Welcome to the Taming Bigfoot® 2021 webpage!

The Kickoff meeting was held on 1/31, see video recording of it or the  KickOff presentation.  And the final Awards Presentation was on 3/14/21, see the slides AwardsPresentation_Final_Mar14.

Taming Bigfoot is a competition that makes it fun, rewarding and educational to reduce your carbon footprint! It was originally run in 2016 and an updated version was run in 2021. See below for more information on the 2021 competition, now completed.

The competition is organized by Jefferson County’s Local 20/20 Climate Outreach Group to assist the county in reaching its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80% of 1990 levels by 2050 through an engaging and educational activity. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many personal routines. Have some of those changes reduced your carbon footprint through less driving or other changes? How might we emerge from the pandemic and retain some of the environmentally friendly aspects? That question drove our title for the new competition – Taming Bigfoot 2021 – Recovering Greener!

We  are following the approach used last time of having a diverse mix of individuals work together as a team to collectively reduce their team’s carbon footprint, competing with other teams to see who can be greener!

Teams have now formed, see below. But even if you didn’t sign up, you can follow along and measure your own footprint. See the Scoring section below for how to access the carbon footprint calculator. You can also check our Taming Bigfoot facebook page for tips and tricks on reducing your footprint, or check out the local resources on JeffersonCAN.org.

Frequently Asked Questions

Documentation of Conversion Factors_Jan2021Revision-2 

General Information

Teams

Teams have now formed, we have 35 participants in 5 teams of 7:

• Feral Nephilim
• Sustainable Wannabees
• Family Behrenfeld
• Planet Protectors
• The Carbonites 

Scoring

 Carbon footprints will be measured by using a calculator created specifically for Jefferson County by the organizing committee. This calculator is available as both a web page (click register to set up an account) and as a mobile app for both Apple and Android devices (links available on the calculator web page). Instructional videos are available to learn how to enter data through these portals, see below. While the calculator does not include every possible source (or sink) of greenhouse gases, it covers most of the major greenhouse gas-producing activities by individuals that result in emissions in our county and it provides a simple and useful means of converting easily measured quantities of a person’s lifestyle (e.g., home energy and water use, miles traveled, garbage produced, types of food consumed, etc.) to quantitative emission values (measured in pounds of CO₂). Note that it does not include a full suite of consumption-related emissions (like from the construction of your house, manufacturing of your car, and all the goods and services you might purchase.) For a broader accounting, the Cool Climate Calculator is a good source.

Taming Bigfoot Calculator Videos: See the link for a playlist of videos on the different aspects of using the calculator, including setting up an account. 

Once you have set up an account and are logged in on taming-bigfoot.org, you can also see the Input Guide for data input, or user guide for more information.

The Competition

The competition will run in the month of February. Individual team members will report their data via the on line calculator. Team footprints will be posted on this website, however no participant will be able to see the individual data of any other participant on another team. Prizes will be awarded based on the lowest footprints, and announced at the March 14th on-line meeting. Only collective data of a team will be viewable.

Endorsed By: • Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners • Local 20/20 • Port Townsend / Jefferson County Climate Action Committee • Jefferson County Public Health • Washington State University Extension in Jefferson County

Prizes

• Cubic yard of bio-char donated by Olympic BioChar (can be shared)
• Truck-load of compost donated by City of Port Townsend (can be shared)
• Energy and Water Saving Goodie Bags donated by Jefferson PUD
• Earth Machine Composter donated by Jefferson County Public Health
• Bicycle tune-ups donated by The ReCyclery and Bulldog Bicycles
• Trees planted in honor of all participants, donated by North Olympic Salmon Coalition

Questions

Questions by participants can be addressed to their team Lead. Other questions can be emailed to bobbindschadler@gmail.com or by physical mail to Bob Bindschadler, 271 Gustavson Rd, Quilcene, WA 98376.