I began this website with some grim climate visions I'd had back in 2010. Today, the climate news keeps getting more alarming and when I ask around, I realize that so many people are still asleep about this impending future.
I am hopeful but hope without action, is just magical thinking.
If you want to have hope, then cut back your carbon emissions and make a plan to go zero carbon.
If you take action in your own life, your actions will spread to the Collective conscience.
Should I post the news stories I'm reading that show how the west is burning up, how all of the world's coastal cities will be gone by end of century, how wildfires are breaking out now in eastern Massachusetts which I'd hoped would be a safe haven from fire? I would prefer to just stick to how we are reducing carbon.
Here are some ideas. (Perhaps someone here is more expert on the things we can each do to go zero carbon. So please feel free to post!)
Get an EV car. Do not buy another gas car. Ev's are getting cheaper, and there are rebates and tax breaks that reduce the price by almost $10,000, with Biden about to announce these going up to $12,500 and more depending on your state. EV cars are safer, cheaper to maintain, don't pollute the air around your house and in your garage, on the highways, and most of all, you are reducing your carbon footprint. My car mechanic told me that EV's will put him out of business.
Swap out your gas stove with an electric. Your gas stove may be polluting your indoor air, by the way. Electric energy is cleaner.
Install Solar Have a solar panel analysis done for your roof. It's free and if Biden's proposals pass (looks like they will pass) there are new government incentives coming that will reduce the cost of solar by 30% and improve the payback to five years .
Buy Wind Energy for your Electric Climate change is increasing winds, which means wind energy is becoming a major source. Contact your local electric energy supplier to see if you can purchase wind energy as your source of electric.
Have heat pumps installed in your house to replace oil and gas for heating and cooling. There are now government incentives. Heat pumps are quiet and efficient.
Cut back or eliminate unnecessary air travel-- it's a huge gas guzzler.
Eat a vegan diet. Food choices make a difference on how much carbon you consume. My brilliant niece at Friends of the Earth feels this is one of the most important way to reduce carbon consumption. Stop eating beef - it's destroying the Amazon. Even fish and chicken choices are problematic.
Recycle, buy used clothes, appliances, used everything.
I would like to tag a few people about this new thread: @rainbow @lovendures @bluebelle @dannyboy @CC21 @ana @freya @Andrew
Farmer's Markets can reduce carbon in small albeit meaningful ways:
https://medialibrary.climatecentral.org/resources/farmers-markets
Here is my market story from this morning, a little long but maybe enjoyable:
This morning I went to the grocery store and then our outdoor Farmer’s Market (I live in a rural college town in Appalachia) which has been in operation for fifty years. The contrast, from the contents of my baskets and bags to the ambiance, was hugely striking.
Leaving the big box grocery store I looked with dismay into my (reusable) bag of 6 items and saw despite my best efforts stuff that had traveled from all over the world, ingredients that are not helpful to the human and Earth bodies, and packaging some of which will go into the municipal landfill. While shopping under banks of harsh lighting with, not kidding, Wild Thing by the Troggs blasting away! I left jangled and harried.
Then across the street to the outdoor Farmer’s Market where Spring was in full swing. Where I filled my baskets with a small Silver Maple tree nurtured for the last year by a young man and now ready for planting given away free from the Arbor Day Committee, fresh rhubarb, spinach, lettuce, turnips with the tops, fresh eggs from a farmer who rotates the hens around his fields and supplements with a custom organic feed, tomato plants, homemade goat feta cheese, and dried soup beans. Nothing had traveled more than 30 miles. The best thing was the stories. The elderly tomato plant farmer recounted with shining eyes how he has been walking in the woods and admiring the spring ephemerals now blooming; we agreed the woods this time of year are like fairyland. I left uplifted and encouraged by all the growers and patrons of our market. And the Arbor Day Committee which is tireless in its efforts to advocate for planting trees and increasing our urban tree canopy.
Unlike some markets which have become gentrified, ours has all kinds of people shopping and offers a stand each week that gives “Market Dollars” in exchange for food stamps or a credit card charge (no fee) for shoppers who didn’t bring enough cash. Many of our rural residents live in a food desert, though, and a local nonprofit runs a van stocked with donations of farmer's market products and fresh vegetables grown in community gardens that serves the entire county each week year-round. Never enough to provide for everyone but a start.
@marigold We have CSA farms in my area (foothills of the Appalachian Mountains) People can find these and support local farmers, get fresher healthier in season fruits and veggies and milk,cheeses,meats that have been raised cage free, pastured and grass-fed.
To help others find what resources are available near them check this link. https://www.localharvest.org/csa/
Better for us, better for the planet. We definitely eat better with access to such groups. Sadly, currently these options are not easily available for all of us.
It's very sad to me that in a country as rich in America, a very large percentage of us do not have access to medical care, food and shelter. It boggles my mind that so many billionaires/millionaires feed of off our labors and yet our politicians continue to support the systems that keep so many in poverty or subsistence levels of wages working our lives away not even earning enough to support ourselves and our families and trying to do their best to destroy our social programs that may be able to help us.
I read an article the other day saying that Federal minimum wage would need to $26.00 per hour to match our economic output.
I do believe our young people will continue to rise to the occasion and come up with uniquely, creative and wonderful solutions to the dilemmas we face today.
@jeanne-mayell I want to add that eating a veg or vegan diet doesn’t have to be 100% of the time. I know how intimidating it can be to say I won’t ever eat ‘butter’ or whatever again especially re family holidays, restaurants, traveling or family food traditions. I also know how hard it can be to call yourself a vegetarian when you eat vegetarian 90% of the time(or 75, or 50%) but Who cares, helping the planet even 50% of the time is so much better than 0% of the time.
I have posted this several times but I know forum participation fluctuates, so...
The single, best way to reduce carbon in the US, is to have a tax on carbon or carbon fee and dividend. It would act like a railway switch and propel us onto a different, lower carbon track. Please call or send a postcard to your Member of Congress and two Senators telling them that you are worried about climate change and that you endorse a carbon fee and dividend
While it it true that we can act as models for our neighbors and we must all do whatever we can, individual action will not get us to where we need to go. Ok, having said that...
Please get rid of all incandescent bulbs. They are last century technology and they generate a lot of heat.
Some states and utilities offer no cost or low cost energy audits. They usually pay for themselves in energy savings even if you have to pay $100 or so. Check online to see if there are financial incentives offered by the state or utilities to help offset the costs of replacing old or gas appliances.
If you need to replace your hot water heater, go electric---wrap the one you have in insulation--quick payback.
As Jeanne recommends, if at all possible, replace your gas stove with electric for your health and for climate change. https://oeconline.org/gas-stoves-are-creating-unsafe-levels-of-indoor-air-pollution/
Based on the predictions for a hot summer on this forum, check your attic insulation. If it is old or insufficient, you can have cellulose blown in on top of it without having to remove the old. Attic insulation will keep you cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.
I will look for lists and links for those who are interested. The to-do list is long.
@raincloud we insulated our attic last summer and it has made a huge difference in both comfort and electricity use summer and winter. A hot sweaty task creeping along in the attic with those big batts of insulation but worth it.
Heat pumps will cool you all summer better than any air conditioner and they are quiet. And they will warm you in winter.
We’ve had two free energy audits. They gave us free stuff and huge discounts on insulation. We replaced all incandescent bulbs so long ago that I can’t remember when it was. We only use LED now.
We still have gas heat but have scheduled a free heating audit next week to find out how we can cut and at some point eliminate the use of gas with heat pumps. We have friends whose entire homes are now heated and cooled with heat pumps. It is harder with an old home but I am determined to find a way.
Don't forget a simple solution that helps the environment. Compost everything that you can. I just bought a compost tumbler 2 weeks ago. I'm having fun using it. It's an outdoor tumbler that doesn't require worms. I got it off Amazon for $65. But I just saw on TV an ad for this new compost machine. This is really exciting because it shows that this generation is now starting to think of solutions to the problem with innovative thinking.
Imagine if everyone composted. It would probably reduce a lot of methane and other toxic gases in the air and ground from the interaction of chemicals that should not be put together and it reduces landfill usage.
I have posted this several times but I know forum participation fluctuates, so...
The single, best way to reduce carbon in the US, is to have a tax on carbon or carbon fee and dividend. It would act like a railway switch and propel us onto a different, lower carbon track. Please call or send a postcard to your Member of Congress and two Senators telling them that you are worried about climate change and that you endorse a carbon fee and dividend
The carbon tax idea has been in the works for as long as I can remember. If I call my congressional delegation tomorrow, I doubt anything will come from it. Perhaps you could suggest some groups we could join?
I should have suggested that people join groups; none of us accomplishes much alone. The Climate Reality Project is very active. You can join a chapter without having to go through the training. They will send a weekly calls-to-make list that only takes a few minutes and will help create a cacophony of climate action voices.
The not-for-profit Citizen's Climate Lobby has been working on a price on carbon for a decade and they are making progress. They have their ear to the ground in DC and work diligently.
One of the historic issues ever since the first "social-cost-of-carbon," which is the economic calculation of the cost of inaction, has been that it was and still is, calculated far too low. In the Nicholas Stern report, they omitted ocean acidification, for example, which will have massive global environmental and economic consequences. Economists are not in tune enough with the science.
Subscribe to "Inside Climate News" to get free updates on science. https://insideclimatenews.org/
"Yale Environment 360" is excellent, too. https://e360.yale.edu/
For monitoring the ice on the poles and in glaciers, I receive a regular update "Major Developments in Cyrosphere Science" but I signed up at a conference and don't know how to refer others. Try,
https://www.cryosphere2022.is/
Oh, Columbia Earth Institute has many fabulous webinars but it helps to have a background in energy and or climate.
There are many environmental groups who work on climate but I want all of my efforts to be extremely climate focused but perhaps other folks will have recommendations, too.
@raincloud Thank you, this is very helpful! As I read your post, my hope levels rose.
A promising message about sources in the Indigenous community is offering knowledge to help grow crops in a drier climate. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication produces regular short, 2 minute, podcasts related to climate, many of which are meant to encourage us.
Yale Climate Connections
@raincloud Dry farming by indigenous people fits visions I've had of indigenous people surviving climate change. I would love to get a hold of some of these dry veggie seeds and try them in my veggie garden. I searched the links but clearly they are not at the point where a person can order the seeds. However, where I live, the northeast, we never know if we are going to have a drought or the opposite. I would however like to find seeds that can survive drought so I can stop watering my garden once the plants have gone from seedling to small plant stage.
James Hansen's latest climate update: "Hotter Hotspots, Drier Dryspots, Wetter Wetspots, and Stronger Storms" clarifies what the top climate scientist is observing, and has been expecting to see for many years.
Although I always felt that rapid climate change would happen faster than even Hansen was predicting, now I see he's talking about the 2030's in the same way I've been feeling them, i.e., get ready for big changes. That's a hit for a prediction I made ten years ago. Still, I find Hansen comforting because he's a scientist (and I am not) and he believes we can slow down the escalation, which I am uncertain but hopeful we can. He is worth reading and subscribing to (free). To subscribe to his email list: https://columbia.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?
To read this latest climate update: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2022/AprilTemperatureUpdate.16May2022.pdf
As I write this post, I can feel that @raincloud will know much more about this than I have expressed. She has both the climate science and the intuition about the situation.
Wildfire risk estimates by U.S. region in 2022 and 2052. I've been telling clients that my favorite U.S. location for the long term is the Northeast, especially near the Great Lakes. This assessment validates that prediction. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2022/wildfire-risk-map-us/?
@Jeanne-mayell I go through cycles of obsessing about certain places, people etc and I never understand why until afterwards when something in the news appears or is going to be siginificant soon. But I am starting to learn the pattern a bit more now.
For example, during the year leading up to covid in 2020, I had a big obsession with China, with their culture, their people, their way of life. Little did I know, that the pandemic was going to emerge from China in 2020.
The same thing is happening again with me this year with Florida, Arizona and Nevada. I keep looking at these 3 states over in particular. Maybe, I just want to go there in the future on holiday one day? Or maybe it is something more? I don't know...
Each of those 3 states are very important in the 2022 mid-term elections.
In my state of Arizona, the Governor seat is open and as bad a Ducey is as the current Governor, any of his Republican replacements would be really bad for Arizona. Hobbs, the main democratic contender is running hard but it is a tough battle. Hobbs was the lone voice of sanity during the election last year as Sec. of State and didn't cave to the absurdity of the Reps and their idiotic Cyber Ninja excrement.
Nevada is important for many reasons including the balance of power in the senate as a swing state and the fact the republicans want to change how voting is done in that state and get rid of mail in voting.
Florida is...well...I have no idea where to even begin with Florida.
There are other important states where the balance of power is at stake such as Texas and Pennsylvania. Many important states. So many important states...
Also wanted to add that those 3 states have some of the biggest climate concerns right now. There is a catastrophic situation going on with water for Nevada and Arizona and 4 other states in the west. Especially dire for Arizona, Nevada and Southern California. Two main "lakes" ( Manmade) those 3 states draw their water from are at all time lows. The Colorado River flows into them and there just isn't enough water flowing in the west. Phoenix is way below average for rain again this year too.