Environmental Council Meeting Minutes
February 28, 2001
Le Chateau B
Chair: Nan Jenks-Jay

In attendance: Krista Siringo, George McPhail, Nan Jenks-Jay, Kathy Morse, Amy Seif, Mike Snow, Story Parker, Brittany Gill, Timothy McCahill, Kaitlin Gregg, Erik Skovsted

Absent: Tom Kelly, Jon Isham, Pete Ryan, Ben Wessler

1. Minutes from February 14, 2000 were approved.

2. Council Business:
A. Earth Day Speaker:
Several speakers are coming to campus to speak on global climate change, including Jonathan Lash and Bill Moomaw. Therefore, it is not as important that the Council bring their own speaker to campus. David Orr is still being considered, the major issue being the timing of his visit on Easter Sunday. Council members don't think that should be a problem, and the Chaplain's Office agrees.
B. Update on Environmental Grants :
All the grant money has been awarded. The final grant which went over budget, so money may be spent from the Council budget.
C. Transportation Consultant :
Amy has researched potential TDM consultants. There are several in the Burlington area, including Resource Systems Group and CATMA.
D. Next Meeting :
The next Council meeting will focus on the State of the Environment Report.
E. New Students :
The new student members chose sub-committees. Tim and Kaitlin will be on events, and Brittany will be on the peak sub-committee.

3. Introductions :
Charlene Garland of Clean-Air Cool Planet and Adam Wilson of UNH/Clean Air- Cool Planet introduced themselves.

4. Clean-Air Cool Planet:
A. What is Clean-Air Cool Planet?
CA-CP is a young NGO out of Portsmouth NH that works in the northeast region to help universities, municipalities, businesses, and faith based organizations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Tufts University was a founding partner of the organization, and Tufts has pledged to meet the Kyoto Protocol through the Tufts Climate Initiative. CA-CP helps to publicize good efforts, and they are using Bicentennial Hall as a case study.
B. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory:
CA-CP recommends using data from the current year and a past year, and then setting goals for a future year. After the inventory, the Council should make a plan for developing the climate action plan, then should implement the plan and monitor progress. The town of Burlington is developing a climate change action plan for Burlington, which will take about 3-4 years until implementation.

1. Using Calculator : The greenhouse gas emissions inventory calculator is in Excel, and is comprised of about 16 pages. To turn pages, click on the tabs at the bottom of the page. The Council can just plug in our data, like the amount of fuel burned on campus, and the calculator will tell us how much carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide is produced. It will also calculate upstream emissions. The results will be on the summary page. We will need to convert oil in gallons to BTUs
   
2. Questions and Answers : The final results of the inventory will be used as a planning and awareness raising tool. We can also compare ourselves to other institutions, looking at emissions per capita. The results of the inventory should be made more tangible to the college community, such as by saying that amount of greenhouse gas would fill up "16 blimps a day."
   
C. Climate Change Action Plan:
There is no cookie cutter approach. The college could create a Climate Task Force to shephard the process along. We will need to set a realistic target. The Council can learn from the work of the Burlington Climate Action Task Force. CA-CP supports interns, and they are interested in a resource sharing for an internship at Middlebury College.

5. Sub-Committees
The Climate Change Sub-Committee and the Events Sub-Committee met.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Amy Seif.