ANCA DENVER
www.accelerateclimateaction.org
Accelerate Neighborhood Climate Action is a Community Forum Program that gathers residents to create shared, place-based climate action on a block-by-block, neighborhood-by-neighborhood level. The Denver program has been supported since its inception in 2015 by a collaboration of three partner organizations: Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN), Metro State University of Denver (MSUDenver) Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and ICA-USA. Each Climate Forum promotes individual, planet-friendly activities, as well as specific, self-selected group action plans based on each neighborhood’s specific, identified environmental needs. Each forum is led by a professional facilitator and organized by a local neighborhood planning committee.
In Denver, Colorado, since 2017, over 160 neighbors from seven Accelerate Neighborhood Climate Action Forums, are working on 20 local carbon-reducing initiatives.
We know that 11% of the methane in the atmosphere is the result of human excess—much of which can be eliminated by composting. We also know that behaviors of food reclamation, and oil-based transportation modes can be personally modified. We recognize that the foundational need for impacting climate change is to change culture through changing values and human behavior. How are we doing that?
The Forming Stage: The city of Denver has 79 neighborhoods. The initiating committee for the program began with a demonstration event with participants from 22 of the neighborhoods, and with seven resource organizations including groups like Denver Water and the EPA. Partner organizations included Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN) and Metro State University of Denver- Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences(EAS) , and the ICA. Each performed a specific function for each forum. This new committee consisted of eight members. During the first year of the program, students from the EAS department were trained in the ICA’s Image Change and Forum methods and in the procedure for setting up a Forum in a neighborhood.
Each Forum has these four parts:
1) The introduction to partner organizations, and to the scientific realities of climate change. A trained Al Gore volunteer is invited to do the opening, 15 minute presentation on climate.
2) The Vision workshop: ”What would be in place in your neighborhood if neighbors were working together now to reduce their carbon footprints?”
3) The Reality Workshop: “What are your neighborhood’s constraints (blocks) and their advantages in getting to this vision?”
4) “What actions will take all of this into account and form into action plans?”
Local merchants and concerned citizens donate goods and contribute to pay the professional facilitators. All donors and sponsors receive recognition on the program’s website (created by unversity students) and in the final document of results. The format is the same as the full day Town Meeting ‘76 format, adding the specific issue of climate to the context.
Sample Forum Documents
The Hope Garden Project began in Northeast Park Hill community in Denver. Colorado on May 13, 2021. Photos and report on the project on September 8, 2021.
ANCA REDLANDS
ANCA Redlands, founded in 2022 as a chapter of the national organization, Accelerate Neighborhood Climate Action in Denver, Colorado, is a nonprofit organization that helps build climate-resilient communities neighborhood-by-neighborhood. As an all-volunteer organization, we are deeply concerned about rapidly accelerating climate change and the alarming impacts being experienced in communities worldwide. We believe by working together in the place where we live, we can reduce our carbon emissions that cause the warming, help prepare our communities for severe climate impacts and work for environmental justice.
ANCA works in partnerships with many other local organizations. Partners provide speakers for ANCA’s Community Education program; expertise, resources and training to participating neighborhoods, and guidance in program development. Partners include the City of Redlands, Esri, the University of Redlands’ Environmental Studies Department, GIS Department and the Sustainable University of Redlands Farm, the Inland Empire Resource Conservation District, the Community Emergency Response Team, Building Resilient Communities, and the Master Gardeners and Master Composters of San Bernardino County.
What is a Neighborhood Forum?
The Neighborhood Forum has two major goals:
- To prepare the community for the impacts of severe climate change and,
- To motivate residents to do their part in reducing carbon emissions.
Eight initiatives aimed at major local climate impacts, each with several measurable goals, guide Forum participants in developing their actions plans.
A Forum results in 2-4 specific projects, each with a Climate Action Team (CAT) to implement it. Neighborhoods are defined by interested residents.
What is a Neighborhood Planning Workshop?
- A lively and fun four-hour event that brings neighbors together in common concern about the future of their neighborhood and community.
- Organized by a handful of interested neighbors and facilitated by ANCA.
- Guided by ANCA’s Vision of a climate-resilient community.
- Includes a little climate science, creation of a neighborhood vision, discussion of neighborhood assets and climate vulnerabilities, and development of action plans for projects that are most needed.
The Foundational Understanding of Climate Action Forums
Based upon Imaginal Educational understandings, we know that images are what drive human behavior; that images are formed by messages—messages from social media and personal experience; that images, protected by consumer-based values can be changed by new messages. Through this program, current science-based messages regarding earth in peril, blast through these values and help to form more accurate images of the causes of climate change. The result? Visible and creation- caring, new behaviors.