The Good, The Bad, And It Could Be Better
Dear Leading Ladies,
With May fast approaching, recent snowflakes notwithstanding, we look forward to spending more time outdoors enjoying the company of friends and family, all hopefully vaccinated. It has been a long hard winter – two long hard winters, in fact.
Speaking of the outdoors, we want to share some encouraging news and helpful guidance about our beleaguered planet.
In his recent book, The Climate Diet: 50 Ways to Trim Your Carbon Footprint, science writer Paul Greenberg offers suggestions and explanations he hopes will be adopted nationwide. He points to the folly of buying at farmers markets if it means you are driving 20 miles in a gas guzzling car to buy a couple of heads of broccoli; or eating shrimp, which is “the highest carbon choice you can make from the sea.” Greenberg points out that the United States is “per capita the most prodigious emitter of carbon dioxide among the world’s top 10 economies. The average American generated around 15 metric tons of carbon in 2016, according to the International Energy Agency…” This could change if Americans, for example, would eat more chicken and fish and less red meat (taking care that the seafood they choose is carbon light); travel less by plane, but when flying reject first class and business flights which accommodate fewer seats and thus lead to a demand for more gas guzzling flights; drive less and walk more; and donate the money allocated for a phone upgrade to a“program managing a carbon-sequestering ecosystem.” We recommend reading Greenberg’s short book and passing it on to friends and family.
“The average American generated around 15 metric tons of carbon in 2016…”
CO2 Emissions Per Country
MIT is at the forefront of academic breakthroughs to combat the climate crisis. In a recent Boston Globe opinion piece, Rafael Reif, MIT’s president, echoes what many have said about the solution lying at the feet of many experts and stakeholders: scientists, technologists, those at the helms of behavioral and cultural changes, and more. He recognizes that the “federal government can play a pivotal role by providing a national roadmap, sustained investment, and precise milestones to be achieved by 2030…” but “current technology alone will not get us to the 2050 target.” He sees the need for “bold new answers” and looks to our area’s research universities to provide them. Specifically, Reif points to the MIT Climate Grand Challenges which “responded with novel, potentially game-changing concepts, from capturing CO2 by domesticating fast-growing microbes to designing lightweight, all-carbon buildings.” Reif also describes a collaboration between academics and industry through the new MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium to help meet net-zero carbon goals. This kind of partnership between business and learning makes great sense and seeds hope.
“…current technology alone will not get us to the 2050 target.”
Hope comes from another source, as well. Frances Moore Lappé, the author of It’s Not Too Late! Crisis, Opportunity and the Power of Hope, believes there is still time to save millions of species “if we act now, quickly, with proven tools, to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to store vastly more carbon in plants and the earth.” Her hope comes from the knowledge that as of the end of 2020, “more than one in four Americans “lived in places committed to using 100 percent clean electricity,” including 170 cities and towns and eight states, plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. And her hope comes despite the fact that she acknowledges it is too late to save the many species we have already “wiped out at the rate of 150 per day” and it is too late to prevent the advent of extreme weather we are already experiencing.
…Massachusetts and nine other states, succeeded in lowering CO2 emission from power plants by 50 percent from 2005–2015.
Capital Gallery roof garden in Washington, DC. Food goes to Dreaming Out Loud to be distributed to marginalized people in the community. Photo courtesy of uptopacres.com
On the side of progress, in our area, the Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which includes Massachusetts and nine other states, succeeded in lowering CO2 emission from power plants by 50 percent from 2005–2015. Other areas, some surprisingly, have achieved equal or more success, according to Lappé. For example, Washington, DC, became the first LEED platinum-certified city (Leadership in Energy and Design), while the “city has 3 million square feet of vegetative roofs that capture carbon while mitigating runoff and flooding.” And Georgia is now one of the top 10 solar-powered states, providing 76,000 clean energy jobs. Meanwhile, Texas is “generating almost 30 percent of total US wind-powered electricity.”
As we consider some of these encouraging facts, at a virtual Earth Day summit last week, President Biden committed the United States to cutting emissions by half by the end of the decade. A good start, though we need to remember that the US is responsible for more than three times as much carbon emissions per capita as France!
How can we help? Stay informed. Make changes in our own lives. Pressure companies to act responsibly. Support local, state, and federal efforts to demand reduction of carbon emissions and increased clean energy.
This week, we suggest you watch:
Stay safe; it’s time for hope.
Therese Melden
Judy Klein
Mary Barthelmes
Beth Forbes
Leading Ladies Executive Team
ladies@leadingladiesvote.org
leadingladiesvote.org