Sustainability: St. George, Utah

Reduced or Eliminate Carbon-Based Fuel Consumption

"Fire made us human, fossil fuels made us modern, but now we need a new fire that makes us safe, secure, healthy, and durable." -Amory Lovins

Ray Anderson said, " I remain troubled by the revised Ehrlich equation, I equals P times A divided by T2. That A is a capital A, suggesting that affluence is an end in itself. But what if we reframed Ehrlich further? And what if we made A a lowercase 'a', suggesting that is a means to an end, and that end is happiness -- more happiness with less stuff.

Fun Theory
How can we improve?
 -my score

There are so many things that we could be doing currently in our cities, but one of the most important aspects is getting people involved. The fun theory suggests just that. Our society is one that is networked. It is a society that revolves around technology. What if we used that technology, and our connectedness to make a a difference. St. George tried to reduce the use of carbon-based fuel consumption. In 2010, Mayor Dan McArthur and the city of St. George decided to build a photovoltaic power station. The plan for the solar farm was to start powering a few hundred homes, and as the farm increased the residents could start owning a part of it and receive energy credit based on how much they owned. The idea is to increase the amount of renewable energy while cutting down on CO2 emissions. The idea is long since abandoned; however, we still have the means to do it. The idea of the fun theory allows us to give people incentives to try something new. To have fun with the idea of doing good. 

In reality, the only thing that we could do with St. George is to help this community to have fun. Help them with understanding that doing good is part of humanity. That they shouldn't be afraid of being part of something bigger.

As for using technology and social networking it would be really amazing if there could be an app that helped you find ways during the day to reduce your carbon consumption and help us to calculate what we use everyday or month and how to cut that usage down just like how BP has the website dedicated to calculate carbon consumption within the home. I know that I would use that kind of app everyday especially concerning what I can do to reduce my carbon footprint.