Educate, fund, and incentivize real practices to reverse the rise of ocean temperatures.
The following action steps are written in SMART Goal format. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Community members are encouraged to utilize this page to determine if their local community could benefit from implementing these action steps. Consider these as guidelines for further discussion in the direction of tax dollars to provide ideal environments for children and citizens. Take your community’s resources, economic and social strengths, and crime rates over the last 25-50 years into consideration.
Click the small triangle ▶ to see more details about an idea.
Action Steps at the Town Hall Level:
Replace Single Use Plastics
- Specific: Replace single-use plastic items such as cutlery or grocery bags with biodegradable alternatives such as those made with seaweed.
- Measurable: Identify all single-use plastics in circulation, then secure their biodegradable alternative and remove plastics from circulation within 18 months.
- Achievable: Partner with nonprofits, sustainability groups, and the environmentalist departments of local colleges to find and secure alternatives to single-use plastic products.
- Relevant: Removing plastics that have no longevity in the household will reduce their presence in the natural world.
- Time-Bound: Identify biodegradable alternatives and draft a budget to secure them in bulk within 6 months, then gradually replace plastics in the market over the course of the next 12 months. Evaluate effectiveness at the end of 18 months.
Recycle Plastics Into Fuel
- Specific: Ensure at least one local gas station sells, in part or exclusively, fuel made from plastics.
- Measurable: Invest in Julian Brown’s Plastic to Oil Converter and request that the one installed in your community run on renewable energy.
- Achievable: Secure funding from a portion of the town hall budget or from local donations.
- Relevant: Having such a converter in the community would create an outlet for plastic waste and a consistent and economic source of fuel for the community members who have gas or hybrid vehicles.
- Time-Bound: Negotiate the timeline for the installation of the converter within 3 months.
Establish A Community Climate Literacy Program
- Specific: Launch a climate education initiative for residents, schools, and businesses.
- Measurable: Train 1,000 residents annually in workshops, online courses, and school curricula that are action-oriented, engaging, and achieve 80% participant satisfaction rates in post-training surveys.
- Achievable: Partner with local universities, educators, and Non-governmental organizations to recruit/hire educators. Use community spaces like libraries and schools to hold workshops.
- Relevant: Small community-based training sessions will address knowledge gaps and empower action.
- Time-Bound: Establish a team of educators and a schedule of workshops available every other week or more within 6 months. Evaluate the effectiveness of the project annually.
Host Drives to Trade In Cars for Eco-Friendly Vehicles
- Specific: Based on your local terrain, weather, and population density, host a drive to trade in cars for electric/hybrid vehicles (fit with tires appropriate for the terrain) and/or trade in cars for electric bikes and scooters for all household members.
- Measurable: Remove 10% of traditional gas powered vehicles in your local area within 1 year.
- Achievable: Partner with local/domestic producers of electric and hybrid cars, electric bikes and scooters, and car recycling facilities to prepare to host these trade-in drives. Prepare safety equipment, add-ons for storage and transporting a minor, and website with video tutorials on how to make repairs to bikes and scooters (and how to know when its time to bring it to a professional). If hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells are used to vehicles instead of lithium batteries, prepare a stock of hydrogen canisters to sell.
- Relevant: In the US, transportation contributes 28% of emissions related to fossil fuels. Making it easy and affordable to switch to vehicles that reduce or eliminate greenhouse gases will reduce emissions without compromising existing transportation infrastructure.
- Time-Bound: Build a stock of vehicles for trade-ins, establish and staff appropriate local repair shops, and prepare any alternate forms of fuel (hydrogen canisters, additional electric vehicle plug-in stations) within 1 year. Evaluate the effectiveness of the project annually.
Introduce Fossil Fuel-Free Town Code
- Specific: Ban new fossil-fuel infrastructure, such as gas hookups, diesel buses, etc.
- Measurable: Pass legislation within 18 months. Replace 100% of the municipal fleet with EVs or hybrids by 2035.
- Achievable: Model the legislation after Berkeley’s gas ban or Boston’s EV transition.
- Relevant: Policy change will create long-term gains in reducing fossil fuel emissions.
- Time-Bound: Draft policy by year 1 and have it fully implemented by year 3.
Transition Municipal Operations To 100% Renewable Energy
- Specific: Achieve 100% renewable electricity for municipal operations.
- Measurable: Identify the form of renewable energy(s) most compatible with your climate, then install corresponding infrastructure on 10 public buildings within 2 years. Reduce municipal carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.
- Achievable: Use grants, IRA funding, and power purchase agreements to secure funding for infrastructure, installation, and education on maintenance of renewable energy sources.
- Relevant: Focusing on the energy sources used by municipalities will reduce fossil fuel dependence and create relationships with people and companies that homeowners can use to also convert to renewable energy.
- Time-Bound: Secure funding within 12 months and complete installations in phases, ultimately aiming to have 10 or more municipal buildings operating on renewable energy within 2 years.
Use Carbon-Negative Landscaping
- Specific: Convert 20% of public outdoor spaces to native, carbon-sequestering landscapes.
- Measurable: Plant 1,000 native trees and bushes per year and restore 50 acres of native wetlands [if applicable] by 2030.
- Achievable: Collaborate with local arborists, conservation groups, and volunteers to establish a schedule of planting and maintenance.
- Relevant: Restoring native plant life is a cost-effective method of trapping carbon and heat-trapping effects of typical urban landscapes. Fruit bearing plants will also provide free food to residents.
- Time-Bound: Establish a schedule/plan, acquire seeds and/or plants and start planting within 12 months.
Offer Green Business And Resident Rebates
- Specific: Offer financial incentives for sustainable choices.
- Measurable: Issue 500 rebates annually for green choices such as EVs, composting, heat pumps, rain barrels, etc. Increase residential composting participation by 50% in 3 years.
- Achievable: Allocate $200,000 per year from the town budget and state grants towards rebates.
- Relevant: The rebates lower barriers businesses, homeowners, and landlords face in adopting green infrastructure.
- Time-Bound: Launch rebate program within 9 months.
Host Climate Action Competitions
- Specific: Create first, second, and third place prizes for Climate Action Competitions run on a quarterly, biannually, and annual basis, with the size of the prizes scaled to the length of time and magnitude of the entries.
- Measurable: Feature competitions and winners in local newsletters, ads, and social media pages, and fund promotions of winners’ inventions in local, nationwide, and international conventions. Reduce town wide energy usage by 10% over 5 years.
- Achievable: Award $30,000 in prize money annually. Host fundraisers to get funding from donors, and also secure grants. Use platforms like Ecochallenge.org for tracking.
- Relevant: Competition for climate action will increase community interest and investment in making changes to their infrastructure and routines for the betterment of the planet and future generations.
- Time-Bound: Launch competition within 9 months.
Action Steps at the School Level:
Build a Carbon-Neutral Campus
- Specific: Achieve net-zero emissions for school operations within 5 years of project launch.
- Measurable: Reduce energy use by 30% within 2 years of project launch and divert 75% of waste from landfills via composting and recycling.
- Achievable: Use Renew America’s Schools grants to attain, install, and maintain equipment.
- Relevant: Schools emit ~72 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year according to the US EPA. Going carbon-neutral would reduce schools’ carbon footprint and set the example for the kinds of equipment and habits necessary to operate an environmentally friendly facility.
- Time-Bound: Conduct an energy audit to launch the project, then have green energy sources (solar panels, wind turbines, hydro-electric, etc.) installed within 2 years of project launch.
Launch Recycling Projects
- Specific: Launch class or grade level recycling projects in which students have to create something (ex. a park bench, a hydroponic farming tower) out of the recycling they collect.
- Measurable: 100% of teams produce a product usable to the school or community within 1 academic school year.
- Achievable: Collaborate with local recycling centers, small businesses, and relevant industrial businesses to solidify relationships with facilities that can fabricate products from students’ recycling.
- Relevant: Plastic waste disrupts ecosystems across the world; this project would reduce waste, create context for students to learn about different types of recyclable materials, and develop students’ teamwork in creating larger impact in their communities.
- Time-Bound: Solidify relevant relationships with recycling facilities within 3 months and launch the competition with communication to families the following academic year.
Engage Families in Climate Action
- Specific: Host quarterly workshops to educate families on low-carbon lifestyles and use of energy efficient appliances.
- Measurable: Engage 80% or more households of enrolled students in at least one workshop within 2 academic years.
- Achievable: Collaborate with local utilities and nonprofits for home energy kits, gardening kits, composting equipment, etc.
- Relevant: Supporting community engagement in building Eco-friendly habits via school will reduce household emissions.
- Time-Bound: Launch the first workshop within 6 months and track annual progress.