Rosanna Herber is big on saving energy at home, being an employee of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, but even she had never cleaned the coils on her refrigerator.

Not, that is, until she and her neighbor Kathy Les put their heads together and hatched a campaign to encourage fellow residents of Curtis Park to counter climate change by trimming their household power consumption.

The result is Curtis Park Energy Stars, a first-of-its-kind project in a Sacramento neighborhood to bring home the issue of global warming -- literally.

In practical terms, it means Herber, Les and other like-minded residents in their corner of Sacramento are replacing old-fashioned light bulbs with energy-sipping compact fluorescents; removing dust and debris from refrigerator coils so the appliances run better; and consistently turning off lights and unplugging appliances that aren't in use, among other things.

In philosophical terms, it means participants are acknowledging their contributions -- and the contributions of all individuals -- to global environmental troubles, including the accumulation in the atmosphere of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide, chiefly from burning fossil fuels.

Les, a former journalist, said the turning point for her came when she read a book called "You Can Prevent Global Warming (and Save Money!): 51 Easy Ways," by Jeffrey Langholz and Kelly Turner.

"One of the things that really jumped out at me is, if you change four incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents, the amount of CO2 saved is 718 pounds a year," Les said. "I started to see these numbers: Only four light bulbs, and multiply it by 2,000, which is the number of households in our neighborhood ...

"It starts to show that just in our little corner of the world, we can have a significant impact," she said.

Les, former executive director of the Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association, tapped Herber, a member of the association board, and together they met with Jim Parks, a SMUD manager who works on energy efficiency and customer research and development.

The group came up with a plan in which Curtis Park residents would be recruited to become "Energy Stars" -- a name inspired by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency label for energy-efficient appliances.

To join, residents pledge to take five steps toward saving energy, with a group goal or reducing consumption by 20 percent over the next year. SMUD will help calculate consumption and measure progress.

The five steps are:

• Swap four conventional light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs.

• Lower thermostat two degrees in winter; raise two degrees in summer.

• Clean coils under and behind refrigerator.

• Always turn off lights in unoccupied rooms.

• Unplug appliances not in use.

Participants wishing to do more can conduct a household energy audit by answering a detailed survey posted on SMUD's Web site, http://www.smud.org/.

Parks, the SMUD manager, said that in California on average, each kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed produces slightly more than 1 pound of carbon dioxide.

Since the campaign began in June, Les said, about 50 households have joined. She's shooting for 100.

"We're looking for more people who want to get energy religion and embark on it with us," she said. "We think we'll get there."

Curtis Park, which is bounded by Broadway, Franklin Boulevard, Sutterville Road and Freeport Boulevard, is an urban neighborhood of Craftsman-style cottages and other refurbished vintage homes. Its residents, largely professional and affluent, have a higher-than-usual energy consciousness, judging from their participation in SMUD's voluntary Greenergy program.

Subscribers to Greenergy pay an extra $3 to $6 on their SMUD bills each month to support SMUD's purchase of power generated from renewable sources such as solar, wind, biomass and landfill gases. Parks said 33,712 residential customers belong to Greenergy, which amounts to 6.5 percent of all of SMUD's residential customers.

The part of SMUD's service area with the greatest participation in the Greenergy program is served by the 95818 zip code, which includes Curtis Park and Land Park. There, the participation is 14.5 percent of households, more than double the districtwide average.

One of the hitches the Energy Stars group has encountered is that many people feel they're already doing a lot to conserve energy, Les said.

"There's a sense that, 'Well, I'm already conscious of my energy, I already take enough care,'" she said. "But I think that attitude borders on, 'I already do enough and I don't want to do more than I'm already doing.'"

Dan Murphy, president of the neighborhood association and a recent recruit to Energy Stars, compared the problem to "donor fatigue" -- the weariness from being asked to contribute to too many causes.

"It's hard to reach people today, to say, with 15 other things on your to-do list, you should add this one," said Murphy.

There also may be a hurdle in persuading people that climate change is an urgent problem, although would-be recruits might support the project for other reasons.

Such is the case for Liam Powers. Powers is a student at Sacramento City College whose mother signed the household onto Energy Stars. Powers said he isn't convinced that global warming is happening but supports conservation, nonetheless.

"I do think that if it's in our power to preserve natural resources that we have and preserve the ecosystem that we have, that it's our moral obligation to do so," Powers said.

Energy Star program organizers said they hope the idea will catch on throughout in the community. "We'd like to see it happen in other neighborhood associations," Parks said. "We're kind of hoping this will be a challenge to them."