Category Archives: Climate Change

Press Release: Innovation Grants Awarded to Four Projects that Will Transform Waste to Reduce Wildfire Risk, Lock Away Climate Pollution

Earlier this year, Salt Lake City Sustainability staff once again joined their counterparts of the 4 Corners Carbon Coalition (4CCC) to identify innovative carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects to receive grant funding so that they can be replicated and scaled for greater impact in our region. In July, 4CCC announced four awardees that would be receiving $335,000 of funding for their liability biomass projects (read details in the press release below).

You might be wondering what CDR and liability biomass are. As 4CCC puts it, “carbon dioxide removal (CDR) describes diverse processes, on land and at sea, that take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and durably lock it away in geological, biological and synthetic formations for decades, centuries, or even millennia.”

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Pollinator Spotlight: Hummingbirds

By SLCgreen Intern Kate Kuwahara

Image source: Rufous-tailed Hummingbird © Andy Morffew (https://www.flickr.com/photos/andymorffew/23540580394) CC by 2.0

Let’s celebrate National Pollinator Week with a special guest: the hummingbird!

Hummingbirds are amazing creatures with many extraordinary abilities and are one of many essential pollinators. Other pollinators include birds, bats, moths, flies, butterflies, beetles, wasps, and of course, the most well-known pollinator: the bee, of which there are over 20,000 species worldwide.

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Priority Climate Action Plan

When it comes to addressing the climate crisis, the best time to act is now. That’s why it’s so exciting that SLCgreen and partners across Salt Lake County and Tooele County just finished creating a Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP) for the region through what we’ve called the Greater Salt Lake Area Clean Energy & Air Roadmap (SL-CLEAR).  

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Help Us Set our Climate Priorities: Take the SL-CLEAR Survey by February 11

🌍 Tackling Climate Change: A Race We Can Win Together! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ 

Mitigating climate change is both a sprint and a marathon. The challenge? We need to cut our emissions and local air pollution drastically in the near term while investing in projects that can have sustained impact over time. The good news? The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act has provided billions of dollars in federal funding to support climate action. If we make a compelling emissions reduction plan, we can apply for implementation funds to execute.

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2023 Year-in-Review Highlights

By SLCgreen

Every year, we release a Year-in-Review with featuring our high-level accomplishments as well as priorities for the year ahead. (Check out our full 2023 Year in Review booklet here!)

It’s also an important time and opportunity for us to take stock, learn from the experiences we had the previous year, and to continue to improve our programs, services, and operations.

While we engage with Salt Lakers mostly through recycling questions and efforts, we do so much more! Here are some highlights from 2023 and keep a lookout for more details in our Year-in-Review booklet coming soon. (In the meantime, you can take a look at previous annual reports for 2022 and 2021.) Some notable achievements include:

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Fall Into Clean Air: We Can All Be Idle Free

by SLCgreen Staff Brijette Williams

It’s that time of year again! The temperatures are starting to drop, leaves are showing hints of change, and that crisp scent of incoming autumn is the air. The changing seasons also mean it’s time to think about fall and winter air quality season. 

September also marks Idle-free Awareness Month and the annual Governor’s Idle-free Declaration for the month and for Utah’s upcoming winter season. The initiative began in 2006 by Utah Clean Cities and was a statewide effort by 2010 – spurring statewide idle-free policies and action at school districts, cities, towns, counties, and even within Zion National Park.  

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Check out Salt Lake City’s Seventh Annual VegFest this Saturday! 

Graphic of person eating salad. Text: Go Green By Eating Green.

The Seventh Annual VegFest event is coming up this Saturday, September 9 at Library Square.  This is one of Salt Lake City’s ACE-sponsored events and one our Department particularly loves attending every year. 

We’ll be there tabling all day and encourage you to stop by and say hi if you’re out and about on Saturday. 

The event is focused on celebrating veganism and raising awareness of the many plant-based foods and products available to us here in SLC. 

In honor of VegFest, we wanted to highlight some of the environmental reasons to choose more plants, rather than animal products, in your weekly meal planning. Even swapping one meal per week can make a difference. 

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Mapping Urban Heat Islands

By SLCgreen Interns Frances Benfell, Emma Johnson, and staff Jude Westwood

Picture of two people outside holding a heat watch sensor and guide.

When my friend Tia made plans to spend the weekend in Salt Lake City, she didn’t know what she was in for. A few days before her visit, I texted her and asked, “How do you feel about waking up at 5:30 am to go heat mapping with me on Saturday?” She responded, “I don’t know what that is, but as long as you buy me coffee!”  

As we drove to pick up our heat sensor on a Friday afternoon in mid-July, I explained the project to Tia. We were volunteering to drive one of ten routes across Salt Lake City with a sensor attached to our car that would measure temperature, humidity, and location along the way. Our role (along with over 40 other volunteers) was to gather data for a citizen science research project funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Salt Lake City was one of 18 communities chosen to participate in this year’s mapping project. Over 60 communities have participated since the program started in 2017. 

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Carpooling: The Extroverted Way to Commute Eco-Friendly

By SLCgreen Intern Kellen Hunnicutt

Most of us do a lot of driving in our lives. We drive to school, work, to run errands, and to meet up with friends. Not only is all this driving time bad for our air quality, but so much time in our cars can also be bad for us. Studies have shown that long commute times can produce stress and fatigue, and hurt mental health.  

So why drive alone when you can carpool? 

Carpooling saves money, reduces pollution, and can transform a routine commute into valuable social time. Consider carpooling to work with a coworker who lives nearby or coordinating a carpool for your kids to get to school. Carpooling can also be a great way to get to events or out into nature with friends and family. 

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Clear the Air, Try Transit

By SLCgreen Intern Iris Tang

Photo of a UTA trax line stopped at a station.

Brijette Williams, Sustainability Outreach Coordinator, lives in the suburbs but works and goes to school in Salt Lake City. She commutes by public transit as much as possible because it makes her travel time feel “valuable and productive.”  

Instead of getting stuck in traffic on I-15, she can check emails, make lists for the day, or unwind without the stress of being behind the wheel.

Choosing to swap your car trip for a transit trip can help improve air quality and mitigate summer ozone. It’s also a great way to participate in this month’s Clear the Air Challenge, which encourages us all to take fewer single-occupancy car trips.

Here are some reasons to consider taking transit more often and tips to get started.

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