At Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker, we’re continuing to experiment with ways in which residents interested in climate change issues might take part in an online conversation about how well the city’s program to fight global warming is working.

When we saw that many users seemed daunted by the prospect of becoming regular guest contributors to our group weblog, we launched a series of online forums to lower the hurdles, making it simple to take part by the tried-and-true means of one-off comments on our various forums.

Now we’ve tweaked our approach again.

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Tonight, Boulder’s ClimateSmart team will be hosting a community dialogue on the city’s response to climate change (get the details here). Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker plans to be at the event, which appears aimed at generating some grassroots support, using volunteers to leverage community action and help change behaviors that contribute to Boulder’s carbon footprint.

The city plans to document the ideas that come up and share them with those who attend, or who take an online survey. That sounds like a great way to encourage dialogue about the effort by, as ClimateSmart’s Beth Powell suggested in a comment on our site last week, bringing people together both in virtual terms and in real, physical ones.

Another way to encourage dialogue is to provide as much information about the scope of the program as possible, to help the community understand how well it has succeeded. So, for instance, we’ll be asking the city to provide up-to-date data about how much revenue Xcel Energy has raised for the city so far through the carbon tax, as well as request an account of how this money has been spent so far.

Another important question: Now that Gov. Ritter has proposed a climate action plan for state, we’re wondering how the city’s existing plan might fit in with the one being developed for Colorado as a whole?

While tonight’s gathering might not be able to get deeply, if at all, into these questions, we think they’re ones that need to be asked, and answered, in order for the community to understand and participate in the program more fully.

Boulder’s initative to cut greenhouse gasses has a fabulous-looking public face in the ClimateSmart web site launched last September. Only trouble is, behind the handsomely designed and info-rich site, it appears there’s virtually no “community” in this community effort!

We here at Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker certainly understand that problem. Cultivating a vibrant online community is a real beast. You may have noticed that we’ve been having a hard time with that ourselves. Still, it’s a beast that must be tamed if educational programs like Climate Smart that rely on participation and buy-in from local citizens are to truly succeed.

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Since another college town has been in the headlines as having endorsed a carbon tax, let’s get it straight that what Ithaca, N.Y., did not do was approve a municipal carbon tax in the Boulder mould.

But what Ithaca’s City Council did do had a significance of its own. It voted 9-0 approving a resolution urging state and federal officials to pursue a federal carbon tax. Here’s coverage from the Ithaca Journal and the Cornell Sun. Like a number of initiatives related to global climate change, perhaps this one will come from the ground up at the local and state level as well.

The Ithaca initiative was propelled forward by a local resident named Sylvester Johnson, a member of the Climate Change Action Group of Central New York who holds a doctorate in applied physics, and who believes the Clinton, Obama and McCain campaigns are wrong to for cap-and-trade emissions programs over what he considers a more equitable tax. Here’s his web site and a sample of the resolution that he hopes to see passed by other localities.

How far can this approach take the carbon tax concept? Share your thoughts below, or follow the discussion at our online forums.

The Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker project is about to have its second major growth spurt since our start-up last summer — and we’re asking you to be part of it.

Today we launch a series of online forums, and with them hope to inaugurate a vibrant discussion of the city’s unique municipal carbon tax approach. But it’ll be one that will be significantly easier for you to take part in. Check out the new discussion boards.

Our aim when we launched this project — with the help of the Knight Foundation and it’s News Challenge grant — was to see if two long-time environmental reporters could partner with local citizens to explore participatory journalism’s potential, in this case to cover a tough eco-issue like global warming, and find a local focus for a story with national and international implications. … (more…)

Want to learn more about carbon taxes in general, as well as what’s happening with carbon taxes in Boulder and elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains and the rest of the United States? We’ve compiled a helpful list of a dozen-and-a-half carbon tax and global warming resource links to get started. And this is a living list, so your suggestions for new sites are welcome — just use the comment area below. And thanks to intern Anna-Katarina Gravgaard for her help in putting together this useful resource.

The funder behind the Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker project is also behind an interesting new web site called MediaShift Idea Lab. The idea of this group blog, launched just today, is that that will allow us, and other innovative Internet projects Knight is backing with grants, to work through the lessons of our online efforts with each other and in the public eye.

As the editor Mark Glaser puts it, “Idea Lab will be a place where you can read about what innovators are doing to help reinvent community news. The dozens of authors at this new group blog — hosted by PBS.org and funded by the Knight Foundation — have received grants from Knight in their 21st Century News Challenge, and are going to report first-hand on the status of their projects.” How’s that for transparency?

Check out our first entries on Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker– a blog post about our initial progress with the project, and another about some lessons learned. And there’ll be more to come, if you want some insight about the development of the project itself.

In a National Public Radio report that led with Boulder’s carbon tax initiative, “All Things Considered” on July 31 examined how mayors across the nation aren’t waiting for federal action to combat climate change, but are taking the task on themselves (link).

Boulder Mayor Mark Ruzzin is quoted as explaining the targeting of electricity usage: “Electricity is the major contributor to the community’s greenhouse gas emissions, so it is the elephant in the living room, so to speak, and taxing that consumption makes a lot of sense.”

The report goes on to cite similar activity in other cities, from smaller towns like Fort Wayne, Ind., and Austin, Texas, to megacities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

But adding some leavening to the enthusiasm over these efforts is David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Says Morris: “This is going to be very challenging.”

ChicagoEye, via Flickr (CC License)

Anyone can think more like a reporter, without necessarily having to look like one!

A community journalism project is, by definition, a collective venture. To truly succeed, knowledge gained by some has to find its way across to the whole group.

That’s why we, the founders of Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker, want to share with you some of our perspective about journalistic practice, along with guidelines for contributors to this group effort.

Over time, with your help, we hope to improve and expand on these key points, and add more.

Read on, and please share your own thoughts and questions…

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Salt Lake City temple at dusk

Public radio station KCPW in Salt Lake City gave over a live, 20-minute midday interview segment yesterday, June 29, to our Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker project. Blair Feulner, station president and host of the KCPW’s Midday Utah segment, interviewed me about the project, with a focus on Boulder’s global warming initiative and the journalistic challenges of covering it, as well as the basic ideas behind citizen journalism.

Feulner described the project nicely in his intro as a “new way to combine digital journalism and community interaction. … the web-based project is meant to keep the focus on this single community issue, and add to the dialogue a variety of opinions from many sources, including the public, professionals, and city government. The idea is to go beyond the spotty media coverage important community concerns often get.”

Hear the full interview.