Seven weeks to go!

Nov 14, 2009

Waiting to start our presentation at Jefferson Memorial Forest

With only seven weeks until the end of our project, we are in high gear.  On Friday, November 6th, we gave an important presentation to the public at Jefferson Memorial Forest, a local park in the Louisville area.  The presentation was a power point by PBI, including the powerful ice loss video, and it made a huge impact on our audience.  We will be giving the same presentation to the public at Bernheim Forest on December 27th, and at a 3-day event focusing on the environment at the Falls of the Ohio State Park at a date TBA.

Emily discussing her personal experience with polar bears during her PBI Leadership Camp experience in 2007.

As for new pledges, we will be adding two new ones to our website soon.  They include Dr. Shellie Branson's Dental Clinic at 22,080 pounds CO2 saved, and St. Matthews Animal Clinic has added 18,950 pounds to their original pledge.  Emily has been working with them to improve their green report card.  We are also bursting at the seams to tell you about some upcoming possible pledges with very large companies, but we'll wait until everything is official before we announce their names.

On a side note, all three of us just attended a behind-the-scenes tour of our upcoming polar bear exhibit, Glacier Run, at the Louisville Zoo.  It was absolutely amazing! 

Important plans

Nov 08, 2009

Last Sunday we met at the zoo to check each other's progress and make plans for the rest of our project time.  Only 7 more weeks to go!  We have to make use of every single day.  We talked at length about each company and what we are going to do to get them to sign our pledge.  We also discussed upcoming presentations that we have planned, including the talk at Jefferson Memorial Forest, a presentation for Junior Achievement, a talk for the public at Bernheim Forest, and a big 3-day event at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  At this event, we will be showing our Power Point presentation on their big movie screen and will be a part of their 3-day event focused on climate change.

Making plans at the zoo

We also wanted to tell you about our great first meeting with Norton Healthcare System.  Norton has 5 hospitals, 15 outpatient care facilities, and 300 doctors on staff in their hospitals and around the region in Norton practices.  You can appreciate how big they are and how much CO2 could be saved by green practices.  Emily met with Claire Rupert, who is one of their executives and is running their new "green team," a group of Norton employees who want to try to make Norton greener.  Emily spent an hour and a half with Claire on Wednesday, and they discussed how Emily is going to help them.  The next step is for Emily to meet with their Director of Facilities.  We will keep you informed!

Meeting with Claire Rupert at Norton Healthcare

An update on our progress

Oct 26, 2009

Talking to the Mayor of Louisville at our booth

Last Saturday we set up a booth at a local event called the Mayor's Healthy Hike.  It was held at a beautiful park called the Jefferson Memorial Forest.  We told people about our project, got some personal pledges, and made contacts to call at local companies.  The personal pledges we got totalled almost 59,000 lbs.!  One of the exciting happenings of the day was that we got to meet the mayor of Louisville, Jerry Abramson.  We told him about our project, and he was very excited.  Kaitlin also was able to get on the PA system and tell everyone about our project.  We were able to make a lot of good contacts.

Kaitlin telling everyone about our project.

We are making progress on getting  company pledges.  A local architectural firm called Arrasmith, Judd, Rapp & Chavan, Inc., made a pledge of 14,770 pounds of CO2 saved per year.  The Bristol Bar & Grille, which operates a large catering service, made a large pledge of 182,300 lbs.!  We are in negotiations with a dozen or more large companies in the area, including one of the largest healthcare providers in the state, which is very exciting.  We are scheduled to make a presentation to their executive staff in November.  This could potentially be a huge pledge!  We'll keep you posted.

Another bit of excitement is that a national organization of nurses who are interested in making helathcare greener are having their national conference next June in D.C.  They have asked us to be presenters.  While this will occur after our project is over, we still feel that it is part of our mission to help reduce CO2 emissions and save the bears.  This could be huge, with the possibility of reaching people nationwide.  Healthcare is one of the largest emitters of CO2 gases, and being able to reach them could be monumental.

We are thrilled so far with how things are going.  Working with companies on this project isn't always easy, but we are confidant that we can reach many of them and make the difference needed. 

Energy use assessment kit

Oct 11, 2009

Now that we have our assessment kits ready to go, we are busy making appointments with businesses and organizations in our area.  We thought we would show you what the kits look like.  We used folders made from 100% post-consumer recycled materials, and eco-friendly paper made from banana peels, grass, and elephant poop.  We love it!  For the front of the folder, we printed stickers with the project name. Inside the folder we put two papers:  the first one is a letter explaining what we are doing, and the second one is the important part, the actual assessment sheet where CO2 and money saved can be calculated for each of seven options.  We love the design of our kits, complete with Arctic backgrounds and wild polar bears.

The front of the assessment kit

The inside of the kit

We have already made appointments with several companies, and are close to getting our first commitments.  We are very excited about our progress so far and how we are being received in the community.

This coming weekend we are going to have a booth set up at the Mayor's Healthy Hike event at Jefferson Memorial Forest. We hope to get a lot of individual pledges and make appointments with  companies to show them our kit. We will keep you updated on our progress.

Educating Kentucky

Sep 23, 2009

We feel that one of the most important aspects of our project is the education of our fellow Kentuckians on how climate change is affecting polar bears.  This past week we gave two big presentations.  The first one was for the staff and volunteers at Bernheim Forest, a public forest with a nationally recognized arboretum and the first LEED® Platinum certified building in the state of Kentucky (LEED is a cerification for an all-green building).  We are planning several talks for Bernheim that will be given to the general public.  Bernheim is involved with many green projects, and we are excited to be a part of their plans to educate the public.

Emily giving the presentation at Bernheim Forest

The second presentation was at the yearly conference of Kentucky Association of Environmental Educators, held at General Butler State Park in Carrollton, Kentucky.  We made a lot of contacts at this conference, including some businesses that we will be approaching.  We hope that we reached a lot of educators with our preseantation, and that they will in turn use some of what we said to help educate their students in the future.

Emily giving the presentation at the KAEE conference.

We have several more presentations scheduled for this fall and winter.  We will continue to make education an integral part of our project.

Up and running!

Sep 15, 2009

Our website is finally ready, having been re-designed to reflect our new project.  You can look at our new site at:

www.louisvillezoo.org/projectpolarbear

We have added a new page to our site for businesses or companies to see how they can help stop climate change and save the bears.  When you visit our site, click on "For Companies" and you will be able to see our Energy Assessment Kit.  Now we are able to begin calling businesses and setting up appointments.

In the meantime, this Saturday was Backyard Action Hero Day at the Louisville Zoo, where we set up a booth to tell people about energy conservation and our project.  We had handouts, all copied on 100% recycled paper, and we made a banner out of felt that was manufactured from recycled bottles.  Our booth was even featured on one of our local news stations.  We spoke to hundreds of people, and were able to get commitments for using less energy that totalled to over 156,000 lbs. of CO2 saved!  We also talked to dozens of people who are interested in having us come to their company to do an energy assessment.  This is a great start for our project.

Sam, Emily and Kaitlin at the booth. 

People signing a personal pledge to use less energy.

One of the people who stopped by our booth showed us his polar bear tattoo. I guess we're not the only ones who love polar bears!

Our next stop is Corporate America as we go into companies to make changes in policy.  Along the way we have talks to give and more booths to set up.  We will keep you updated on our progress.

Spreading the word

Aug 20, 2009

We feel that one of the most important things we can do to help the bears is to educate everyone we can on the threat of climate change, and what we can all do to help stop it.  So in conjunction with our campaign to go into companies and do energy use assessments, we will also be continuing to give talks to the public.  This week we gave a talk to the volunteers at the Jefferson Memorial Forest, which is a wonderful park in southwest Jefferson County.  Emily and Kaitlin showed a Power Point presentation on the bears and gave examples of what everyone can do at home and at work to be greener. 

After we finished our talk, we made plans with Tonya Swan at the forest for a talk to the general public on November 6th.  We will be showing the movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," and then we will have a question/answer session following the movie.  We are very excited about this event as we will be able to reach a lot of people with our message.

We also finished putting together a mock-up of our Energy Use Assessment Packet, which we will be showing to Marcelle, Debbie, and Kara, our advisors at the Louisville Zoo.  We will also be showing them our changes to our website.  After this we will make the changes to the site, and then we will be able to start making appointments with local businesses.

We feel that our project is progressing at a good pace, and we are looking forward to getting started and all of the events we have planned so far.

Making progress

Aug 13, 2009

We just had our third meeting to bring each other up to date on the status of our project.   We were happy to find that we have made a great amount of progress, and are almost ready to put our project into action.  We have formalized the changes we want to make to our website, and we have formulated most of the numbers needed to calculate total carbon dioxide emissions saved per year.  We also have the final product ready of our Energy Assessment Packet that we will be taking into companies.

These are the options we will be giving companies to save both carbon emissions and money:

1.  Shutting down computers and other office equipment at night - saves 200 lbs. of CO2 per computer/machine, and $7.00 per computer/machine.

2.  Programming computers to go on sleep mode while not in use - saves 200 lbs. of CO2 per computer, and $7.00 per computer.

3.  Checking tire pressure in company vehicles monthly, and keeping them inflated at the proper pressure - saves 300 lbs. of CO2 per year per vehicle, and 10% of the yearly fuel bill.

4.  Driving 55 mph on the highway in company vehicles - saves 1,000 lbs. CO2 per vehicle per year, and 10% of the yearly fuel bill.

5.  Adjusting thermostats up in the summer and down in the winter - saves .79 lbs. of CO@ per sq. ft. of space per year, and 2% on the yearly energy bill.

6.  Recycling - saves 3,000 lbs. of CO2 per year per for recycling 30 gallons weekly.

7.  Replacing incadescent light bulbs with fluorescent light bulbs - saves 100 lbs. of CO2 per lightbulb per year, and we are still getting the numbers together for the money saved per year.

In special circumstances, including the use of larger vehicles, separate formulas will be used to calculate the CO2 saved.  The formulas used to calculate these numbers came from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Dept. of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

We also had our picture taken with our mascot, Ursa and Mary the polar bears, to use on our website.  Our next step will be to make the physical changes to our website, and to put together our Energy Assessment Packets.  We also have a big talk planned this Monday at the Jefferson Memorial Forest.  We will be giving our talk on climate change and how it is affecting the bears.

We want to close this blog by saying goodbye to Tahtsa, the oldest polar bear in the U.S., who passed away at the age of 34 at the Indianapolis Zoo.  Tahtsa spent over 30 years at the Louisville Zoo, and was beloved by us all.  She was moved to Indianapolis in 2006 so that we could begin construction on our new upcoming exhibit, Glacier Run.  We will miss you, Tahtsa!

Getting started

Jul 22, 2009

We are three teenagers from Louisville, Kentucky, who are dedicated to saving the mighty polar bear.  We have been working on our project for many months now as a continuation of last year's project, Pledge for the Polar Bears.  In 2008, Pledge for the Polar Bears discovered that a huge amount of CO2 could be saved by making changes in company policies.  As we discussed the results from last year's project, we decided to focus this year's project on changing the way companies use energy, and thus reduce the amount of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere.

We had a meeting at the Louisville Zoo on Monday to assign specific tasks to each member to get our project organized.  Kaitlin will be getting the numbers together for calculating CO2 emissions.  Sam will start working on gathering ideas for our webpage.  Emily will be designing a company audit package. We hope to have our audit packet and webpage ready to go by September, when we will begin making appointments with area companies. 

Kaitlin, Sam and Emily in front of what will soon be the Zoo's new groundbreaking polar bear exhibit, Glacier Run (modeled after the town of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada).

In the meantime, we have been busy giving talks to campers at the Louisville Zoo about polar bears and how climate change is affecting them.  We have many talks planned for this year with adult groups, where we hope to make contacts with companies who would be interested in doing an audit.

Emily giving a talk to a group of campers at the Louisville Zoo.

We will be getting our numbers for CO2 saved and money saved from formulas from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. 

We decided to change our name from last year's project to show that this is a brand new team with a different approach.  The inspiration for our name, There For Tomorrow, came from a band of the same name.  We loved the thought of this name, as we want to make sure today's polar bears are there for tomorrow.  Let's save the bears "a little faster" (the band's new single).

We will keep you updated on our project as it progresses.  We want to thank the Louisville Zoo for their support, both past and future.