The opening presenters at the Homer Sustainability Forum last Friday night spoke to a standing-room only crowd with the passion of a tent revival preacher calling sinners to walk the sawdust trail to salvation. Deborah Williams, director of Alaska Conservation Solutions, made a talk that was half fire-and-brimstone, half call to action. Bernie Karl, owner of Chena Hot Springs Resort, spoke like a born-again environmentalist, telling how he's fast reducing the carbon footprint of his business to zero.

Last weekend's forum brought together scientists, fishermen, students, business owners and average citizens for three days of talks on how to make Homer more sustainable. The focus of the forum came on Saturday when the Homer Global Warming Task Force released its draft Climate Action Plan and asked people for their ideas on reducing carbon emissions in Homer 12 percent by 2012 and 20 percent by 2020.

Williams, once the highest ranking federal official in Alaska during President Bill Clinton's administration, had the spirit of Rosie the Riveter toward reducing carbon emissions. She spoke Friday night on "Reducing Our Carbon Footprint" and Saturday morning on "The Effects of Climate Change in Alaska."

"I am a fundamental optimist," Williams said. "We can do this."

"We can do this," she kept repeating.

With slides of shrinking Arctic ice caps, drowning polar bears and starving walruses, she laid out the case for why global climate change threatens the planet. Although some question if humans have caused global warming, the general scientific consensus is that the average world temperature has increased 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last 50 years and 4 degrees in Alaska.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cites increases in carbon dioxide from human activities as the main cause of global warming as well as other effects like ocean acidification "the evil twin of climate change," Williams called it. Current levels of carbon dioxide are 380 parts per million compared to an historic high over the past 650,000 years of 310 ppm.

Ten years ago, Williams said she went to a conference on global warming at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and was shocked at what she heard.

"They (scientists) didn't talk about projected impacts. They talked about profound, observed impacts," Williams said.

Saturday, Williams gave a short course in global warming. While carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide make up less than .1 percent of the atmosphere, their chemistry allows energy from the sun reflected off the earth to remain in the atmosphere as heat the greenhouse effect. With carbon dioxide increasing 35 percent since pre-industrial times, it's like putting on more insulation.

"Thirty-five percent thicker blankets, a 35 percent thicker down jacket," Williams said.

Alaska is right in the bull's eye of global warming, Williams said.

"We're at ground zero," she said. "We are the Paul Revere of global warming."

In the Arctic Ocean, ice caps are melting.

"This is the white T-shirt of the earth," Williams said of the north polar region.

Like a black car with its windows rolled up in Hawaii, a sea darkening from white ice to dark gray sea means more heat is absorbed making the Arctic hotter. Polar bears have to swim farther to den. Walruses have to dive deeper to catch food. Permafrost melts. Freshwater lakes disappear. Glaciers shrink. Coastline erodes, as is happening in Newtok and Shismaref, forcing expensive relocations of rural villages.

"The cost of not reducing our carbon footprint adds up like this," Williams said.

Karl talked about how at Chena Hot Springs, a resort fed by geothermal waters near Fairbanks, he heats and powers all the buildings with 165 degree waters pumped up from underground. Counting his debt, power costs him 6 cents a kilowatt hour. Karl is even exploring using geothermal energy to make hydrogen to run the resort's vehicles.

Friday, some audience members suggested exploring other alternative energy, such as wind power. One man said utilities should develop interconnectivity standards, making it easier for people who make their own power to send it back to the grid. That's something Homer Electric Association just did, said HEA spokesman Joe Gallagher, citing a wind generator built in Nikiski (see story, page 4, Business).

The rest of the state should be exploring similar alternatives, Karl said.

"Alaska should be the one to have that vision. It takes a vision and it takes a passion," Karl said.

Some of that vision and a little passion came out Saturday when the 12-member Homer Global Warming Task Force released its draft report. Appointed by Mayor James Hornaday last January, the task force has been meeting weekly to develop a climate action plan. Its strategy is directed at city operations, and doesn't apply to the Kenai Peninsula Borough, citizens, businesses or households.

The report analyzes Homer's carbon footprint the amount of greenhouse gas emissions emitted as produced by the community and by city of Homer activities. For the city as a whole, emissions were caused by these activities and percentages:

* Commercial, 36 percent;

* Residential, 24 percent;

* Transportation, 21 percent;

* Marine, 17 percent;

* Waste, 2 percent;

Emissions by city government were caused by these activities and percentages:

* Water-sewer, 28 percent;

* Buildings, street lights, 28 percent;

* Fish dock, 18 percent;

* Harbor, 14 percent;

* Vehicle fleet, 8 percent;

* High-mast harbor lights, 3 percent; and

* Waste, 1 percent.

The task force also made a "business as usual" forecast. It predicted 175,700 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (all greenhouse gases expressed as carbon dioxide) by 2012, a 79 percent increase from 2000. Emissions for 2006 were estimated to be 38 percent higher than 2000.

Williams pointed out one reality of global climate change. Carbon dioxide molecules remain in the atmosphere for 50 to 100 years, so even if greenhouse emissions drop to zero today, the effects of global warming will be felt for years. Any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions are to keep a bad situation from becoming worse like the Homer Spit vanishing under a possible 20-foot rise in sea level.

"The goal is to reduce catastrophic global warming," Williams said.

To that goal, the task force recommended reducing city government greenhouse gas emissions by 12 percent by 2012 and 20 percent by 2020, compared to 2000 levels.

"It's a tall order, but we can do it," said Alan Parks, chairman of the task force. "We must do it."

How to do it took up much of the day Saturday when the task force solicited ideas. Members stood at posters on easels and wrote down suggestions. Areas of concern included adaptation, energy management, waste management, outreach, transportation and implementation.

At the poster sessions, people were quick with suggestions.

"The ideas just roared in," Parks said.

Beth Van Sandt talked to task force member Kyra Wagner aboout how to implement reducing greenhouse emissions. Van Sandt, who runs a bed and breakfast, said guests from the United Kingdom and Europe told her how they recycle. There, recycling is free, but it costs money to dump trash.

"People in Europe know how to recycle," Van Sandt said.

At a transportation poster, former Homer council member John Fenske suggested adding a recreation fee for people who run overpowered boats boats with more power installed than needed.

Dale Banks, another task force member, took ideas about waste management. One depressing statistic: the recycling rate in Homer is only 3 percent. People suggested ideas like a community compost pile, a tipping fee for garbage, banning plastic shopping bags and building a trash-burning power plant.

Parks showed some of Williams' enthusiasm when he reported suggestions for transportation.

"Bike trails: Do it!" he said. "Roundabouts: do it!"

At the end of the forum, Karl suggested Homer market itself as a town that tackles climate change head on.

"It will grow your economy," he said. "You'll be known as 'The Green Machine.'"

Williams went even further.

"I'm going to propose the gold standard," she said. "Homer could be a zero-carbon community."

The Global Warming Task Force will work on preparing its final report and action plan by the end of the year, and deliver it to the Homer City Council for consideration in 2008.

"It's a moving document," Parks said of the draft report. "We want to engage the public and you with us as much as possible."

A copy of the task force's draft plan is available at Homer City Hall, the Homer Public Library and at the city's Web page at www.ci.homer.ak.us. The task force holds works sessions from 4-6 p.m. the first three Tuesdays of the month in the Homer Public Library conference meeting and for its regular meeting 4-6 p.m. the last Tuesday of the month at the Homer City Hall conference room.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.