon, methane, and tropospheric ozone--in order to slow the global impacts of the warming of the Arctic.
"Science has been telling us for some time that these so-called 'short-lived forcers' are speeding up warming and melting in the Arctic," said Arctic authority Brooks Yeager, vice president for policy at Clean Air - Cool Planet. "This in turn has exacerbated climate change in the rest of the globe, and caused huge changes to ecosystems in the Arctic region, endangering species, natural resources, and cultures."
Council ministers established a SLF declaration, agreeing to conduct research and immediately implement any solutions that are already available in regard to SLFs. Over the past few years, Clean Air-Cool Planet and the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) have been working to combine science expertise with policy experience to push the international community to take action on arctic pollutants.
Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP) chocked up another success when President Obama recently announced the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E). The program will significantly aid energy research and development, something CA-CP's climate policy experts cite as one of the most necessary solutions to global warming.
"It is not an overstatement to call this a great day for the future of our nation," said Rafe Pomerance, president of CA-CP. "Transformational R&D and technology are essential to solving the climate problem, and the federal system now has the R & D capacity to take this country where it needs to go. That's why Clean Air-Cool Planet pushed for the creation and funding of ARPA-E."
ARPA-E aims to "identify high-payoff energy technology opportunities and organize and manage efforts by existing universities, companies, and national laboratories to bring targeted technologies to maturity quickly." It will help turn high-risk scientific discoveries and inventions into technological innovations that reduce imported energy and energy-related emissions.
ARPA-E is based on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which has been responsible for technologies ranging from the Internet to the laser chip to the global positioning system (GPS). These advances revolutionized how the military operates and eventually were incorporated into civilian products, changing the way people live and work.
Last fall, in its Building a Foundation for Success: Recommendations for Early Action on Climate Change, a report distributed to both the McCain and Obama campaigns, CA-CP recommended establishing ARPA-E, noting "investment in transformational R&D now is a key part of the strategy to arrest climate change at the minimum possible cost to the U.S. and global economy over time."
 How far would you pedal for a new energy future? This September 26 - 30th, 2009 more than two hundred cyclists will join together on the 2009 Brita Climate Ride from New York City to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. For the second year, Climate Riders will help support projects at Clean Air-Cool Planet and make a powerful statement about the need for renewable energy and climate change awareness throughout this beautiful 300-mile bicycle ride.
 The Brita Climate Ride supports climate and clean energy projects at CA-CP, and at two other beneficiary organizations: Focus the Nation and Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. The fundraising efforts of Climate Riders will help raise awareness of CA-CP's efforts and support key programs including our Climate Fellowship Program and the FoodPrint Calculator. In order to accommodate more cyclists on this one-in-a-lifetime ride, the number of available openings has been doubled to 250. They will fill up fast, so register today.
Photos and videos from last year's Ride are now available at www.ClimateRide.org. The Climate Ride has a number of fundraising prizes and incentives this year including a trip to the COP15 Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark! For more information, please visit www.climateride.org.
Clean Air-Cool Planet is proud to introduce its 13 Climate Fellows for the summer of 2009. CA-CP's Climate Fellowship Program is both competitive and prestigious. With generous support from the Roy A. Hunt Foundation, it pairs outstanding students with challenging real-world opportunities to help lead society into a low-carbon future.
Anne Stephenson, CA-CP's Campus Outreach Coordinator, explained that there was "an overwhelming and flattering response" of 438 applicants to the program this year, but after an extensive application and interview process, cooperative decisions were made between CA-CP and its partners, with whom the fellows will be working, for each of the placements.
Stephenson said the new fellows differentiated themselves in knowing what they want to do and seeing the opportunity this fellowship affords. "There are few real-world training opportunities in the field of climate change, and these 13 see their fellowship as an opportunity to get paid experience in the work they want to do when they graduate," she said.
Stephenson described the 13 as "low-carbon leaders," most of them already having academic and professional experience in carbon management. "They have shown a commitment to positive change," she said. "They want to be a part of the solution."
Ben Wessel, Policy Communications at Climate Policy Center of CA-CP, Washington, D.C.
Carrie Petrik, Climate Protection Action Plan at Sustainable Nantucket, Nantucket, MA
Christina Bosch, Carbon Reduction Analysis at NWNA/Poland Spring, Hollis, ME
Ginny Brown, Greening the Historic District Commission at Sustainable Nantucket, Nantucket, MA
Helen Mou, Climate Risk at Pax World, Portsmouth, NH
Jen Kleindienst, GHG Reduction Planning and Education at York Hospital, York, ME
Jessamine Fitzpatrick, Greening the Science Center at Northeast Science Center Collaborative, New Canaan, CT
Julia Meisel, Foodprint Project, New Haven, CT
Katie Miller, GHG Reduction Planning and Education at Strawbery Banke Museum,Portsmouth, NH
Maria Leonardi, Regional Energy and Climate Protection Plan, Wild Center, Tupper Lake, NY
Meg Giuliano, Greening the Historic District Commission at CA-CP, Portsmouth, NH
Natalie Berland, Community Climate and Energy Action in CT at CA-CP, New Canaan, CT
Neda Arabshahi, Climate Science and Policy at Climate Policy Center of CA-CP, Washington, D.C.
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For more information on global warming solutions, visit CA-CP's website.
Now you can quickly and easily help tackle the pressing issue of climate change, thanks to Clean Air-Cool Planet and NativeEnergy's new cell phone donation program. Donations can now be made to Clean Air-Cool Planet, which will use funds to purchase carbon offsets from NativeEnergy, an international marketer of renewable energy projects. These projects, which include wind turbines and farm methane capture, help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Clean Air-Cool Planet and NativeEnergy already have a longstanding partnership to support and promote clean energy projects, and your contributions will be a huge help in furthering these efforts. Please give $5 now by texting COOL to 90999 or through the text donation widget that appears on our website to help ensure a more sustainable future for all.
 Clean Air-Cool Planet and the University of New Hampshire joined forces this month in an initiative to take the New Hampshire Carbon Challenge to the rest of the Northeast region and, eventually, the nation. The NH Carbon Challenge, which will become the Residential Carbon Challenge, works to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in residential communities through education, support, and motivation. It provides solutions to high home-energy consumption, and its Carbon Estimator helps individuals identify which actions are best suited to their households.
Clean Air-Cool Planet will expand upon the Carbon Challenge model, regionalizing it and providing communication to reach broader audiences. As Julia Dundorf, co-director of the Carbon Challenge, explained, the Carbon Challenge will be woven into existing Clean Air-Cool Planet programs. "The Carbon Challenge has been working to design different kinds of programs and tools to be used with different constituencies in New Hampshire," she said. "Clean Air-Cool Planet allows us to expand our reach across the region." Likewise, the Carbon Challenge's current individual and neighborhood focus will help Clean Air-Cool Planet broaden its community support.
  Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) will be the keynote speaker at the First Annual Local Energy Committees Conference in Concord, N.H., on June 20th. Senator Shaheen, who is a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, will be speaking about local energy solutions for the state of New Hampshire. For more information, please visit the conference website.
Karin Jakubowski, Manager of Science and Outreach at Clean Air - Cool Planet, presented on the topic of "Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions through the Collaborative Process" at the 6th Annual National Environmental Partnership Summit of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She discussed how collaboration, networking, and facilitation have been vital in a multiplicity of CA-CP's projects. "I was excited to present CA-CP's successes and provide examples of how CA-CP has utilized the collaborative process in our civic engagement programs to implement practical hands-on solutions to global warming," she said. Entitled "Harnessing the Power of Collaboration," the summit focused on averting pollution and protecting the environment, with its varied discussions interlinked by the concept of sustainability. Jakubowski presented on the third day of the summit, Wednesday, May 6, at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, CA.
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