What You Can Do
THE WAVES AND WEATHER are always changing on the coast of Maine. Last summer, I paddled my canoe to a nearby island in the sun, and two hours later had to feel my way back through a fog that hid the mainland.
There are longer-term forces at play here, too. The black mussel beds I steered around as a child are all gone now. So is the sea grass that made a good hiding place for crabs. These disappearances, I’m told, are due to climate change. The Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than virtually any other ocean surface in the world.
Tides are higher now, and a January storm knocked a nearby house off its foundations. The waves battered down brick walls at the bell tower at nearby Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. Sensing the trend, I raised the property insurance on my cottage last year.
I was receptive, then, when the rector of my church recommended a new book about climate change with a surprisingly hopeful title: Not the End of the World. Its author, Dr. Hannah Ritchie, is a senior researcher in the Programme on Global Development at the University of Oxford.
Ritchie subjects climate claims to rigorous factual analysis and finds more hope for our future than most. Yet hers is not a climate denial book. With the current carbon reduction policies we have in place, she estimates that the planet may warm by 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius. This is far more than the 1.5 degrees sought in 2015’s Paris Climate Accord.
Yet, in Ritchie’s thinking, we’re halfway toward solving our problem of excess carbon in the atmosphere. If no policies had changed, the climate would be warming by much more—by 4.1 to 4.8 degrees Celsius, she calculates. Yes, total carbon emissions are rising, she notes, but emissions per person peaked in 2012 and have fallen since.
To cite just one spot of progress, electricity from solar panels, which was the most expensive form of power generation 10 years ago, is the least expensive source today. Are solar panels popping up on the roofs and garages of your neighborhood? They are in Maine, too.
Meanwhile, coal is dying. Thirty years ago, the U.S. generated 55% of its electricity by burning coal. It now accounts for less than 20%.
See if you can guess the correct answer to this quiz question. What has happened to carbon emissions in the U.S. over the last 15 years? Have they:
a) Increased by more than 20%
b) Increased by 10%
c) Stayed the same
d) Fallen by 20%
The correct answer is d), but it was only chosen by 19% of respondents in a recent survey. Two-thirds chose either a) or b). “No wonder people think we’re screwed,” Ritchie observes.
A defeatist outlook can leave people feeling hopeless. Ritchie recommends that instead we adopt a philosophy of “urgent optimism,” as she calls it. “Optimism is seeing challenges as opportunities to make progress,” she writes. “It’s having the confidence that there are things we can do to make a difference.”
Okay, but what can we do specifically? The biggest of Ritchie’s recommendations would be to trade an SUV for an electric vehicle. It does take more energy to manufacture an electric car, Ritchie notes. But after 12 years, an EV would be responsible for one-third of the CO2 emissions of a typical gas-fired car.
The next biggest step would be to adopt a vegan diet. Livestock creates about 20% of the world’s carbon.
If buying an EV or going vegan feels like too big a leap, here are other, incremental steps Ritchie recommends:
Eat less lamb and beef. Substituting chicken for beef can reduce our dinner plate’s carbon load by 88%. Fish are an even lower-carbon source of protein. Wheat, peas, beans, cereals and nuts are better still.
Wash your clothes in cold water. My washing machine has a water temperature dial that’s easy to change.
If you can afford it and have the option, buy your electricity from a green energy provider that obtains electricity from wind, solar or hydropower sources.
Ritchie says she always uses the microwave when cooking. It cooks food fast and is more carbon-efficient than the cooktop or oven.
Buy more Tupperware. About 20% of our food goes into the garbage bin. And don’t think that the “best by” date means throw it out after. It simply means the food is at its peak, not that it’s gone bad afterward.
People are inherently good and want to do right by the earth. Yet there are many steps people think will reduce their carbon footprint that have little effect, Richie writes. Here are some things she says we can “stress less about” because they make little difference to our carbon footprint:
Using a dishwasher or hand washing your dishes doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
Recycling our plastic bottles has a negligible effect on the world's temperature.
Leaving a computer or TV on standby power mode isn’t going to make much difference to the climate problem.
Leaving a phone charger plugged in when not in use also isn’t a game changer.
Eating organic food can be worse for the climate if more resources are used to produce it.
Choosing paper bags over plastic at the checkout doesn’t affect the world’s climate, though it may reduce the number of plastic bags flapping in trees.
Eating local foods doesn’t matter much because transport is just 5% of food’s carbon cost, on average. Ritchie herself eats avocados from Mexico.
Greg Spears is HumbleDollar's deputy editor. Earlier in his career, he worked as a reporter for the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. After leaving journalism, Greg spent 23 years as a senior editor at Vanguard Group on the 401(k) side, where he implored people to save more for retirement. He currently teaches behavioral economics at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia as an adjunct professor. The subject helps shed light on why so many Americans save less than they might. Greg is also a Certified Financial Planner certificate holder. Check out his earlier articles.The post What You Can Do appeared first on HumbleDollar.
