During the summer Laura Witte worked with a local environmental group called the
Fort Collins Sustainability Group (FCSG). One of their current areas of focus is
the Fort Collins city government's goal to reduce citywide greenhouse gas
emissions to 80% below the 2005 level by 2050. Given the pressing nature of
problems associated with greenhouse gas emissions, FCSG is interested in
accelerating the 2050 goal to 2030, and to address this goal, they established a
list of approximately thirty high priority measures meant to drastically reduce
greenhouse gas emissions in that timeframe.
FCSG asked Laura to quantitatively estimate how much carbon dioxide equivalent
would be conserved, i.e., not emmitted as a result of the implementation of some
of these policies. Making significant estimations required Laura to research
trends in population, energy consumption, and methods of greenhouse gas emission
inventory.
Laura's research poster may be
found here.
Laura's wonderful and unique activities outside of her research interests include unicycling, bicycling, rollerblading and playing frisbee. She also enjoys drawing and painting, reading and writing poetry and merrymaking! |