Nurturing Local Foods with Vivian Mork Yéilk’

When it comes to averting climate change, there are few solutions more effective than replacing meat and dairy with vegetables on our plates. A plant-based diet is the 4th most effective solution out of 80 to reverse global climate change, according to Project Drawdown. This is because vegetables require fewer carbon inputs in their growing, processing, and transportation than meat. Moreover, ruminants like cows produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as they digest food. Additionally, land that once served as a carbon sink (like a forest or a prairie) releases its stored carbon and no longer sequesters carbon when it’s plowed or cleared for livestock production.

Eating a plant heavy diet, then, preserves land, reduces methane emissions, reduces transportation-related emissions, and more. Plainly put, what we eat matters for the health of the planet, in addition to the health of one’s body. Yet a climate-friendly diet in Southeast Alaska looks differently than a climate-friendly diet elsewhere. It requires a multi-pronged approach that includes boosting local gardening and agricultural capacity while eating the sustainably harvested foods that are native to this land.

“We have access to good, healthy foods here in southeast Alaska,” Vivian Mork Yéilk’ asserts, “We need to tend to what we already have, while also working to grow more.”

For Vivian, tending to what we have means the respectful and sustainable harvest of our local plants and animals, prohibiting the introduction of invasive species, and caring for the ecosystems in which local plants and animals thrive.

Vivian is a Tlingit ethnobotanist and traditional foods and medicine educator with a mission to teach sustainable harvesting methods, perpetuate culture, and steward the abundant resources for the generations that come after us. Vivian also promotes individual and family gardens, community gardens, and small local food businesses. “When I was growing up all my Elders had small gardens next to their house. In Alaska we are always one barge away from food insecurity. My Elders taught me that it was important to provide food through growing, harvesting, preserving, preparing, and sharing.”

Vivian writes,

“There is no good reason that we aren’t landscaping  in our cities and villages entirely with zero invasive species, local edible plants, and fruit trees. We need to adopt edible landscaping everywhere. At least start with a policy level of every city to no longer plant invasive species in city landscaping and only use local plants. Alaska is absolutely amazing and not only is a lot of our vegetation beautiful but it is edible and healthier for you than anything you can find on a grocery store shelf. Even our blueberries have more antioxidants than anything you can find in a store. Plus getting outside and harvesting with your friends and family is not only a good physical activity, it is also good for your mental health.”

Promoting edible landscaping as a policy would enhance local food security—a perennial concern across Alaska, where around 95% of the food consumed in state is shipped from Outside. It would also help Alaskans access more affordable fruits and vegetables. In 2014 only 10% of Alaska adults and high schoolers ate the daily recommended amount of fruit and vegetable.

Indeed, thriving animal populations are part of the equation. Sure, growing and eating plants is good for the climate. Yet at the same time, Alaskans intuitively know there is a difference in the environmental impacts of a steak from Argentina and venison backstrap from Admiralty Island. Scientists have recently affirmed that wild protein sources bear a net positive carbon benefits when wild game replaces industrial meat on our plates.

A research paper published in the summer of 2020 in Human Dimensions of Wildlife found the amount of game Americans harvest and consume conservatively equals 400,000 cars being removed from the road each year. This is because wild game doesn’t require any of the farming inputs or land degradation that industrial livestock does. The only carbon emissions come from travel to the hunting grounds. The closer the hunting grounds, the fewer emissions per kilogram harvested. But once someone drives over 78 km per kilogram of meat, the benefit disappears.

Thinking locally, in 2017 over 686,000 lbs. of wild fish and game were harvested for non-commercial purposes in Juneau. That comes to 21 lbs. per Juneau resident, or 13% of our community’s daily protein requirement. This wild harvest potentially replaced over 300 tons of industrial meat on our plates.

The precedent of a sustainable local diet sits squarely in front of us. Vivian notes that Tlingit people “are one of the oldest groups of human beings to live sustainably in one area of the world in the history of human beings on the planet. Tending and managing our forests and waters has always been a part of our roles as the Indigenous people of southeast Alaska.”

Teaching traditional harvesting knowledge, promoting small, family-based harvesting businesses grounded in traditional knowledge, and promoting management policies under which “subsistence foods aren’t regulated out of our mouths,” will go a long way towards tending the land and tending to the people, Vivian asserts.

Indeed, through being conscientious about what we eat, caring for the natural ecosystems in which our local plants and animals thrive, and considering the Tlingit value of balance when filling our freezers and our plates, Southeast Alaskans can simultaneously tend to the health of our planet and the health of our people.

Expanding Renewable Energy with Duff Mitchell

Engineers, planners, and activists agree: if we are to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we must electrify everything: all transportation, all building systems, all industry. And we must transition the generation of that electricity to renewable sources. By doing so, we will save money, slash greenhouse gases, and avert multiple climate tragedies while maintaining the quality of life that we are accustomed to.

The technology currently exists for us to electrify our lives, from electric vehicles to air source heat pumps, and the adoption of these technologies is growing exponentially. Yet, Juneau still has a long energy road to travel. Although some tout the community’s renewable energy credentials (after all, hydro-powered electricity provides most of our current electrical needs during an above normal rainfall year), the truth is more alarming: only 20% of the energy we use derives from renewable electricity. In 2010, 78% of our energy was derived from carbon-based fossil fuels.

We must confidently and systematically flip these numbers around by 2045 for us to achieve the goal set out in the Juneau Renewable Energy Strategy, which affirms 80% of our energy will derive from renewable sources.

For some, this goal might seem ambitious. Yet science, for one, is on our side. The technology exists today for us to electrify our lives. Moreover, renewable energy is more efficient than thermodynamic energy (like fossil fuels). This means we can operate on less renewable energy than fossil fuel-derived energy. Rewiring America, an organization dedicated to beneficial electrification, asserts that if we electrified everything, we would only need 40% of the energy that’s currently deployed. This equates to economic and environmental savings.

Still, Juneau requires a greater supply of renewable electricity to meet our future needs. Duff Mitchell, Managing Director of Juneau Hydropower, is laboring to bring us the megawatts we need to power the community we envision. And vision Duff has in spades. From being a founding member of the Juneau Electric Vehicle Association, to wrangling the support that so far has resulted in $9 million in federal grants to purchase electrical buses for Capital Transit, to an ambitious plan to bring district heating* to downtown Juneau, as well as an intertie to integrate the grid of northern SE Alaska, Duff is behind many of the beneficial electrification projects in our community.

The most significant of these is Juneau Hydropower’s development of a new hydropower facility at Sweetheart Lake, located south of Juneau in Port Snettisham. Once activated, Sweetheart Lake will boost the supply of renewable energy in Juneau by 20% to 25%.

Energy is the bedrock of the economy, Duff notes. Whether it’s the seafood industry, transportation, mining, or tourism, all sectors require energy to operate, and for some energy is the second greatest expense after labor. “We are one of the few places in the world with a plethora of renewable resources,” Duff explains. “High costs of energy bring economic stagnation. We can develop energy locally and sustainably while lowering the cost and improving the quality of life of the community.”

Once developed, Sweetheart will provide renewable energy to meet a host of Juneau energy needs. Duff notes that it will provide enough electricity to power both mines, provide power to electrify all the cruise docks, and run household air source heat pumps. The project is ready for construction and has a license in hand from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The last remaining step is to receive a Snettisham Transmission line interconnection agreement from the State of Alaska and AEL&P.

Another essential aspect for assuring local energy security and meeting the community’s renewable electricity needs is finishing the Southeast intertie project, Duff notes. Currently, Juneau operates as a stranded electrical grid, lacking transmission lines that connect us to other communities and utilities. southern Southeast Alaska, from Ketchikan to Petersburg, is connected through an intertie, allowing these communities to sell and purchase needed electrical lodes. It is now time to integrate a northern Southeast Alaska intertie from Juneau northward to Haines and Skagway. “Then we can bring renewable electricity where it’s needed throughout northern Southeast, Duff explains. This will hasten the region’s conversion to zero-carbon with lower power costs.

“For whom much is provided, much is required,” quotes Duff. “I take it as a personal and community responsibility to be 100% renewable and sustainable.” Once Sweetheart Lake is online, Juneau will be that much closer to achieving our energy potential.

*Project Drawdown ranks district heating as the 27th of 80 most effective solutions to climate change.

Preserving Wetlands and Peatlands with Koren Bosworth

13 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of peatland conservation as a solution to climate change.

52 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of coastal wetlands conservation as a solution to climate change.

Juneau’s land is spongy. This mushy ground is inhospitable to tromping and building, but it performs a service arguably more important than recreation or development: carbon sequestration. Juneau’s peatlands and wetlands are carbon sinks, complex biomes that trap carbon in an anaerobic environment, slowing the decomposition of organic material. Coastal wetlands can store five times as much carbon as a tropical forest over time; peatlands store ten times more carbon than other kinds of ecosystems.

That sucking sound you hear when extracting your boot from the muck? Well, just think of it as carbon being sucked from the atmosphere.

“Forests get lots of the good press because it’s easy to see the wood as carbon. But peatlands are more effective at carbon sequestration,” says local wetlands ecologist, Koren Bosworth. Peat can be over 50% carbon, in fact. For this reason, Project Drawdown ranks peatland preservation as the 13th most effective solution for curbing global warming out of 80 solutions. Coastal wetland preservation is ranked as 52 of 80.

Koren has spent much of the last 35 years investigating and documenting Southeast Alaska’s wetlands and peatlands. She grew up in the west, spending every summer camping and every moment not in the classroom outdoors. “I had relatives in Alaska and knew I had to be here,” Koren says. After graduating with an undergraduate degree in botany, Koren worked intermittently for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game before joining the Field Naturalist graduate program that took an interdisciplinary approach to ecology. “This program tied many things together, rather than focusing on specializing. It helped me to integrate the natural world,” Koren recalls.

Wetlands and peatlands are integrated ecosystems, in a sense. Much of what we call woods in Juneau is actually forested wetlands. Even many inland riverine environments are classified as coastal zones because they are tidally influenced. To understand and document these lands requires an interdisciplinary lens. Koren graduated and got her feet wet, so to speak, in Juneau’s wetlands and peatlands documentation and preservation starting in 1985.

Thirty years later, Koren and others mapped and assessed local wetlands for the 2016 City and Borough of Juneau Wetlands Management Plan Update. As part of this project, wetlands specialist Dr. Paul Adamas created a new assessment tool, the Wetlands Ecosystem Protocol for Southeast Alaska, to determine the relative value and function of the fens, bogs, forested wetlands, and coastal wetlands in the vicinity of Juneau. Carbon sequestration capacity was one of the functions for which each wetland was assessed. The evaluation showed that some Juneau wetlands best perform as carbon sinks.

Preserving large, intact, and diverse expanses of wetlands and peatlands protects animal habitat, assures recreational potential, and is an essential way for Southeast Alaska residents to markedly improve our chances of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Examples of locally protected wetlands include the Mendenhall State Game Refuge and lands held by the Southeast Alaska Land Trust, including the newly acquired Grummet Wetlands.

But there’s something else we must do alongside preserving the peatlands and wetlands that surround us. “Vote,” Koren says. “Voting is the only way we are going to seriously protect wetlands.”

Indeed, participating in politics at each level of government is required to assure the preservation of the carbon sinks that surround us. At the local level, the Juneau Wetlands Review Board is tasked with advising the Planning Commission, Assembly, and other local governmental entities on the relative value of wetlands. Nonetheless, Juneau wetlands are often developed even when the advisory board recommends against it.

At the state level, Alaska needs to again take part in the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act. Alaska in 2011 failed to submit a new coastal management plan. “We are the only eligible state that does not have a coastal management plan,” Koren laments. “This was a big blow to wetlands protection here in Alaska, where 84% of us live in a coastal zone.”

And at the federal level, the Trump Administration has rolled back provisions of the Clean Water Act that protect wetlands. “Over the last ten years we have gone backwards when it comes to wetland protection,” Koren notes.

Yet Juneau is still positioned to protect what we have. By preserving the forests, wetlands, and peatlands that exist today, we enable nature to remove carbon from the atmosphere and bury it in the earth in a regenerative cycle that requires no human inputs. In fact, it just requires that we leave it alone.

Protecting Forests through Indigenous Land Management with Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson

38 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of forest protection as a solution to climate change.

39 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of Indigenous land management as a solution to climate change.

Twenty-six percent of human-created carbon emissions return to the earth through natural processes. Yet ecosystem degradation threatens the natural systems that move carbon from the atmosphere into living plants and soils. Devastated ecosystems are devastated homelands. When the environment suffers, people suffer.

For residents of Southeast Alaska, our greatest role in the global fight against climate change is to protect our land, including the Tongass National Forest, and the Indigenous tribes who have served as ecosystem stewards since time immemorial. We must preserve the carbon sinks that naturally perform carbon sequestration in order to preserve a habitable planet. We also must elevate those who have been the fiercest advocates for these important ecosystems, Alaska Native tribes.

Project Drawdown lists forest protection as the 38th of 80 most effective solutions to averting climate change. Right on its heels is Indigenous land management, coming in as the 39th solution. Indigenous peoples’ land management is an effective means to preventing climate chaos because Indigenous practices are relevant to local ecosystems and resiliency. When Indigenous people lose land rights and are separated from land management, deforestation and land degradation follows.

“When we talk about the Tongass, we are people of the Tongass,” Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson says. “From seed to canoe, we have watched these forests grow,” he says, referring to the trees used to create traditional watercraft. After 10,000 years, “we still have that lifestyle, that diet, we still fish in our traditional areas.”

The 16.8 million-acre Tongass National Forest sequesters more carbon than any other national forest. As one of the world’s last remaining temperate rain forests, its very existence provides critical climate-related services to the planet.

Yet unsustainable logging practices promulgated by businesses, the state, and federal forestry managers have harmed the health of the Tongass and the health of Alaska Natives.

Take, for instance, what occurred in Kasaan on Prince of Wales Island during Richard’s tenure as mayor of the village. Loggers clear cut areas of the Tongass surrounding the village. The loggers followed the law and left the required buffer of standing trees surrounding streams. But a windstorm devastated the exposed trees, causing the destruction of the watershed and Kasaan’s municipal water source.

“We were on a boiled-water notice for a year,” related Richard, now President of the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (aka Tlingit and Haida).

Accepted Western forestry practices did not protect the forest, the watershed, or the people of Kasaan. “To respect your resources you must respect yourself. When you have a toxic view of yourself and everything else, that is how we manage the resources. A healthy forest means healthy people,” says Richard.

A new partnership between Tlingit and Haida and the US Forest Service embraces Indigenous forest management practices. The new Indigenous Guardians program, modeled after First Nations/ federal government co-management instituted decades ago in Canada, assures that partner entities will have a recognized role in the management of the Tongass National Forest.

“We will be working hand in hand on forest management at all levels,” explains Richard. “Taking our traditional and ecological knowledge and integrating that in the management system will create a forest that will produce for generations.”

The new Indigenous Guardians program includes watershed restoration, monitoring of cultural sites, and subsistence planning. It provides funding for tribal science, aspires towards ground-up policy making, and will enhance the health and economies of tribal communities.

Moreover, the climate-related implications of this program are also promising. According to Project Drawdown, community-managed forests increased carbon storage by 2 tons per acre per year.

Healthy forests support healthy communities. A healthy Tongass supports the very ability of our planet to sustain human life as we know it. With Indigenous people leading forest use and forest protection efforts, there’s hope the Tongass can sustain us for the next 10,000 years, as well.  

Reducing Food Waste with Sarah Lewis

3 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of reducing food waste as a solution to climate change.

Sarah Lewis opens her emergency food pantry, looking for canned tomatoes. She finds what she needs and brings the cans up to the kitchen, restocking her cupboard. She adds canned tomatoes to her shopping list. She consults a meal planning app (her current favorite is Forks Meal Planner, though she also likes The Scramble) to see what else needs to be on the shopping list. When she returns from the grocery store, she puts newly purchased cans of tomatoes in the emergency food pantry and starts making a batch of food for the coming week.

“We need to solve for the pattern instead of for a single problem,” Sarah, a Juneau-based UAF Cooperative Extension Agent , asserts. Conscientious meal planning is a good example of this, as it solves several problems at once. It enhances her family’s food security, as the Lewis-Boily family can comfortably subsist during an emergency that limits food access. It follows the “last in, first out,” recommendation of food consumption. It allows Sarah to consider nutritional aspects of her family’s meals. It helps solve (though certainly doesn’t negate) the “what’s for dinner” conundrum. Finally, it limits the family’s food waste.

Being deliberate about food means that the Lewis-Boily family are deliberate about what they throw away.

This is a bigger deal than one might think. The USDA reports that Americans trash 133 billion pounds of food in a single year. If food waste was a country, it would be the third greatest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the United States and China.

These emissions come from the embodied energy within food-- all those carbon-hogging inputs required to make, package, transport, and store food. At each step along the supply chain food waste occurs, either accidentally or on purpose. An example of accidental food waste is when a freezer fails and the food within becomes rotten. Willful waste, on the other hand, is more common in the developed world. It happens when knobby vegetables are trashed because they don’t fit the ideal shape consumers are accustomed to seeing in the produce section of a grocery store, or when we throw away half a plate of uneaten french fries.

What we call the food system currently operates more as a supply chain. This is a part of the problem, asserts Sarah. “We must think of systems, rather than linear pathways. Systems are cyclical and find ways to feed back into the system. The way that the food chain currently works, it’s very linear: store, home, garbage, landfill.”

Systems thinking is what brought Sarah into the realm of food. She started as an architect, a profession that requires holistic thinking to design functional, accommodating spaces. She then moved into social work, a field she describes as “understanding how humans can thrive in a system.” She became a founding member of the Juneau Commission on Sustainability (JCOS) and focused on promoting local foods. Some early JCOS projects included the first food festival and a Saturday farmer’s market. Now, she works as a Cooperative Extension Agent, testing pressure canner gauges, certifying farms, teaching classes on food preparation and preservation, and helping to revive the lost art of kitchen efficiency.

“Every year I get ten to twelve phone calls about what to do with food that’s been in a freezer for a long time,” Sarah recounts. “The answer: eat it! Unless the food thawed at some point, it is perfectly fine to eat. There is no expiration date on frozen food.” The same logic applies to many other food products, including food that’s passed the “best by” or expiration dates. These dates are recommendations based around flavor and quality. Sarah recommends reviving old food by cutting off freezer burn, turning vegetables into pureed soups, or canning other food products to clear up space in the freezer. Moreover, she advocates being close to the source of food. When you know a producer, you can let them know that the quality is poor, since poor quality food is often wasted food.

Through meal planning, knowing what food a household has on hand, and following best practices in food storage and food preservation, a family can save money on their food bill, reduce food waste, and decrease their carbon footprint.

Driving an Electric Vehicle with Devon Kibby

26 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of electric vehicles as a solution to climate change.

“I want to be able to drive my car anywhere.” Devon Kibby, founding member of the Alaska Electric Vehicle Association and Juneau’s electric vehicle (EV) guru, says his interest in electrical engineering led him to buy a “laptop with wheels,” but his motivation in the burgeoning sector is simpler.  When EVs first started trending in Juneau, he realized that his efforts could help a new wave of EV owners drive electric further.

It was as recent as 2012 that EVs made a growing appearance on Juneau’s roads. Within the decade, Juneau has become a hot-spot nationally for EV adoption. Juneau is experiencing an EV boom, thanks to the work of individuals like Devon and organizations like the Juneau Electric Vehicle Association, AEL&P, the Juneau Economic Development Corporation, and the Alaska Electric Vehicle Association.

On a per capita basis, there is one EV per 76 residents in Juneau. There were 418 electric vehicles registered in Juneau as of November 2020. But this laudable number still only accounts for 1.6% of the over 20,000 locally registered vehicles.

Globally, the transportation sector is only second to the generation of electricity when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Two-thirds of global oil usage goes to fuel over one billion cars and trucks (there are over 5.6 million EVs). Locally, 29% of Juneau’s greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to highway transport. We may be a leader in electric vehicle adoption, but even Juneau needs to expand what Devon calls the “EV ecosystem” if we are to achieve 80% of our energy coming from renewable sources by 2045, as articulated in the Juneau Renewable Energy Strategy.

Since Juneau generates its electricity from renewable hydropower fed by high-altitude lakes, driving an EV is truly zero emission.  Emission reductions are but one reason why EVs make sense in Juneau.  Juneau’s moderate climate extends battery longevity—not too hot—without severely impacting performance—not too cold. The cost to operate an EV is relatively low and stable, as annual maintenance is very minimal and the price for locally-generated electricity used to power the vehicles fluctuates less than gas or diesel. Access to electricity is less likely to be impacted by global events or shipping issues. Moreover, so-called “range anxiety” related to the distance one can travel between charges is less of an issue in the water and land-locked town of Juneau, simply because we don’t have far to drive. With over twenty electric vehicle charging stations stretching from Eagle Crest to Eagle Beach, Juneau EV drivers can get anywhere they need without being far from a no-cost charging station. This is in part thanks to the donation of eleven used charging stations to JEVA and Devon doing the maintenance work to keep them operating.

While the reasons to purchase and drive an EV are myriad, to create a thriving “EV ecosystem” will take not only simply purchasing an EV, but also reevaluation of infrastructure, regulatory environments, and more. While Juneauites can currently drive from Douglas Harbor to Eagle Beach, charging at both points and places in between, it’s still not possible to drive an EV up the Alcan, and it’s barely possible to drive—let alone quickly-- between Anchorage and Fairbanks.

“Solving all the chicken and egg problems,” is what Devon spends much of his time doing these days, as he works with statewide and nationwide EV advocates to grow this nascent transportation sector within Alaska. And there are many such problems, from the more simple-- do we need more EVs in a community before we install charging stations, or should we install charging stations to show that EVs are possible in the community?—to more complex, like convincing regional utilities to create a rate structure for EV charging before there are even EV chargers in the region.

“There’s not just one thing to work on,” Devon explains. “To get a solution in place, there are five or six organizations that need to be coordinated.” He provides several examples. “You need fast chargers, which face a barrier from electrical demand charges,” a utility regulation issue that goes to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska. “There’s legislative issues that pop up, like resale of electricity or road taxes,” referring to the fact that some road maintenance is funded in part through taxes on gas, and EV drivers don’t pay gas taxes. “There’s the municipal angle: what role do towns and cities play, how should limited resources be allocated, and which stakeholders bear the cost? Then there’s the simpler stuff, like how to get people to buy EVs. Each of these has to happen at the same time to make this ecosystem advance.”

But the ecosystem is advancing. The RCA is exploring rate structures for fast charging stations across Alaska. Tesla has a facility in Fairbanks for testing and tuning their EVs. Southeast utility Alaska Power and Telephone offers a rebate for customers who purchase EVs. AEL&P has a special rate for clients who charge EVs during non-peak hours on a metered charger. Federal grants totaling nearly $9 million are going to electrify Capital Transit, which has received its first electric bus with the potential for complete conversion to electric around 2030.

Thanks to advancements in battery storage and ongoing advocacy on the part of electric vehicle drivers, large-scale adoption of electrified transportation is in reach. Yet there’s still work for Alaska to do to secure its transportation and energy future, attract investment, and build the required infrastructure to fast-track this necessary transportation revolution.

Composting Organic Waste with Lisa Daugherty

Lisa Daugherty recycles food waste and other organic materials through composting. Photo by Brian Wallace.

60 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of composting as a solution to climate change.

Eighty people opted to cram in the conference room at the Mendenhall Valley Library to hear Lisa Daugherty offer advice on composting on a sunny Saturday in March instead of bask under blue sky. Soon after, Juneau Composts!, Lisa’s business that gathers household food scraps and converts the scraps into compost, sold out of finished compost in just three weeks.

Interest in compost—both the finished product used as a soil amendment, and the process of converting organic materials into said product— is growing in Juneau, and for good reason. Home gardening is a burgeoning hobby as pandemic “victory gardens” appear in backyards across the community. Each of these gardens requires amendments like compost to convert Juneau’s notoriously poor soil into something that will grow plants and not just slugs.

Moreover, there’s vocal public opposition to the stench of the landfill, some of which comes from the organic materials that are disposed there. When organic materials like food waste, cardboard, and yard debris decompose in the anaerobic environment of the landfill, they produce methane, a greenhouse gas that’s thirty-seven times more potent than carbon dioxide. What could have been turned into compost becomes a major contributor to global warming. For this reason, of the 80 solutions to global warming recommended by Project Drawdown, composting is listed as 60.

There is no recent study that measures the volume of food waste or compostable materials that are landfilled in Juneau each year. Nonetheless, Waste Management reported in 2015 that 22,900 tons of municipal solid waste entered the landfill. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates close to 50% of municipal solid waste is compostable, with 22% of that discarded food. If Juneau fits the national pattern, 5,308 tons of food waste, or over 10 million pounds per year, are sent to the landfill. In 2020, Juneau Composts! diverted 220,000 pounds of food waste from the landfill. That’s 2% of the total food waste Juneau likely generates.

“Most people are used to recycling paper or aluminum cans. What we need now is for people to look at food waste as a product that’s also worthy of recycling,” Lisa explains.

Turning food waste, paper, cardboard, and yard debris into compost is a natural form of recycling, with the end product being a nutritious medium for nurturing more food. “But unlike paper or aluminum, when we recycle food waste, we keep those resources in the community. The recycling process happens here and the compost stays here,” explains Lisa.

Mixing nitrogen heavy “green” organic materials with carbon heavy “brown” organic materials to create the microbe-haven that is compost must move from the specialized realm of the gardener to everyday waste management practice if we are to maximize the benefits of composting. Treating compostable waste as a commodity can help Juneau reduce the 2% of our greenhouse gas emissions that derive from waste management, while solving other local problems. If we continue to throw away recyclable and compostable materials at our current rate, Juneau’s landfill will be full within twenty years.

If the whole community adopts composting as a waste management solution, Juneau can extend the life of the landfill, decrease Juneau’s methane emissions, boost the health of our soil, and produce something of value while living up to our values.

“This circular economy, this circular use of resources, is where the world needs to head,” says Lisa.

Electrifying Marine Transportation with Bob Varness

32 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of shipping as a solution to climate change.

Juneau is the most active maritime port in Alaska. In 2019, the City and Borough of Juneau’s Harbormaster issued 2028 launch ramp permits. That same year, large cruise ships made 556 port calls. There are 213 fishing vessels ported in Juneau. Plus, Juneau has the most documented commercial vessels over 25 feet in the state.

Simultaneously, maritime-related emissions are toxic to human health and contributors to global warming. The bunker fuel that powers large ships contains 3500 times more sulfur than the diesel in cars and trucks. The cruise ships that frequent Juneau are mandated to burn diesel fuel when near port, but a cruise ship emits more nitrogen oxide during 8 hours at port than 10,000 cars.

Even small boat engines are notoriously dirty. In 2010, the International Maritime Organization mandated emissions improvements on maritime motors, but these newer engines still release 30 times more emissions than a standard car engine. The Juneau Climate Action & Implementation Plan reported that in 2010, 10% of Juneau’s fuel went to power marine vessels. This fuel then generated 17% of Juneau’s greenhouse gas emissions. Note that this number is artificially low, because it does not include vessels that purchase fuel elsewhere (like cruise ships and barges), or recreational vessels that are fueled at the gas-pump, rather than the dock. Clearly, our maritime lifestyles and dependence on maritime transportation generate significant emissions above and beyond the smog that hovers over cruise ships in the summer.

But solutions exist to mitigate the noxious pollution emanating from ships and the greenhouse gas emissions released from our outboard motors. These include dock electrification, electric boats, and hybrid diesel/electric marine vessels. 

In 2004, Bob Varness looked up Lynn Canal as he returned home after bringing tourists on a whale watching trip and saw the haze of diesel smoke. In 2014 he was on the verge of retiring and planning to restart his whale watching business. Yet thinking back, he remembered if often felt he was selling tours in order to keep his boat full of fuel. “Something has to change,” he thought to himself.

After a career spent in telecommunications and decades spent tinkering on watercraft, Bob figured he had a straightforward solution: an electric-powered boat. This emissions-free vessel would run on local hydropower, a much cheaper fuel source than the marine fuel barged to Juneau. Moreover, the near-silent motor’s eco-friendly credentials would set him apart from other whale watching outfits.

Little did Bob know that he was propelling his way into a nascent industry. He looked to buy an electric boat and couldn’t find one. So he connected with a naval architect, and together they found a battery solution for powering the Tongass Rain, a 47 passenger electric powered catamaran. But federal regulatory code and the swiftness of technological changes within the battery industry conspired to mire the project in red tape. “It fell flat with the Coast Guard inspection process. There was no established process or code for certifying lithium battery powered passenger vessels over 6 passengers. Plus the electric propulsion technology was changing so rapidly, and anytime you changed one element in the plan you had to start the process all over again.” Bob decided to shelve the Tongass Rain and wait for the regulatory environment and battery technologies to mature.

In the meantime, he’s designed several additional electric powered vessels. Several are still conceptual, but others are already in operation, including his retrofitted Sea Dory with a 10 kilowatt hour battery bank, and his catamaran, the Tongass Mist, with a 21 kilowatt hour battery bank. Bob has started selling Torqueedo electric outboards and estimates that there are close to fifteen electric powered watercraft in Juneau, with a few others across Alaska.

Although the electric boat industry is new, it is growing in popularity and horsepower. “You can operate your boat at a 75% to 80% cost savings compared to diesel,” Bob explains. “And there are options from one horse power to a hundred horse power.”

Hybrid options are available, as well. Fishing vessels that convert to hybrid-electric motors would experience a 35% reduction in fuel costs, Bob asserts.

Electric boats present a compelling work force development opportunity. Demand for converting watercraft to electric and hybrid-electric is growing, but “Who is there to do these conversions? This isn’t just a local opportunity, it is a global business opportunity,” Bob says.

Bob recently formed a collaboration of boat-building professionals to design, build and deliver electric vessels in Alaska and elsewhere. This effort is intended to educate on the benefits of vessel electrification and deliver Alaska-tough electric boats to clients.

Juneau could be a leader in the electrification of maritime transportation. It would require educating consumers and developing and attracting a maritime workforce capable of converting and servicing electric watercraft. Moreover, dock electrification needs to become standard practice, both for cruise ships and smaller watercraft. For personal and commercial watercraft, this would take the guise of dock slips with power receptacles for faster charging. For cruise ships, this would be requiring shore power at all commercial docks and piers.

When the City and Borough of Juneau provided shore power to the Franklin dock in 2001, Juneau became the first cruise port in the world with such infrastructure. But that leadership has been eclipsed as other ports have aggressively (and successfully) reduced emissions from shipping. Today we are faced with both the pressing need to reduce our maritime transportation-related emissions, and a staggering economic opportunity: to convert Alaska’s busiest maritime port into its greenest.  

Insulating Buildings with Alan Wilson

31 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of insulation as a solution to climate change.

“A granite counter top won’t pay you back over time,” Alan Wilson states. “But investing in energy efficiency measures, that will.”

Considering as much as 80% of the energy consumed in a building can be wasted, and that a leaky building can siphon up to 60% of a building’s purchased energy, Alan’s point becomes quite clear.

The building sector accounts for a notable chunk of our community’s greenhouse gas inventory. In Juneau, buildings accounted for 32% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2010. Much of that derives from using fossil fuels to heat buildings and water.

We can reduce carbon emissions through conserving the energy we already use with efficiency measures. For our buildings, this means upgrading incandescent light bulbs to LEDs, enhancing the air tightness of buildings, using insulation, and other practical applications of building science to reduce emissions, improve the experience of the occupant, and save money.

“I think most people are aware of the carbon, but that’s not usually how I gauge it, because it’s something that’s hard for everyone to relate to. But dollars and cents, people can relate to that,” says Alan. The payback time for many retrofit projects is five to seven years according to Project Drawdown. That’s the point where an owner has recouped project costs in energy savings. After that, it’s money in the pocket.

Since moving to Juneau in 1991, he’s advocated for increasing the affordability of local housing, “but I don’t think I’ve made much progress,” he chuckles. That’s not entirely true, though. As a founding board member of the Cold Climate Housing Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Alaska Heat Smart here in Juneau, Alan’s research, advocacy, and practical application of energy efficiency measures has undoubtedly saved home owners’ money.

But there’s a persistent barrier to the widespread adoption of energy efficiency improvements and new technologies, like heat pumps. Builders and others base their decisions on immediate costs, rather than long-term savings. This becomes especially apparent in multi-family homes, where the owners look to construction cost instead of the long-term utility costs, since tenants are responsible for those.

“Ninety percent of the multi-family housing in Juneau is 20 years or older. They have electric baseboards, they have fuel-oil furnaces,” Alan explains. “How can we incentivize owners to make energy efficiency improvements in these cases, when they have no problem keeping their buildings occupied due to the shortage of housing?”

The former Home Energy Rebate Program was a highly effective incentive. The financing for weatherization and energy improvements available through that project helped 27,000 homes across Alaska eliminate 3 billion pounds of carbon emissions, and reduced the energy costs of participants by an average of 34%. Homes in Southeast Alaska reduced carbon emissions by 44%.

While that program provided incentive to hire professional help, many of the ways that we can enhance the efficiency of our homes require basic skills. “Most of it isn’t rocket science,” Alan states. “You don’t have to hire people for a lot of the work, much of it you could do yourself. Replacing weather strips, caulking seams. With a short tutorial you can do it yourself, make your house less drafty, and save money.”

All should be empowered to make energy efficiency improvements and consider the responsible use of the energy that we purchase, Alan contends. The responsible use of resources means thinking about long-term benefits and savings. It also means building to future codes now, rather than to the minimum standards. When thinking of home energy and heating standards, what’s adequate today will likely be subpar in the coming decade, “and I want what I build to perform as well in year twenty as it does in year one.”

With such thinking, we can adapt our current building stock to meet the needs of occupants and the climate.

Boosting Heat Pumps with Andy Romanoff

42 of 80: Project Drawdown’s ranking of heat pumps as a solution to climate change.

“Heat locally,” proclaims Andy Romanoff with a grin. As program lead of Renewable Juneau’s Carbon Offset Fund, Andy has co-opted the “locavore” mentality pushed by farmers, chefs, and eaters to the realm of residential heating. He joins a crew of renewable energy advocates, lower-income homeowners, and local contractors who together are reducing greenhouse gas emissions and housing costs through a modest appliance: the air source heat pump, powered with locally-produced renewable energy.

For Andy, when it comes to carbon reductions, “it all starts at home.” He notes that on average, most Juneau homes generate 10,000 to 11,000 pounds of carbon emissions each year just from heating. Taking a broader view, Juneau’s building sector was responsible for 28% of our greenhouse gas emissions in 2010. Most of these emissions come from oil-burning boilers and furnaces used to heat living and work spaces. Replacing heating systems that rely on imported fossil fuels with electricity-powered heat pumps eliminates most building-related emissions.

The Juneau Renewable Energy Strategy, adopted by Juneau’s Assembly in 2018, affirms the proliferation of heat pumps as an effective strategy to achieve the goal of deriving  80% of Juneau’s energy from renewable sources by 2045. And since 2018, a host of organizations have stepped forward to advance the adoption of air source heat pumps in Juneau. This includes Alaska Heat Smart, a nonprofit dedicated to assisting homeowners with the purchase and installation of heat pumps, and the Juneau Carbon Offset Fund, Renewable Juneau’s program that installs heat pumps in the homes of qualifying lower-income families.

Heat pump advocates spend much of their time educating policy makers and consumers about how heat pumps work, as their benefits are derived from their function. Heat pumps transfer heat instead of generate heat. Ground source heat pumps transfer heat from the ground, and air-source heat pumps transfer ambient heat from the air. Air source heat pumps are 250% efficient, because they move more heat than the electricity consumed to do so. ‘Mini-split ductless’ heat pumps are the simplest on the market; a system that pairs an outside compressor unit with an indoor unit to distribute the heat.

These efficient devices powered by Juneau’s relatively inexpensive electricity translate to notable savings on energy bills, in addition to sizeable carbon reductions. Data from Alaska Heat Smart indicates that households that install air source heat pumps see an average 45% reduction in the cost of space heating. And those 10,000 annual pounds of CO2 emissions resulting from fossil fuel heating sources? Eliminated.

These savings improve housing affordability and the carbon savings help our environment, creating a win-win scenario that a rapidly growing number of residents enjoy. Over 100 heat pumps were installed in Juneau in 2020 alone.

These benefits are not shared equally. Low-income families often lack the up-front cash required to purchase and install heat pumps. The primary push of the Juneau Carbon Offset Fund (JCOF), which Andy manages as a volunteer, is to bring equity to Juneau’s and the nation’s heat pump revolution. JCOF works as a funding mechanism to bring free heat pumps to lower-income home owners.

A growing number of people are aware of the carbon emissions resulting from 21st century living – heating, driving, shipping, travel – these all add up to a sizable carbon impact. JCOF offers a service to those looking to reduce the impact of the emissions they generate by selling these individuals carbon offsets. JCOF attaches an accurately-calculated price to the amount of carbon resulting from an activity—take flying as an example. Individuals purchase carbon offsets to compensate for these emissions. The money then goes to installing air source heat pumps in lower-income family homes in Juneau. These air source heat pumps replace fuel oil units and permanently prevent the release of greenhouse gas emissions that otherwise would have been generated. The newly-installed heat pumps thus “offset” the emissions the flight generated. And, the heat pump substantially lowers the home heating costs of the recipient.

JCOF “gives local residents and business owners the option to take meaningful climate action in the town they live in and love,” says Andy. As for those who receive heat pumps, “it’s fantastic to see their faces light up when they see how much money they’ll save with the heat pump.” Since its inception, JCOF has funded one air source heat pump installation per month.

Other programs are in the works that hopefully will hasten the adoption of heat pumps for residential heating. A coalition of local organizations including Alaska Heat Smart, Renewable Juneau, and Interfaith Power and Light are exploring more financing options, including on-bill financing and low-interest loans for air source heat pump conversions.

The ballooning popularity of heat pumps will continue unabated. Andy has witnessed how one installation spurs another, and then another, as friends and neighbors hear of the comfort and cost savings that accompany heat pumps. “The impact is bigger than you, and that’s important to know,” Andy notes. “The climate crisis can seem daunting and hopeless, but with local action that starts in your home, not only can you slash your own carbon footprint, but you can effect change in others. We all have the potential to have a greater impact that we may realize. Our climate actions have a ripple effect on those around us.”

Introducing Juneau's Climate Change Solutionists

We have solutions. We are the solution.

For at least 10,000 years the people of Juneau have cared for this land and environment. This is evident from millennia of Tlingit stewardship to the community values expressed through the Juneau Renewable Energy Strategy and Juneau Climate Action and Implementation Plan. Now, as global climate change warms our ocean, threatens our native plants and animals, changes our weather patterns, and threatens our environment and ways of living, Juneau people recognize that we are both part of this global problem and we are part of the global solution.

The Juneau Renewable Energy Strategy asserts Juneau will be powered by 80% renewable energy by 2045. Juneau’s Climate Change Solutionists show us that we can achieve this goal and suggests practical ways that each person in Juneau can contribute to reducing our community’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The solutions featured here come from Project Drawdown, an international effort that quantifies the eighty most effective solutions for reversing global warming. These eighty solutions exist today; they are not fantasy or still under development. Here you’ll find ten of these solutions that “drawdown” global greenhouse gas emissions and ten Juneauites who embody these solutions.

How we power our lives now impacts our ability to sustain a habitable planet in the future. As of 2010, only 20% of Juneau’s energy came from renewable sources. Although our hydro-powered electricity originates from a renewable source, 4/5ths of our energy derives from the fossil fuels we use to heat buildings, fuel all kinds of vehicles, and power daily activities. Juneau needs to electrify as much as it can, and now.

How we care for the land matters a great deal, as well. We also must preserve the ability of our land to process and store carbon. Juneau sits in the middle of a temperate rain forest, surrounded by coastal wetlands and muskeg—known elsewhere as peatlands. Our natural blessings serve as global carbon sinks. These must be protected so they can continue the natural processes required to keep global heating below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

And finally, our own behaviors bear examination. We are located at the end of a shockingly long supply chain, one that in many cases originates at degraded lands. Until that supply chain is electrified and the degradation of those lands abates, our choice in food and our waste management responsibilities carry a carbon weight greater than our biome can take.

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by a Covid-19 Juneau ArtWorks grants. Thanks to project collaborators, Christine Carpenter and Brian Wallace, all the featured solutionists, Stuart Cohen for the initial idea and encouragement, and the Juneau Commission on Sustainability, Renewable Juneau, and Interfaith Power and Light.