Climate Action! Webinar

On Monday, May 11, Park City Community Foundation hosted a virtual discussion with our Park City Climate Fund grantees who gave an update on the innovative projects they are doing to help reduce emissions or sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

Panelists and speakers included leaders from Recycle Utah, Utah Clean Energy, TreeUtah, Park City High School Earth Club, Park City Municipal, Mountain Towns 2030, and Park City Community Foundation.

See the webinar recording at this link>>

Suggestions from the Panelists

Help Reduce Emissions from Homes and Buildings

As we learned during the webinar from Brandy Smith at Utah Clean Energy, buildings make up almost 60% of Park City’s carbon footprint. Would you like to be a citizen advisor to Utah Clean Energy’s deep decarbonization project to help build programs and policies to drastically reduce emissions coming from our homes and business buildings? They need your help! Please get in touch with Ryan Anderson at ryan@utahcleanenergy.org with your name, contact information, # hours available per month, and initial ideas to decarbonize our built environment.

Plant Trees!

The average tree can clean up to 48 pounds of carbon dioxide annually. TreeUtah will help you figure out the best trees to plant for your area and help you make it all happen. Get in touch with Amy May (amy@treeutah.org) or Ian Peisner (ian@treeutah.org) from TreeUtah.

Reduce Your Plastic Use

Lots of webinar participants were focused on using less plastic, buying local, and cutting down on the packages they receive. Mary Closser from Recycle Utah provided webinar participants with a handy Plastic Reduction Handout so you can learn about many alternatives to using plastics.

Communicate Clearly in Public Spaces

Megan Ellis from Park City High School’s Earth Club told us about the importance of good signage so that recycling doesn’t get contaminated. She has found that people will only put things in the appropriate place when bins and containers are clearly marked. You can do the same at your office or home.

Climate Action Commitments

Webinar attendees are committing to activities that will help our local environment. Here are just a few of their commitments:

• One of my goals is to reduce plastics and ensure all plastic from packaging is recycled.
• I’m looking forward to growing more of my own products to reduce plastic consumption and Amazon purchases.
• Making my own sunscreen soon!
• Growing my own *food* and making my own products!
• Increased composting.
• I just started my veggie garden with a seed starter kit yesterday – 48 veggies. In a month, hopefully I will transfer them outside to my raised veggie beds, along with other established veggie plants that I’ll buy at our local PC Nursery.
• Growing some food, batching errands to reduce car trips.
• Started composting last month after “taking the Winter off” i.e. my compost f
• I pledge to sign up today!
• I’m growing my own food with a plot at Summit Community Gardens! Less food packaging!
• No more Amazon! If I can’t find it locally, I don’t need it.
• Carpooling to school.
• Planting a tree (x4)
• Driving less with COVID-19 has inspired me to not drive at all unless I’m going on an out of town trip.
• I pledge to sign up at SPCW today.

How much has the Park City Community Foundation raised for the Climate Fund?

In addition to supporting the first Climate Fund grantees who we heard from in the webinar with a total of $175,000, we are continuing to raise funds right now for the Park City Climate Fund so that we can fund more innovative ideas. From wind turbines and solar, to regenerative agriculture and tree planting, to big changes in mass transit, the Climate Fund is leading local action that is proven to have the most impact. We will be making grants again this year and our goal is to have $250,000 for those grants. We have already raised $115,000 and we still need to raise $135,000.

Donate Now to the Climate Fund>>