It’s the final weekend to tally those points for the 2014 CoolCalifornia City Challenge and your contribution has never been more important. The City of Trees has slipped into second place behind Riverside, yet again, and the contest will conclude on Sunday.

Time is running out!

As of Friday, August 29, Claremonters participating in the challenge have accumulated 1,509,758 points compared to Riverside’s 1,653,341 points.

Second place isn’t bad, but first place is definitely better.

Have no fear, there’s still time to take over the lead. Claremont’s 371 members can respond to this setback by logging on and updating their points no later than Sunday, August 31.

As previously reported, Claremonters took the lead from the city of Riverside in July after logging more than 45,000 in four days. Claremont has traded the top spot with Riverside several times over the course of the challenge despite the fact that Riverside has almost twice the number of residents participating in the program.

The city is eligible to win a large chunk of the $50,000 to be distributed between cities based on the number of points. 

The CoolCalifornia City Challenge was created to encourage voluntary carbon footprint reductions throughout the state and to track household greenhouse gas emissions reductions from city to city. Since April 1, participating households have been encouraged to track their energy and household vehicle emissions and join EcoTeams, groups of households working together to reduce their carbon footprints, and earn points in the program.

According to the program website, the city with the most points at the end of the five-month challenge period will be crowned the “Coolest California City” for 2014 at an awards ceremony at the Air Resources Board meeting in October. In addition, two runner-up cities will each earn the title of “Cool California City”, and be awarded second and third place prizes. ALL cities will receive prize money based on the percentage of overall points earned by participants in their city during the competition.

For more details about how to log and calculate points, log on to:  https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/challenge/how-do-we-calculate-points-for-the-challenge.php