Even Boulder finds it isn't easy going green

• February 13, 2010
• Stephanie Simon
• Wall Street Journal

City officials never dreamed they'd have to play nanny when they set out in
2006 to make Boulder a role model in the fight against global warming. The
cause seemed like a natural fit in a place where residents tend to be
politically liberal and passionate about the great outdoors.

Instead, as Congress considers how to encourage Americans to conserve more energy, Boulder stands as a cautionary tale about the limits of good intentions.

"What we've found is that for the vast majority of people, it's exceedingly difficult to get them to do much of anything," says Kevin Doran, a senior research fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

President Barack Obama has set ambitious goals for cutting greenhouse-gas
emissions, in part by improving energy efficiency. Last year's stimulus bill
set aside billions to weatherize buildings. The president has also called
for a "cash for caulkers" rebate for Americans who weatherize their homes.
But Boulder has found that financial incentives and an intense publicity
campaign aren't enough to spur most homeowners to action, even in a city so
environmentally conscious that the college football stadium won't sell
potato chips because the packaging isn't recyclable.

Take George Karakehian. He considers himself quite green: He drives a
hybrid, recycles, uses energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. But he
refuses to practice the most basic of conservation measures: Shutting the
doors to his downtown art gallery when his heating or air conditioning is
running.
Mr. Karakehian knows he's wasting energy. He doesn't care.

"I'm old-school," Mr. Karakehian says. "I've always been taught that an open
door is the way to invite people in."
He's not alone in ignoring the call to arms.

Since 2006, Boulder has subsidized about 750 home energy audits. Even after
the subsidy, the audits cost each homeowner up to $200, so only the most
committed signed up. Still, follow-up surveys found half didn't implement
even the simplest recommendations, despite incentives such as discounts on
energy-efficient bulbs and rebates for attic insulation.

About 75 businesses got free audits; they made so few changes that they
collectively saved just one-fifth of the energy auditors estimated they were
wasting.

"We still have a long way to go," says Paul Sheldon, a consultant who
advises the city on conservation. Residents "should be driving
high-efficiency vehicles, and they're not. They should be carpooling, and
they're not." And yes, he adds, they should be changing their own light
bulbs-and they're not.

The science behind climate change has taken hits of late. Authors of a
landmark 2007 report on global warming have admitted to some errors in their
work, though they stand by their conclusion that climate change is
"unequivocal" and is "very likely" due to human activity, such as burning
fossil fuels for energy. British climate scientists have also come under
fire after their hacked email correspondence seemed to indicate they tried
to squelch dissenting views.

Here in Boulder, some climate-change skeptics have become more vocal about
their doubts in public and in online forums. But for the most part, those
working on the energy-efficiency plan say the public still backs it. The
hitch is in getting residents to move from philosophical support to concrete
action. As Mr. Sheldon put it, until his neighbors all decide, "'We're doing
this!'... the city will be pushing a rope uphill."

A city of 100,000, tucked up against the Rocky Mountains, Boulder has a
proud history of environmentalism. It was one of the first to levy a tax to
protect open space. Residents bike to work at 20 times the national average.

In 2006, Boulder voters approved the nation's first "carbon tax," now $21 a
year per household, to fund energy-conservation programs. The city took out
print ads, bought radio time, sent email alerts and promoted the campaign in
city newsletters.

But Boulder's carbon emissions edged down less than 1% from 2006 through
2008, the most recent data available.

By the end of 2008, emissions here were 27% higher than 1990 levels. That's
a worse showing than the U.S. as a whole, where emissions rose 15% during
that period, according to the Department of Energy.

"If a place like Boulder that regards itself as being in the environmental
forefront has such a tough time, these types of efforts are not going to
work as a core policy" for the nation, says Roger Pielke Jr., who studies
the political response to climate change at the University of Colorado,
Boulder.

One problem: People don't want to give up gadgets. Recently, Prof. Pielke
taught a seminar on energy demand. The university had installed
motion-detector lights that shut off when the room is vacant to save energy.
But when he asked his 17 students to lay all their iPods, cellphones and
laptops on their desks, they had 42 electronic devices among them. Powering
those up, he said, negated any conservation value from the fancy lights.

A local home-theater installer says most customers purchase a power strip,
so they can turn off the outlet when they're not watching. But during the
Christmas holidays, 65-inch flat-screen TVs flew off the shelves of
Boulder's ListenUp Audio/Video. "People are definitely going for bigger
screens," manager Bob Murphy says.

City officials are frustrated-and contemplating more forceful steps.

The City Council will soon consider mandating energy-efficiency upgrades to
many apartments and businesses. The proposals under review would be among
the most aggressive in the nation, requiring up to $4,000 a rental unit in
new appliances, windows and other improvements. Owners of commercial
property could face far larger tabs.

The goal: to spur $650 million in private investment in efficiencies over
the next three years.
"Everyone needs to do something," says Councilman Matthew Appelbaum.

Unless the city does it for them. Recognizing that, as Mr. Appelbaum puts
it, "it's a real pain to do all that work," Boulder plans to spend about
$1.5 million in city funds and $370,000 in federal stimulus money to hire
contractors to do basic upgrades for residents.

In the program, dubbed "Two Techs in a Truck," as many as 15
energy-efficiency teams will go door-to-door. They'll ask home and business
owners for permission to caulk windows, change bulbs and install low-flow
showerheads and programmable thermostats-all at taxpayer expense. The techs
will set up clothes racks in laundry rooms as a reminder to use the dryer
less often. They'll even pop into the garage and inflate tires to the
optimum pressure for fuel efficiency.

If they spot the need for bigger projects, such as insulation or a new
furnace, the techs will help homeowners make appointments and apply for
rebates.
Some grumble about Big Brother: "It's like, 'We're going to find a way to
make sure you do this the way we want you to,' " says Robert Greenlee, a
former mayor.

City officials say most residents want to make these changes; they just
never seem to get around to it. In a test run in a lower-income Boulder
neighborhood, nearly 70% of homeowners accepted the free upgrades. "We want
to take away the financial barrier and the hassle barrier," said Kara Mertz,
the city's local environmental action manager. That may not be enough.

Kathie Joyner, an environmental planner, was one of the first to get a
city-subsidized home-energy audit, back in 2006. She eagerly trailed the
auditor through her modest bungalow, watching as he pointed out leaks and
inefficiencies. He promised she could slash her utility bills by a third.

Ms. Joyner vowed to get to work. But tackling the whole list would have cost
$4,000. She ended up spending less than $1,000, mostly on insulation and
weather-stripping. The rest of the advice, she set aside. "It just kind of
went out of my brain," she says.

Three years later, Ms. Joyner says she hasn't noticed lower energy bills, in
part because of rising rates and fluctuations in her electricity use
depending on the weather. Frustrated, she says she isn't sure her investment
paid off, either for her pocketbook or the planet. That discouraged her from
spending more on the project. "That's the big disconnect for most of us,"
she says. "It's all very squishy. We're not really sure if it matters."

Among the most successful of Boulder's green initiatives, as measured by
participation, is a program under which residents pay the local utility a
premium-up to about $25 a month-to support wind power. That requires no
effort beyond opening a checkbook. About 5,500 households participate.
By comparison, just 45 businesses committed to cut their energy use by 10%
within a year, a pledge requiring more active steps. The city estimates
those businesses will cut greenhouse-gas emissions by a total of 17,000
metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent. That's approximately the amount of
carbon dioxide that 3,100 average U.S. cars emit in a year. Sending two
techs in a truck to do the work for other, less-motivated businesses will
reduce emissions far more-an estimated 88,000 tons-but at far greater
taxpayer expense.

Relying on voluntary action is "slow to show significant results," the city
concluded in a report last fall that called for stepped-up regulation.
James W.C. White, an environmental studies professor at the University of
Colorado, says the city deserves credit for trying to push energy
efficiencies. "It's always hard being out in front," he says, "but
somebody's got to lead."

The city aims to overcome public inertia with a fresh advertising approach.
Instead of talking about environmental benefits, new promotions will focus
on financial benefits: Save energy, save money.

But there are signs Boulder's efforts are starting to lose favor. Voters
county-wide last fall rejected a measure that would have doubled a public
fund set up to give homeowners low-interest loans for efficiency upgrades,
such as a new furnace.

In the same November election, city voters elected to the council several
newcomers eager to moderate Boulder's aggressive environmentalism.
Among the newly elected: Mr. Karakehian, the gallery owner who insists on
keeping his front door open. He is concerned about the city mandating
conservation and says his constituents agree.

"My phone has been ringing off the hook," he says. "I've had a lot of people
talk to me. Not happy people. Maybe we've bit off more than we can chew."
There are, of course, true believers in Boulder. Councilman Macon Cowles,
who won re-election last fall, almost never drives, has stopped heating his
pool and just re-insulated his home. The Shanahan neighborhood in Boulder
offers "solar tours" of local photovoltaic panels. Two years ago, just a
dozen homes there had solar. Now, nearly 50 do.

Jeff Hohensee, a sustainability consultant, invested $125,000 in home-energy
upgrades-though with rebates, his cost was $35,000-so his home uses only as
much energy as solar panels on his roof produce. To spur neighbors to follow
suit, he suggests the city measure every home's carbon footprint and
publicize the results.

City officials aren't willing to go that far. But they are hoping to
leverage peer pressure. They plan to post congratulatory signs outside homes
that have let the "two techs in a truck" change the light bulbs. They'll
offer prizes to churches and schools that get commitments from, say, 100
families to insulate their attics. They'll host energy-efficiency block
parties and plan to hire a consultant to create a conservation buzz on
Facebook and Twitter.

Even if residents implement every possible efficiency, it will take Boulder
only part of the way toward its goal of slashing emissions of the pollutants
linked to global warming.

More than 1,000 U.S. cities have pledged to make such cuts, yet analysts say
most are stymied-in part because it's extremely difficult to reduce
emissions without a wholesale switch to renewable energy sources. Boulder
depends almost entirely for energy on a coal-powered plant.

Jonathan Koehn, the city's regional sustainability coordinator, feels the
pressure keenly.

"People say, 'It's Boulder! Kooky Boulder! Of course you can do it,'" he
says, and sighs. "Not necessarily."