Sustainability in the Land of Excess
Without question, we are a community with conspicuous consumption at its core. But look past the obvious contradictions, and you’ll see that the Roaring Fork Valley is making a sincere and concerted effort toward sustainability.
When discussing sustainability in the Roaring Fork Valley, Aspen’s profligate reputation easily allows for charges of hypocrisy—if not sanctimonious dismissal. After all, for every Prius or electric car rolling down Main Street, at least ten SUVs sit idling at hotels and grocery stores. For every rooftop solar array, there are a dozen heated driveways; for every bike-riding mayor, scores of private-jet-chartering CEOs. And the list goes on. Nevertheless, per capita, there are likely more cutting-edge green organizations and eco-minded people in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley than in any other city or county of similar size throughout the country. Their efforts focus locally and globally, and the numbers show there is much to do: The U.S. comprises about 4 percent of the earth’s population and emits some 25 percent of total global greenhouse gases. The average American is responsible for nearly 50,000 pounds of CO2 annually to light and heat our homes, drive our cars, fly to Vegas, eat an avocado in New York flown in from California, buy a carbon fiber bike and everything else we do. This is because most new products, services and recreation carry substantial embodied fossil-fuel energy in their manufacture, packaging and delivery.
And among the sinners, Aspen’s carbon footprint is large. The average Aspenite’s CO2 output is almost 100,000 pounds per year—double the national average. Our demand for exotic woods, stone, copper, 24/7 floodlights, cement, diamonds, etc., for our 15,000-square-foot-financial-instruments economy exacts a foreign toll, though it supports our way of life. Air travel, both private and commercial, is a major factor, too, contributing 36.4 percent to Aspen’s total emissions. In essence, our excess-based economy is like selling environmental derivatives to developing countries. Damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
Yet hope remains in the form of sustainability, a homesteader/hippie concept that has found its way into mainstream thinking, thanks to the efforts of indefatigable visionaries and the recent economic crisis. A number of local organizations meet Aspen’s eco-contradiction head on: Based in Old Snowmass, the 27-year-old Rocky Mountain Institute, whose mission is “to drive the efficient and restorative use of resources” while reducing fossil fuel use, is the most multifaceted among them. As an “independent nonprofit trans-ideological think-and-do tank,” RMI’s expertise spans energy, buildings, mobility, campuses, communities and industry. Clicking into its website (rmi.org) is a labyrinthian ride of grand proportion, where eco-word combinations and dexterous phrasing describe infinite cost-saving and carbon-neutralizing possibilities, while staking out articulate ground in the debate about greening globalism.
“Our relationship with this valley is long and mutually beneficial,” says RMI Senior Consultant, and former county commissioner, Michael Kinsley. “In the ’80s, RMI tested a sustainable economic development planning process in Carbondale. A genuine partnership with that amazing community helped us refine our methodology, which we then used in 40 states.” He says that RMI is always looking for ways to work locally and that they’ve brought a number of enviro-heavy-hitters to the valley who have spun off local green for-profits. Some are Glenwood Springs’ Fiberforge, which works to reduce the weight of vehicles to increase their efficiency, and Clean Energy Economy for the Region, which facilitates change to clean energy in the valley and beyond. “And we like to think that Auden Schendler’s time at RMI helped propel him to the eco-rock-star he now is with the Aspen Skiing Co.,” he adds.
Some of RMI’s on-going charrettes and achievements include retrofitting the Empire State Building to save nearly 40 percent on energy costs; “net-zero-energy” homes; the national plug-in power grid “Smart Garage”; the uber-efficient Hypercar; a U.S. Green Trucking Council; and a job-creating emissions-busting Federal Energy Policy proposal.
With a wider purview, The Aspen Institute’s Energy and Environment Program provides non-partisan leadership and a neutral forum for a cornucopia of events, including the International Forum on Global Environmental Governance, this October.
More locally, the independent Community Office for Resource Efficiency (yet another RMI offshoot) works with businesses, individuals, utilities and government to implement cost-saving energy and water efficiencies, often through rebates. And in an effort to address energy-hungry second homes, businesses and events, The City of Aspen’s ZGreen program offers incentives to attain a ZGreen Citizen, Business or Event designation. By filling out an “Energy Tracker” at aspenzgreen.com and agreeing to implement five new energy actions if you’re a homeowner, or if you’re a business or event, score 40 points from five categories of environmental actions, participants attain green recognition and are added to the city’s green guide list. Why bother, some might ask? Because it’s the right thing to do, and eco-minded tourists like to choose green businesses.
Coming from another angle, the Sopris Foundation promotes dialogue on population, climate and energy with its annual “Innovative Ideas for a New West” conference, which, among other things, aims to protect Western communities by preserving working ranches beside vibrant towns. Ongoing projects include circulating “carbon cards” (at soprisfoundation.org) that tally your lifestyle’s carbon output (like calorie counting); cost-saving tiered electricity pricing; and addressing the loss of vitality in resort towns caused by rapid real estate appreciation and loss of local housing. According to the Sopris Foundation, the annual energy demand of residences in Aspen is equivalent to eight coal trains, 100 cars long. Of these 800 cars, 484 provide energy for largely vacant second homes.
And at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies on Hallam Lake, Director Tom Cardamone aims to make all of ACES’ teaching sites carbon neutral in 10 years. He says the three-pronged mission of ACES is to promote clean renewable energy, to develop sustainable agriculture in the valley and encourage water conservation for survivability and bio-diversity. Cardamone says, “The notion that it’s possible on a community scale to be energy sustainable in the face of the daunting world-wide problem is too big to grasp, but what motivates me at ACES is to provide a local example, because it’s the right thing to do.” He describes the biggest challenge as the “inertia confrontation” of not being able to find local green contractors.
On yet another front, the 40-year-old Aspen Valley Land Trust in Carbondale negotiates with large landholders, usually ranchers who value the land and would rather see it continue in productive use than be developed. Director Martha Cochran says that once homesteads on fertile riparian land are sold that productive land is lost forever, and the resulting housing development creates more consumers. She says, “We are preserving land to grow food or fuel and for wildlife habitat, and nothing is sustainable without land.” To date AVLT has preserved some 30,000 acres in the Colorado River Valley.
Slow Foods Roaring Fork, the local chapter of a retro-progressive worldwide food movement, is dedicated to eating locally grown food. This movement has brought us the White House vegetable garden. Joyce Falcone, president of SFRF, says we need to see greenhouses dotting the valley, but because land-use codes subtract them from allotted square footage, green houses generally lose out. She says a petition to change those codes will be presented to the Pitkin County commissioners. SFRF’s goal also is to bring back the Red McClure potato, once the biggest crop in the valley. (The Carbondale area once produced more potatoes than all of Idaho.)
Other large forces in regional sustainability are the Aspen Skiing Company and the City of Aspen. Among their many green initiatives, the ASC has an on-slope micro-hydroelectric system at Snowmass Mountain, using water from a snowmaking pond that generates 150,000 kilowatt hours (kwh) annually, preventing the emission of 300,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. Their restaurant recycling, solar panels, purchased wind power and green building initiatives are part of their carbon off-setting paradigm, and their goal is make all electricity, natural gas and fuel consumed by the company carbon neutral by 2020. While the City of Aspen, which already gets 75 percent of its electricity from renewable resources, is exploring geothermal and envisions being one of the first towns in Colorado with an infrastructure to support hydrogen-powered cars. Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland says, of the overall view, “We’re a train burning the cars behind us to keep going. To confront this contradiction, sustainability must start with the individual.”
Diverse communities’ becoming carbon neutral and self-sustaining and collectively forming a sustainable earth remains the biggest sine qua non of this century. But with the timely economic rebooting of the world economy, suddenly there is time to blink. The question is whether striving for wealth can get on board the sustainability train with more than tokenism. Needing less would help.
Doers: Some of the valley’s many progressive eco-institutions.
SLOW FOOD ROARING FORK
Dedicated to encouraging people to eat locally grown food, SFRF would like to see more private residences with greenhouses, but that might require changes to county codes.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE
With eco-pioneer Amory Lovins at the helm, RMI is the flagship in conservation, spearheading national projects and spawning a multitude of like-minded local organizations.
CITY OF ASPEN CANARY INITIATIVE
Recognizing that this tiny town is a major contributor of greenhouse gases, City of Aspen officials took the lead in emissions reduction in 2005 by creating a department devoted to combatting climate change.
ASPEN VALLEY LAND TRUST
In conjunction with large landholders, many of them ranchers, AVLT strives to stave off development of the valley’s last great open spaces, preserving it for agricultural use or wildlife habitat.
ASPEN ZGREEN
Targeting second homes in particular, ZGreen seeks to reward home- and business owners who follow guidelines to reduce their carbon footprints.
ASPEN CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
A legacy of Aspen benefactors Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke, ACES promotes clean and renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and water conservation, and it’s set a goal of making all its teaching sites carbon neutral in 10 years.
THE SOPRIS FOUNDATION
This homegrown nonprofit fosters dialogue on population, climate and energy, with a focus on preserving Western communities and ranches.
COMMUNITY OFFICE FOR RESOURCE EFFICIENCY
One of RMI’s many progeny, CORE helps create incentives for businesses, individuals, utilities and governments to implement energy- and water-saving technologies.
