MAY 2008 - Fighting Climate Change, One Small Step at a Time
Most people agree that climate change is a threat to our society and way of life, but many feel powerless to do something about it.
On 26 May Genesis Energy launched a new web-based challenge to help all New Zealanders, and particularly young people, change their habits and reduce their personal carbon footprints.
“Tree People” is designed to capture the imagination of children and the interest of adults through an interactive on-line forum where members plant their own virtual native trees, forming a virtual native forest. The site www.treepeople.co.nz encourages children and adults of New Zealand to make a “pledge” to do something that will help fight climate change.
Pledges for children include walking to school and showering instead of taking a bath; pledges for adults range from drying washing outside instead of using a dryer to car pooling.
The trees grow according to several factors, such as carbon savings, the number of times you visit your tree. Each tree owner can recruit “sponsors”, who could be family members, friends or neighbours. The tree owner can ask a sponsor to help grow the tree by also making a pledge to make a small change to their own lifestyle. Tree People is entertaining as well as educational, and children can even win prizes for themselves and their school.
Murray Jackson, Chief Executive of Genesis Energy says, “Tree People is not about massive change, it’s about the many small steps we can all take together.
“We have deliberately avoided creating another carbon calculator. This is about forming new habits and educating our young people who are learning about climate change and global warming at school and want to know how they can help. Tree People gets them involved through an Internet community - forums which they are already growing up with.
“As New Zealand’s largest energy retailer and the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the electricity sector, Genesis Energy can make the biggest difference. We can effect change by reducing our emissions and by helping our customers and all New Zealanders to change their energy and resource intensive lifestyles.”
Genesis Energy operates the Huntly Power Station, which runs on coal and gas. While Huntly is a critical part of the country’s electricity system and will be for several years to come, Genesis Energy is accelerating its renewable energy development programme in order to bring more renewable generation to the market. Emissions from Huntly have reduced in the past year since the introduction of a new gas turbine at the site.
Tree People is the latest in a line of several successful initiatives created by Genesis Energy for younger New Zealanders. These include the international award-winning on-line game ElectroCity, and the solar energy in schools initiative, Schoolgen.
Websites:
www.treepeople.co.nz
>www.electrocity.co.nz
>www.schoolgen.co.nz
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