Last fall, we reflected on what poet Mary Oliver called the season’s exquisite, necessary diminishing.
We also wondered “… what if everyone in the Union community who gardens, or who could garden, decided to plant extra tomatoes, or lettuce, or spinach, or onions, peppers, melons, squash, potatoes, …. Could we grow enough food to make a difference for someone else?”
Now we are thankful for the continuation of the annual cadence: Easter rebirth leads to Pentecost’s message of growth. Spring promises summer. And Oliver observes, “in spring there’s hope … in summer there is everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts, the hospitality of the Lord….”
We’ve also got an answer to our fall question, as the photo left illustrates. Last Thursday Union gardeners delivered seven bags of greens, along with turnips, snap peas and chard; the produce was delivered to, and appreciatively accepted by, Compass House.
Let’s keep this going! For everyone interested in joining the Union Gardens project, mark Thursdays on your calendars. That’s when you can bring your produce to the McColloughs’ house in North Seattle, or the Downeys’ in West Seattle, or Union before 1:00 PM. The Union team will take it from there.
Now, let’s step back for a moment and glance at the bigger picture: fighting climate change on a global scale. This month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a special report entitled Net Zero by 2050. Executive director Fatih Birol describes 2021 as “a critical year at the start of a critical decade,” and the report notes that the current pace of carbon/greenhouse gas emissions reduction will miss the 2050 deadline for “net-zero.” But rather than dwell on “gloom and doom,” the report sets out a detailed set of milestones—400!—whose achievement will mark the path the world needs to follow to reach its net-zero goal—with global equity(1)—by mid-century. Some examples:
By 2021: no new oil or gas fields, or unabated coal plants(2), receive governmental approval
By 2025: no more sales of fossil fuel-powered boilers
By 2030: universal access to energy; all new buildings will be zero-carbon-ready(3); 60% of global new car sales will be electric vehicles; most of the required new clean technologies for heavy industry will be demonstrated at scale; solar and wind generation additions will exceed 1,000 gigawatts annually; unabated coal plants will be phased out in advanced economies
By 2035: 50% of new heavy truck sales will be electric
By 2040: 50% of aviation fuel consumed will be low-emission
By 2045: 50% of global heating demand will be met with heat pumps
By 2050: nearly 70% global electricity will be generated by solar and wind
Is creating a list of milestones the same as meeting those milestones? Of course not. Much of the success in reaching net-zero by 2050 will be driven by technologies not yet developed or proven at scale today, for one thing. And, as the IEA report notes, innovation will require governments to put “R&D, demonstration and deployment at the core of energy and climate policy.” More daunting still, a high degree of international consensus and collaboration will be needed. Hmmm…. And yet, it’s possible to find hope in this special report, for at least two reasons. First, this is not an alarmist “the sky is falling! Quick, we’ve got to do something!” document. Instead, the report presents tangible measures—things we can watch for and work for. And secondly, we as individuals are not relegated to the sideline; we have a role to play. The writers are clear: “A transition of the scale and speed described by the net-zero pathway cannot be achieved without sustained support and participation from citizens…. We estimate that around 55% of the cumulative emissions reductions in the pathway are linked to consumer choices….” So how might we contribute?
Through our consumer choices: making our next vehicle electric, installing energy-efficiency upgrades and heat pumps in our homes, choosing to walk, bike or take public transport, and using the car wisely when it’s necessary, ….
Through our voting/political choices: supporting candidates who back clean energy, zero-carbon R&D, job retraining for workers displaced by fossil fuel phase-out, expansion of clean-electricity grids, solar and wind farms, ….
Through our investment choices: investing in companies/projects working to develop and scale technologies needed to achieve net-zero by 2050.
The path is indeed narrow, as the IEA press release notes, but we do have a path, and ways that we as individuals can help stay on it. That’s encouraging. It’s also encouraging that we have a way—Union Gardens—to help at the neighborhood level. We really can, at both the local and global levels, act with purpose and hope. Reasons to be thankful!
(1) Per the IEA Report: “Providing electricity to around 785 million people that have no access and clean cooking solutions to 2.6 billion people that lack those options is an integral part of our pathway.”
(2) “Unabated coal-powered plants:” operating with little or no carbon capture/storage
(3) “Zero-carbon-ready:” capable of producing carbon-free renewable energy onsite, or procuring carbon offset