{"id":13148,"date":"2020-02-26T00:37:15","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T07:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=13148"},"modified":"2020-02-26T00:37:15","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T07:37:15","slug":"valleys-most-populous-city-takes-on-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/26\/valleys-most-populous-city-takes-on-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Valley\u2019s Most Populous City Takes On Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

New staff, new structure, new goals shape Hailey\u2019s environmental efforts<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Hailey\u2019s resiliency coordinator Rebecca Bundy and her pup, Izzy. Photo credit: Rebecca Bundy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When former Hailey Mayor Fritz Haemmerle announced he wouldn\u2019t be seeking re-election, he held what he coined a town hall \/ open mic to let potential mayoral candidates address the public. No one declared their candidacy that day, but multiple residents as well as a small coalition of local students declared that climate change\u2014and their city\u2019s impact on it and from it\u2014was of utmost concern.<\/p>\n

By the time of the next election, Martha Burke declared her mayoral candidacy, ran unopposed and made it clear from day one that as long as she was mayor, Hailey would be on the cutting edge of eco-friendliness. Enter Rebecca Bundy, the city\u2019s newly hired resiliency coordinator\u2014a moniker that purposely means something different than \u201csustainability\u201d coordinator.<\/p>\n

\u201cSustainability is about capping emissions, setting limits about what the planet can handle. Resiliency includes adaptation, energy independence, and preparing for a future where conditions may be different,\u201d explained Bundy.<\/p>\n

Bundy says she hates to be pessimistic about climate change, but she says, realistically, humans aren\u2019t going to do enough to avoid a 1.5-degree Centigrade rise in Earth temperatures. According to NASA\u2019s Global Climate Change reports, a 1.5-degree Celsius warming will mean about 14 percent of Earth\u2019s population will be exposed to severe heat waves at least once every five years. At 2 degrees of warming, that jumps to 37 percent.<\/p>\n

What does it mean for the Valley? Bundy says one of the most critical things for us would be reduced snowpack in the mountains. And that means far more than less lucrative ski seasons; it means less available water, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be dealing with the effects of whatever we don\u2019t achieve,\u201d Bundy said.<\/p>\n

Is There Any Good News?<\/b><\/p>\n

Bundy is a longtime Valley architect who is known for building one of the first Gold Award residential homes in Ketchum\u2014a designation given by the entity called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), which certifies buildings as eco-friendly and sustainably designed. She says the approach Mayor Burke is taking to make sure Hailey does its part is going to be effective. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about cultural change,\u201d Bundy said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
A bird\u2019s-eye view of Hailey. Photo credit: City of Hailey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not just the kind of cultural change where youth organizations like W.A.T.E.R. (We Appreciate The Earth\u2019s Resources) lead efforts to eliminate single-use plastics from all local events. And not just the kind of cultural change that sees families do \u201cmeatless Mondays\u201d since our food chain is a major impact to global warming. But, rather, the kind of cultural change where every city decision, from how to enforce building codes to which fleet of vehicles to buy, has some level of resiliency oversight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Burke organized the resiliency committee to include the heads of every single city department. So, no longer is it a third party coming in and providing external recommendations. Now, it\u2019s the head of each department vetting their projects and purchases and policies for their level of carbon footprint.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Burke has basically made her (environment) team internal,\u201d Bundy observed. \u201cIf we want to have a positive impact on this, it has to pervade your entire organization.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The resiliency committee is only a couple of months under way, so right now the team is still compiling data and drawing up game plans. However, outreach has begun to coordinate with all the jurisdictions around the Blaine County region so the carbon footprint reduction efforts and global warming contingency plans are as seamless as possible. For instance, Bundy sits on Ketchum\u2019s sustainability board, and an elected official from each jurisdiction throughout the county is invited to Hailey\u2019s resiliency committee meetings.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2020, Bundy said the group will present the city council with a list of eco-friendly benchmarks and the action plans required to achieve those goals. She said the city already has a robust and progressive set of building and energy codes, but there\u2019s always room for revision, especially when it comes to enforcement.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be short-term and long-term items to consider, and we\u2019re putting together a set of policies that shows the city is ready to lead by example first,\u201d Bundy said.<\/span><\/p>\n

What Can You Do About It?<\/b><\/p>\n

Bundy said one of the most effective perspective shifts would be if people, especially anyone building a new project, realized an eco-friendly development is not a more expensive development. Bundy, who also has her city planner certification, says that any cost increase on the front end is nominal and that the ROI (return on investment) in doing things like solar installation is significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetrofitting a building to have solar power can be costly,\u201d Bundy explained. \u201cSetting up a building to be able to run solar now or later, not so much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New staff, new structure, new goals shape Hailey\u2019s environmental efforts By Eric Valentine When former Hailey Mayor Fritz Haemmerle announced he wouldn\u2019t be seeking re-election, he held what he coined a town hall \/ open mic to let potential mayoral candidates address the public. No one declared their candidacy that day, but multiple residents as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hailey","8":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}