Eco-Act 21-07: the “global” in global warming

eco not ego

global climate change

Today we begin to look at how and where we as individuals fit into the work of eliminating global warming. To do this, we’ll dig just a bit into agriculture, which accounts for 19% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions annually, according to Bill Gates in How to Avoid a Climate Disaster*. As we start, we should remember three points.

1. We truly are all connected. Atmospheric warming can’t be eliminated by or for Seattle, Washington state or the US alone. We can and should take steps that help local conditions, and we can be confident that these measures contribute to the bigger solutions needed. But despite our best efforts, we will feel some negative impacts of global warming in Seattle, the Northwest, the US—and in the northern hemisphere—until climate problems are addressed globally. It should also be stated that the global majority will face more severe consequences of global warming, first.

2. Global climate solutions must pair with global equity solutions. Effective, lasting climate solutions must be robust enough to work for a growing world population (the Pew Research Center estimates it at 10.9 billion in 2100), supporting higher living standards and expanding economies that enable increasing worldwide consumption of goods and energy. We have a mandate to act, from both a climate and a social justice perspective: no (social) justice, no (climate) peace.

3. Game-changing climate solutions will require global scale. Carbon taxes, solar and wind farms, transition to “clean” steel and cement, carbon capture technologies …. These and many other initiatives will be essential to the elimination of GHG emissions. And they will require investments, technology advances and legislative actions exceeding by orders of magnitude the contributions any one of us alone can make. Does this make our individual efforts pointless? Absolutely not! Our actions can help make a direct difference. Here, for example, are three actions we as individuals could take right now that have the potential to reduce GHG emissions in the agriculture sector:

   • Waste less food. Americans throw away something like 40%** of the food they buy—twice the percentage of Europeans and some other populations. As wasted food rots in the landfill, it releases GHGs—3.3 billion tons each year. So we can help reduce global warming simply by shopping for food more carefully and making sure we use everything we buy.

   • Modify our diets. Raising livestock for food is a major source of GHG emissions in the agriculture sector. Reducing the amount of meat we eat thus makes a direct, if gradual, contribution to GHG elimination. Consider also that our reduced consumption here will help compensate for other parts of the world where improving standards of living support increased meat consumption. Can our meal planning include a few meatless (or “engineered” meat) entrées each week?

   • Get smart about fertilizing our gardens. As they are used, fertilizers can release nitrogen, which ultimately leads to GHG emissions and water pollution. Yet plants—including those in our Union Gardens—benefit from fertilizing. The challenge is to fertilize just enough. A wealth of information on this topic can be found here and elsewhere online.

Intentional acts like the three noted above produce direct benefits and confirm the value our individual roles, in this case as consumers and savvy gardeners. But they do more: they signal the food industry, agribusinesses, corporate farmers and livestock producers, and other organizations that our requirements, and thus our shopping behaviors, are changing. And to continue to enjoy success in the marketplace, these major corporations and other businesses will have to change their behaviors as well, by changing product offerings or raising smaller herds, for example, or growing food grains instead of livestock feed.

Climate change is truly global. But even so, we do fit into the work of eliminating global warming—by our actions on a personal scale, and by our influence on regional, national and global-scale players.

* How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill Gates, page 55. The formal title for this category is actually “agriculture, forestry and other land use.”

** How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, page 121.

Eco-act 21-05: 51 billion tons

Our 2020 Eco-Faith posts focused primarily on actions that we as individuals can take to care for our physical world. In 2021 we will continue to occasionally offer a new idea for individual earth-friendly acts. But we’re also launching two new projects. We’ve been sowing the seeds for one of these in recent posts: Union Gardens, our socially-distanced community garden project that aims to grow a bit of food for ourselves—and a bit more that we as a community can share with Compass House, Lake Union Village and others. Now we’re waiting hopefully and continuing our preparations for the first sprouts in the coming weeks.

With Union Gardens underway, we introduce a second project area to think about: climate change, and specifically, what positive actions the Union community might take in support of our environment.

Climate change/global warming is seen by many as an existential threat to the quality of life—perhaps life itself—on planet earth, while a few may still deny or ignore the problem. Among those who acknowledge it, some feel climate change will be controlled through solar and wind initiatives, electric vehicles, the Paris Accord, and other efforts. Others, however, believe current efforts represent only a tiny fraction of what will be needed to avert catastrophic climate change.

avoiding climate disaster

a book review on Bill Gates’ new book

So how might Union as a community work on this confusing but critical issue? It seems that the necessary first step will be coming to a common definition and understanding of climate change. And to attempt to do this, we turn to a recently-published book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster*, written by Bill Gates. This informative, reader-friendly, realistic-yet-hopeful book presents a structure for understanding climate change and its causes, what tools are available now to address the problem, what additional steps must be taken—quickly—and what roles governments, private enterprise and individuals must play. We will draw on this book in several upcoming posts, and heartily recommend it.

The problem

Greenhouse gases are added to the world’s atmosphere every year at the rate of 51 billion tons,** give or take, and cause the earth to warm, which in turn causes or will cause a variety of problems for humans—and everything else: rising sea levels, extreme weather, drought, crop failure, wildfires, poor air quality, famine, mass migration, economic distress, political unrest, …. And because greenhouse gases (aka, carbon dioxide or GHG) remain in the atmosphere for centuries, simply reducing the rate of yearly addition will not stop global warming. The analogy that Bill uses is that merely reducing the flow of water into a filling bathtub will not avoid an eventual overflow. Turning off the flow is essential.

GHG sources

Greenhouse gases are created by virtually everything humans do. In his book, Bill organizes GHG sources into five groups and provides estimates for the portion of annual emissions each represents:*

• Manufacturing 31%

• Electricity 27%

• Agriculture 19%

• Transportation 16%

• HVAC 7%

Tackling the problem

Because pretty much everything we do creates greenhouse gases, and because driving GHG emissions to zero is critical, tackling global warming is a uniquely difficult problem: basically, we have to change EVERYTHING, more or less AT THE SAME TIME. And if that isn’t daunting enough, GHG emissions must be eliminated in economically and morally just ways that allow the world’s poor and emerging countries to benefit along with us. As Bill notes, “We need to accomplish something gigantic we have never done before, much faster than we have ever done anything similar…. But don’t despair. We can do this.”*** Let’s see if we can find a way for the Union community to help.

*How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, the Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need, Bill Gates

** Ibid., page 3

*** Ibid., page 5