Five years ago, the Local 20/20 Climate Outreach group created and ran a new community program called “Taming Bigfoot.”

It engaged county residents and businesses in an uplifting and educational activity aimed at helping people learn how to reduce their carbon emissions. Its success greatly exceeded the organizers’ expectations: In just two months, the nearly 100 participants collectively reduced their carbon emissions 10 percent and learned a great deal in the process.

The program caught on and in the intervening years with the Climate Outreach group’s help, Edmonds, Seattle and Whidbey Island have all run similar competitions with similar positive results. The carbon footprint calculator used in these competitions has been converted to a smartphone app and users now span the United States.

The Climate Outreach group now feels it would be advantageous to repeat the competition in Jefferson County.

Many people who missed the initial competition have been requesting it be run again, and the pandemic has created a unique situation where not only will we be able to contrast residents’ carbon footprints now with pre-pandemic conditions, but the knowledge of what personal actions affect one’s carbon footprint the most is particularly valuable now that we are soon to emerge from the pandemic with the opportunity to adjust some of our lifestyle choices. All of this feeds directly into the city and county’s expressed goal of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent (from 1990 levels) by 2050.

To capture the spirit of this aggressive goal as we are poised to emerge from the pandemic’s restrictions, we have titled this new competition “Taming Bigfoot 2021: Recovering Greener.” It will adopt the popular approach of requiring a diverse mix of individuals to work together as a team to collectively reduce their team’s carbon footprint and outperform other similarly diverse teams. We will take advantage of the newly developed digital tools used in the more recent competitions as well as lessons learned during those competitions that enhance the educational and entertaining experience for the participants.  

We feel the competition can proceed with online meetings taking the place of in-person gatherings and feel that these could facilitate welcome interactions during this time of prudent social distancing.

Teams will be formed during January 2021 with the competition running from February through April. Throughout the competition, there will be updates on team standings interspersed with short informational presentations on the broader context of climate change as it relates to our community. Results will be announced in early May, with prizes (donated by local businesses and organizations) awarded to the teams achieving the greatest emission reductions. Applications to join the competition are due by
Jan. 22. See l2020.org/climate-action/bigfoot for more information and for the application.

(Bob Bindschadler is a retired NASA scientist now living in Quilcene, and is active in the Local 20/20 Climate Outreach group.)