Tick-tock. Impatient with the federal government’s lollygagging, local aggregations of merchants and nonprofits are concocting their own climate change initiatives.

For instance, what’s been christened the Cool Capital Challenge – hatched last winter at the Josephine Butler Parks Center – is a citywide voluntary effort to slice away 1 billion pounds of heat-trapping pollutants by Earth Day 2008. Congregations, schools, businesses, government agencies and advocacy organizations are bellying up to this carbon diet.

Assuming a car emits 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide annually, this initiative could be the equivalent of removing 100,000 vehicles from area roads for a year.

“There’s a lot of power at the grassroots level,” says Steve Coleman, head of Washington Parks and People, based in the Parks Center. “We don’t have to wait for the government. We can take action right now on global warming to set an example. A lot of this stuff is not rocket science.”

During a Saturday in late June, he guided a volunteer conservation effort at the distinctive 15th Street NW yellow mansion. College students planted shade trees, switched out heat-hogging incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs, taped sun-blocking film to windows and put up ceiling fans.

At least 16 businesses in the U Street corridor and across Capitol Hill have signed on to yet another emissions-reducing effort this spring. Landmarks such as Ben’s Chili Bowl and Frager’s Hardware are trading fossil fuels for wind by purchasing the green energy through Clean Currents, a Rockville-based company.

Before Mayor Adrian Fenty rose to power, his predecessor Anthony Williams signed then-innovative legislation in late 2006 requiring private developers to incorporate energy-saving measures by 2012. Changes include landscaping with drought-tolerant plants, installing low-flow showerheads, lowering the need for fossil-fuel dependent heating and cooling, and incorporating recycled materials into construction.

These green building standards, some mandated as early as 2009, eventually will cover affordable housing, schools and other DC-owned buildings, projects receiving more than one-fifth public financing and new commercial structures larger than 50,000 square feet.

And, on the heels of environmentally friendly standards for stationary items, enters an equally stringent measure for moving objects. A DC Council hearing on what’s touted as the Clean Cars Bill is scheduled for September.

“When it comes to policy changes, we need to be a leader in DC,” says Chris Weiss, director of the DC Environmental Network. “This is a nice first step for the District to take. I don’t know anybody who is opposing it.”

Sponsored by the usual green suspects, Councilmembers Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) and Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), the car bill mimics California’s endeavor to curb tailpipe emissions, making them stronger than federal standards beginning with the 2009 model year. Handfuls of states are following Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lead in requiring a 30 percent reduction in global warming emissions from new cars and light trucks by model year 2016. The US Environmental Protection Agency has yet to issue a necessary waiver, however, 19 months after California’s request.

Cheh, a member of the Public Works and Environment Committee, says she is eager to jumpstart an environmental caucus among her fellow legislators to streamline more sustainable action in DC.

“It’s good, and it’s morally right,” Cheh says about moving in a greener direction with Energy Star appliances, utilities, buildings and vehicles. “But it also can save money.”

Capitol Hill resident Ragnar Thoresen, who commutes to his job at Frager’s via bicycle, is thrilled by his employer’s progressive turn. Not only is the hardware store 100 percent wind-powered, but it’s also participating in the Cool Capital Challenge by encouraging customers to switch to longer-lasting, higher-efficiency products such as compact fluorescents, dimmers, timers, motion sensors, tankless water heaters, solar-powered garden lights and wind-up flashlights and radios.

“I’m the one who’s trying to promote it,” says the Norway native, standing in a store aisle that highlights some 700 types of light bulbs. “I say it’s good for business. Even though we’re a small store, we want to be a leader in new products.”

The former housing contractor has posted articles about efficiency and renewable energy at eye level for customers, and he’s instrumental in educating doubtful or quizzical shoppers.

He has assembled what is arguably DC’s most diverse inventory of compact fluorescents: a bonanza of spirals, three-ways, floodlights and dimmable recessed bulbs ranging from 5 watts to 32 watts. Yes, they’re more expensive, but the mantra he repeats is that they pay for themselves quickly.

Replacing one incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent saves $67 in energy costs over the bulb's lifetime, according to the EPA.

“We’re the nation’s capital, so we should be the leader,” says Thoresen, who peddles conservation to senators, representatives and employees of the nearby US Capitol complex who frequent Frager’s. “I’m doing my part. It might be a small part, but I feel I can help people change their ways.”