By Cyndy Cole
Flagstaff’s mayor made a tough-to-keep promise in 2006: The city would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by about one-third by 2012, to pre-1990 levels.
Flagstaff’s greenhouse gas emissions had been growing at the time Mayor Joe Donaldson signed onto the Kyoto Protocol-type agreement — up 41 percent from 1990 to 2005, the city’s consultants figured.
Hitting his goal would require Flagstaff residents to drive some 23 percent less, for example, or use 28 percent less electricity.
But whether because of the economic downturn, chance or people intentionally doing a range of things — no one is sure — the city might actually get pretty close to that once-lofty target, recent data indicates.
These were the sorts of conservation tactics discussed Tuesday, when about 50 politicians, employers and conservationists met at the Museum of Northern Arizona to hear a presentation on climate change and discuss what they were doing themselves.
