'Green Tags' Help Fuel Renewable-Energy Projects Around Country

'Green Tags' Help Fuel Renewable-Energy Projects Around Country

Apr 29 - The Santa Fe New Mexican

Anyone, even skiers and snowboarders, can help offset the carbon dioxide produced by their fossil-fuel-powered activities.

David Griscom is part of a nonprofit group called the New Mexico Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy, which recently teamed with another nonprofit organization known as the Bonneville Environmental Foundation based in Portland, Ore. They launched a project called Green Energy New Mexico five months ago.

People who want to offset their greenhouse-gas emissions can buy "green tags" costing

$20 each, which offset 1 megawatt of carbon-dioxide emissions.

Eighty percent of the revenues are reinvested in new renewable- energy projects around the country. Twenty percent goes to New Mexico for direct investment in renewable-energy projects in the state.

"We're looking at a variety of things, like making grants to schools for solar projects," Griscom said.

Businesses can join as well. Santa Fe's Whole Foods and Positive Energy, a Santa Fe solar-energy company, bought enough tags to offset 100 percent of the carbon dioxide their operations produce.

The group also is working with the ski industry on a similar project called Ski Green to implement renewable-energy projects at ski resorts. "We're working with ski areas in New Mexico to raise awareness of global warming, to reduce their consumption of electricity and also to get them to implement renewable projects at their ski resorts," Griscom said. "The message is global warming isn't happening in 20 years, it's happening now, and it's impacting our lives daily. It's impacting industries daily."

The ski industry, in particular, is being "hammered" by global warming, Griscom pointed out. Ski areas aren't able to make snow as early in the season because nighttime temperatures are higher and the season is shorter because of an earlier melt off. Also, lower elevations, which used to receive snow, get rain instead.

Taos and Angel Fire ski resorts are participating in the program, Griscom said. Skiers can buy a ski green tag for an extra $2 on top of the regular lift ticket to offset the carbon emissions produced from a 150-mile vehicle trip to and from the ski resort.

"Some skiers are going further and offsetting the entire electrical emissions impact" of visiting the ski resort by buying more green tags, Griscom said.

For more information, go to www.greenenergynm.org and www.skigreen.org .