sustainability

What Now? Reflecting on 2020

Francesca Von Krauland COVID-19, Global Future, Racial Justice , , , , , ,
What Now? Reflecting on 2020

There are a few weeks left of 2020. They might take a few days, or perhaps another few months, to pass—time didn’t move quite logically this year. It seems like a lot of people just want to fast forward through to get to 2021, a year still full with the hope that the vaccine will bring everything back to normal. I’d like to make a counterproposal: what if instead of wishing away what was for most people a bizarre year, we stop for a moment and look back at it? And what if instead of wishing for a return to the normal, we embrace the good that comes of change?

2020 was the year of COVID, of race protests, of isolation, one of the most dramatic U.S. elections in living memory. It was the year of the unprecedented. The borders closed between European countries for the first time since the establishment of the European Union. The border between the U.S. and Europe closed for the first time ever—and seems to be staying that way. Everything we accepted as normal, the good and the bad, tore away to reveal a messy, imperfect world. It’s a dark planet, but even from space it glitters with the lights of all our cities, grids connecting billions of people’s lives and stories. Perhaps in this year’s darkness the lights shone even brighter, because there was so much good in 2020, too.

Image from Space.com

This year, global conflict became unavoidably personal for everyone. This article phrases it perfectly, “In some ways, the pandemic has been a dress rehearsal for the climate crisis. Human beings throughout the world have been called upon to embrace science, change their lifestyles and make sacrifices for the common good.” This year was about awareness—maybe that’s why Americans’ concern about the climate crisis rose from 44% to an all-time high of 60% this year. Perhaps they realized that it’s no coincidence emissions dropped 9% at the same time that travel and consumption slowed—the biggest yearly drop on record. Though emissions are expected to increase again next year, they still won’t be higher than any year since 1990. Yet another reason this year’s timeline feels off: in some ways we’ve been time traveling. In San Francisco, traffic levels across the Golden Gate Bridge fell to levels similar to the 1950s, resulting in coyotes wandering across. The drop in noise from our usually bustling cities caused a change in bird song: “While it might have seemed to human ears that bird song got louder, the sparrows actually sang more quietly,” explains Dr. Elizabeth Derryberry of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

We also moved forward in time, making huge and exciting progress toward the future of global energy, renewables. During shutdowns, with reduced demand for power, grid operators relied more on cheaper renewable energy sources, and almost 10% of electricity generation in most parts of the world were sourced from renewable energy sources. Denmark, already a leader in wind energy, just announced that it will stop providing licenses for oil exploration in the North Sea, preventing the extraction of about 150 million barrels of oil by 2050. The plan, which Climate and Energy Minister Dan Jorgensen announced as a historic step toward a fossil-free future that will “resonate around the world,” was created as an economic response to the pandemic.

So with the present as an exciting conglomeration of the future and past, all de-familiarized by the fact that we’re still living through it, I ask…now what? What does the future need to look like, across government, business, and society, to create a clean and just world? In the United States, leaders would do well to learn from Nordic countries, China and India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. President-elect Biden’s outline of some of his climate goals, including rejoining the Paris Agreement, is cause for hope, but the support of the judiciary, in addition to the executive and lawmakers, is necessary. Globally, a total of 1,587 cases of climate litigation have been brought between 1986 and mid-2020: 1,213 cases in the U.S. and 374 cases in 36 other countries and eight regional or international jurisdictions. These numbers are increasing rapidly, and according to this LSE study, “These cases play an important supporting role in ensuring the national implementation of international emissions-reduction commitments, the alignment of national laws with the Paris Agreement, and the enforcement of laws and policies relating to climate resilience.” This year, in the U.S., a federal judge ruled that the highly controversial Dakota Access Pipeline be shut down because federal officials failed to adequately analyze the project’s environmental impact. Also this year, in Portugal, six young people filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, demanding accountability from 33 top-emitting countries for the climate crisis and that funds for economic restoration from the pandemic are spent in a way that ensures a rapid transition to renewable energy. While individual executive leadership is important, the role of other branches of government, and of international organizations, cannot be dismissed.

Image from LSE

Change on a government level is infamously slow—passing progressive plans through multiple levels of bureaucracy and special interests can hardly be the only way to enact change, though it’s undoubtedly an important one. Businesses also have a role to play in ensuring a rapid transition to sustainability. From simplifying global supply chains to replacing physical structures with digital platforms, businesses occupy a unique position that enables not just rapid reaction to shifting norms but also the ability to spearhead change. One hundred companies are responsible for 71% of greenhouse gas emissions, and massive corporations must be accountable for their impact on the planet. In this area, there is good news. Walmart has cut 230 million metric tons of greenhouse gases out of its supply chain in the past three years, Uniliver vowed to replace the petrochemicals found in its detergents and household cleaners with renewable or recycled alternatives, Apple committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030, and Lyft said 100% of its trips will be in electric vehicles within the decade. In the realm of startups and investors, a changing mindset is even more evident. Green startups are more common than ever, reimagining everything from how nitrogen fertilizer is created for global agriculture to how to simultaneously reduce food waste and hunger.

More than simply building back better, we need to build back equal, creating social change that reduces inequality as we focus on green growth. What a just transition entails varies by country, depending on the place’s particular culture, norms, and historical legacies, so there is no one solution to be prescribed in order to ensure equality and effective reform everywhere. But there is one commonality, one overarching goal we must keep in mind as the world pulls itself out of this chaotic year, and this unsustainable epoch of human history: what comes next is entirely up to us. The actions that governments, businesses, and individuals take now will affect everyone for generations to come. There is only one global climate future—the one whose foundations are being built by the decisions we make today.

Featured image from La Croix

Building Back Equal

Francesca Von Krauland COVID-19, Global Future, Uncategorized , , , , ,
Building Back Equal

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.” So ends a Financial Times article penned by author Arundhati Roy earlier this year, when the extent of the COVID-19 situation was just beginning to become clear. Her words hold truer than ever as we near the final month of this chaotic, tragic, wake-up call of a year. Everything has changed, but have we as a society changed enough to make the most of the times to come?

In my last article, I gave a sketch of the vision of some feminist climate activists, one that involves knocking down the capitalist world order and replacing it with a collectivist and egalitarian framework. I now want to highlight some of the work already being done, within the system, to reform and rebuild the economy with both social and climate justice at the forefront.

First, some hopeful facts, as explained by Joni Seager, a feminist geographer at Bentley University. Renewables have passed non-renewables in the EU for electricity. The BP oil company says that the peak of their output has passed. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund has said it won’t put any more funding toward fossil fuels. As a whole, in developed nations, fossil fuels are on the way out—all due the fact that rational economic behaviors would move us away from fossil fuels at this moment, more so than as a result of the compassion of the powerful and the passion of the powerless. In fact, much has been accomplished despite what Seager calls “a stubborn attachment that defies sensibility of economics” in the United States and Australia, where governments have ratcheted up commitment to fossil fuels through identity politics. From the top to bottom predominately male work force, to the fact that capital benefits accrue most to men, to the very language we use of “drill baby drill and “dominating the Permian Basin,” the fossil fuels industry is a remarkably masculinized one. Outdated for more than one reason, a society reliant on fossil fuels is also one that propagates a limiting, gendered worldview—and even those who challenge the science and economics of fossil fuels don’t always do so with equality in mind.

Image from Pikist

There’s a particular, 21st century brand of masculinity that drives environmental policy with methods that only enforce outdated social norms. The economic effects of the pandemic make the Green New Deal more urgent and relevant than ever, yet a feminist analysis of its proposed policies reveals numerous shortcomings, due in large part to the male elite perspective it relies on. A paper commissioned by two UK feminist organizations, Wen and the Women’s Budget Group, found that the Green New Deal creates tech jobs for “men in hard hats lifting solar panels,” a masculinist assumption of what the economy is for. With little acknowledgement of social difference, they emphasize that true progress lies in investing in women and POC-dominated care work, which pollutes less than construction. Care work can be paid or unpaid, and it mainly takes place in the home in the service of others, including children, aging parents, and spouses. The interconnections between the exploitation of women’s care work and the Earth need to be addressed simultaneously because all those doing the care work make survival, learning, and change possible in the face of existential threats—despite the free subsidy that care work represents to people in power. The study found that each pound invested in care produces three times as many jobs as one invested in construction, and this fact, coupled with that the vast majority of people of all genders want care work to be paid, points toward an economic solution that would also have a positive social impact. Supporters of a care-centered green movement consciously distance themselves from some of the ideas of the climate feminists of my last article. Branding themselves “eco-feminists,” supporters of a Feminist Green New Deal emphasize that their ideas are not about women being close to nature or other such caricatures, but about rational arguments for the democratization of care work.

Within the Femtech sector, which is “an all-encompassing name that defines innovations designed to support, improve and promote women’s health,” many products designed and sold for and by women are also eco-friendly. Replacing wasteful, disposable menstrual products with reusable cups, for example, is one of many ways that women are dominating the movement toward sustainable innovation and consumerism. Of course, this is problematic in another way—most available environmentally conscious products on the market, including reusable shopping bags, household cleaning products, and cosmetics, are marketed toward women, with some saying that green is the new pink in women’s marketing. While showcasing the ingenuity and motivation of the women behind some of these campaigns, such an approach alienates men, actually fueling the belief that saving the planet is women’s work, rather than something that can only be achieved through intersectional, inclusive action. But even these notions are dwindling among younger generations, which is a definite cause for hope.

Image from Vivez Vegan

There’s much to be done in the climate movement by both men and women—and deconstructing needlessly gendered economic and business policies seems like a good start. In reforming our global order to address the climate crisis, the pandemic, social injustice, and the economic crisis, solutions need not throw out the system in order to improve it. Policies that are feminist, sustainable, and economically sound would move society forward in a way that’s equal parts revolutionary and truly feasible. 

Featured Image from Tee Public

Orange Skies

Francesca Von Krauland COVID-19, Global Future , , , , ,
Orange Skies

There’s something unsettling about the virus, this seemingly inescapable, omnipresent, insidious force that keeps us locked in our homes. Some people almost wished for a tangible enemy, something obvious and terrifying but at the very least visible, so that they could justify the sacrifices and fear. The universe granted that wish in a very 2020 way—wildfires swept the west coast with the same force that the Australian wildfires did way, way back in January of this year. Suddenly, the sky was like something out of Dante’s Inferno, and you could taste the smoke particles floating in the air even through a face mask. The landscape matched the gathering feeling of apocalypse, and new numbers, like 4 million burned acres, joined the statistics we sing ourselves to sleep with: 45.1 million global COVID-19 infections, 230,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States eight months and counting of using the phrase ‘unprecedented times.’ An article written by Stanford University student Nestor Walters on the wildfires poses the question: “How many more times do we need to hear words like trying, tumultuous or challenging as adjectives to times before we accept that these are simply the times we live in?”

No one can escape it—not the wildfires, not the pandemic, and not climate change. Rozzi, an American pop singer, released a ballad called “Orange Skies” about the wildfires in her hometown of San Francisco. She said of the song, “Despite the massiveness of the issue, I knew I wanted to make the song personal – because of course the underlying issue itself is personal. Climate change isn’t some mythical thing happening to other people, in other places – it’s happening right now, right outside our doors.”

Image from CNBC

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk reports 7,348 wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, droughts, and heatwaves over the past 20 years. These natural disasters resulted in the deaths of 1.23 million people, affecting a total of 4.2 billion people, and caused $2.97 trillion in global economic losses. Most effected are China and the United States. The report unequivocally links these events to the rising global temperature as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, and finds that any improvements to disaster response or climate adaptation will be “obsolete in many countries” if climate change, the source of the problem, is not immediately addressed.

So how does climate change cause forest fires? National Geographic explains that as temperatures rise due to climate change, the hot air “soaks up water from whatever it touches—plants (living or dead) and soil, lakes and rivers. The hotter and drier the air, the more it sucks up, and the amount of water it can hold increases exponentially as the temperature rises; small increases in the air’s heat can mean big increases in the intensity with which it pulls out water.” In California, the rise in temperature is about 3 degrees Fahrenheit, far above the global average of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat combines with parched forest material, which is even dryer due to a persistent drought more intense than any for the past 1,200 years, producing the ideal conditions for a fire to consume forests, in addition to all of the settlements that have increasingly encroached among traditionally undeveloped lands.

Image from National Geographic

Some preventive measures exist, though actual implementation by governments and industry varies. In Australia, nomadic aboriginal groups used to practice surface vegetation burning to prevent outbreaks of fire. Though indigenous populations can no longer engage in that tradition, the method is still emulated by local governments. Urban planning in Australia—where the 2019/2020 season was the hottest on record and driest for 120 years—must prevent expansion into flammable wildland areas, include vegetation-free zones around properties, use fireproof building materials, and plan evacuation and rescue routes in advance. In California, controlled burning of dry brush and excess debris is a common practice, though it contributes to air pollution. Currently, timber companies and biomass industries do not substantially support the state’s fire prevention strategy, so reducing costs of thinning projects would create better incentives for participation on an industry level. Additionally, as in Australia, building codes should emphasize fire-resistance and developing into high-risk areas should be banned. As a whole, these measures could reduce short term damage, but would address only the symptoms of the problem, rather than the problem itself. Unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, and the warming of the Earth slows, these practices will not suffice.

Image from Vox

Economically, the stakes are high for leaders to respond effectively. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced investments in the CAL FIRE air fleet, early wildfire warning technologies, fire detection cameras, and permanent firefighting positions, along with related crisis counseling, legal services, and housing and unemployment assistance for people affected by the fires. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, on the other hand, was widely criticized for his slow response to the wildfires, though he did expressly link them to climate change—a link that the Australian Finance Minister denied. Though Australia has pledged to reduce its emissions by between 26 and 28% within the next decade, a UN report noted that few of the Conservative government’s policies are designed to reach this target. Studies on the economic impact of wildfires on affected areas show that “large wildfires lead to instability in local labor markets by amplifying seasonal variation in employment over the subsequent year” and that rural areas in particular struggle to recover. Even without the pandemic-induced recession, effects last months and even years in places like rural Oregon. Short term economic gains as local laborers rebuild are overshadowed by the slow economic growth that follows as tourism, logging, and other essential industries drop.

It’s been an overwhelming year, but the pandemic, the wildfires, and climate change are nothing new. We are experiencing the colliding effects of problems we as a global society created and then ignored, until a virus halted civilization and the skies turned orange. The problem isn’t invisible, it’s in everything: it’s the fuel that runs the world we are literally watching burn. But we still have time, just a tiny bit of time, to turn things around, and to lower our emissions by switching to renewable energy, and to rebuild a post-pandemic society sustainably. Nestor Walters puts it best: “We don’t own the past or future; all we have is now. We can’t let hope take away our now, or we’ll find ourselves looking out the window one morning, wondering if the sky used to be blue.”

Featured Image from Bloomberg

Lessons in Sustainability: Sub-Saharan Africa

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future , , , ,
Lessons in Sustainability: Sub-Saharan Africa

Last week, the two U.S. presidential candidates completed their final debate before the election. It was surprisingly normal compared to the last one, which is equal parts depressing and only dubiously true. While both candidates managed to finish their sentences, the substance of their ideas on climate change was lacking. And, as this journalist pointed out, the way the moderator posed the question, “We’re running out of time so we gotta get on to climate change,” reveals an important truth about the issue itself: it’s been neglected for too long.

It was encouraging to hear former Vice President Biden make his stance unequivocally clear when he said,”Global warming is an existential threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to deal with it.” He then outlined concrete solutions he supports, including the creation of charging stations for electric cars on highways, increasing energy efficiency of buildings, and switching to wind and solar energy. He even directly confirmed that he would transition from the oil industry over time, to which President Trump replied, “Oh, that’s a big statement.” Politically it might be, but when one considers the urgency with which most of the rest of the world has committed to that sentiment, it really shouldn’t be that shocking.

Image from The BBC

The current U.S. President’s stance on the environment and climate change was clear long before this final debate. His administration has reversed nearly 100 rules regarding emissions standards, he famously placed a former coal lobbyist at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, he removed the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, and he cited misinformation to support his anti-wind energy stance during the debate, to name a few. It seems the one positive thing Trump has done for the environment is promise the U.S.’s support of the World Economic Forum’s One Trillion Trees Initiative—an action he made sure to highlight during the debate. The Initiative’s stated goal is to “grow, restore and conserve 1 trillion trees around the world,” and that seems like a force for positive change.

Another such force exists, far from the power dynamics of international institutions and hegemonic presidents. Despite Trump’s disinterest in Africa, demonstrated by his lack of a single visit to the continent during his presidency, a particular program, Trees for the Future, based in sub-Saharan Africa, has already achieved great results. The program, which was founded by a Maryland couple and receives funding from institutions like Google and UN Migration, aims to help farmers plant forests in Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, and Tanzania in order to make regenerative gardens in arid regions. The program is locally run and sustained. According to the 2020 Impact Report, Trees for the Future has planted 191 million trees, which resulted in the restoration of almost 20,000 gardens and helped over 150,000 people in the region. Not only is the regenerative gardening program good for the environment, but it also decreases food insecurity and poverty, thereby reducing migration of people in need of resources. By 2025, the organization aims to lift 1 million people out of poverty by planting 125,000 Forest Gardens.

Image from Trees for the Future

These successes result from the intersection between the developed and developing worlds, in which technologies and ideas can be transplanted and adapted to suit the needs of developing countries in a way that empowers local people to self sufficiency. Such an approach addresses the ethical question I posed in my last article, in which the historical rise of developed countries to power using nonrenewable energy created the problem of climate change, but even countries less responsible for the problem are needed to tailor their growth to fix it. By helping farmers in sub-Saharan Africa plant trees to develop their agricultural industry, local resource needs are met, national development goals are furthered, and global emissions are offset. This approach presents a model that other developing nations could easily implement—one that is separate from the boasting of politicians whose own interests come first, and whose progress can be dismantled by the next person in office with a different agenda.

With much of the continent still lacking adequate access to electricity, much of Africa’s energy infrastructure is yet to be built. Studies find that solar has huge potential, along with wind, and already in Kenya, geothermal energy has shown great results. Currently, only 5 GW of solar energy—less than 1% of the global total—have been installed in Africa. The potential for widespread use of renewable energy in the continent with the fastest growing and youngest population is massive. Connecting the almost billion people who don’t have access to electricity or clean cooking to a clean electricity source would save countless lives, but not if this is achieved with fossil fuels contributing to climate change, which causes the droughts and unpredictable weather responsible for so many other deaths and social issues in Africa. As in the U.S., and Europe, and India and China, and the rest of the world, now—well, really, years ago—but now is the time to transition to renewable energy everywhere, to divest from fossil fuels, to empower local farmers, and to vote into office candidates who will support these crucial goals.

Featured Image from Trees for the Future

Lessons in Sustainability: China and India

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future , , , ,
Lessons in Sustainability: China and India

A variety of political, ethical, and economic considerations shape the progress of leading Asian countries as they convert to renewable energy. With China investing in a variety of sources, emphasizing solar, and India raising questions about the burden of historical legacies of development, the decisions, progress, concerns and innovations of these Asian powers have a huge impact on the rest of the world, and can serve as role models for other nations.

Every year, over a million people die as a result of poor air quality in China—decades of economic progress fueled by coal slashed poverty rates, but at the cost of the environment, and of lives. Recently, the Chinese government has been asserting the importance of lowering its emissions levels, and in cooperation with international goals set by the Paris Agreement, China has agreed to reduce its coal consumption and have 20% of its energy come from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2030. It intends to significantly increase its wind, solar, and natural gas capacities, has regulated car emissions standards as stringently as Europe, and closed many coal-fired plants in heavy industry.

Image from BBC Future

Yet, as China develops its COVID-19 stimulus plan, it will continue to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into non-renewable energy projects—vastly exceeding spending plans for low-carbon energy. It employed a similar tactic following the 2008 financial crisis, though China’s economy has been impacted far less by the pandemic than by that recession. The stimulus plan stands in alarming contrast to the recent announcement by President Xi Jinping to achieve “carbon neutrality” before 2060, raising the question of the extent to which China, and of course many other countries, make these kinds of pledges for the sake of international prestige rather than out of a true commitment to the aim of reducing harmful emissions. While China’s progress and leadership in recent years has been admirable, now more than ever, doubling down on sustainability goals is the most prudent approach to recovering from the pandemic—not abandoning them for short-sighted relief.

India’s priorities have also shifted over time, from rapid growth with fossil fuels to a greener approach that includes investing in a variety of renewables in addition to more traditional carbon-based forms of energy. The slow transition can be attributed to several factors. India has the second greatest population of any country, and one that is still rapidly growing, but lacks the infrastructure to support even its current residents. This created an urgent need to expand the power grid to provide millions of people with electricity—a goal that has largely been achieved with reliance on fossil fuels. India has also leaned away from international agreements on climate goals because of a general distrust for international organizations, which are dominated by western powers like the U.S.—themselves massive emitters. Finally, the historical legacy of development discouraged an earlier transition in India, with many people believing that most of the damage to the environment has been the fault of western countries since the Industrial Revolution, and it is these countries that benefitted from the very same processes that they now discourage developing nations from utilizing. The ethical questions surrounding the historical burden of the west’s development are further complicated by India’s own religious and historical legacy of environmental protection. In translation, the ancient Hindu text says “Keep pure! For the Earth is our mother! And we are her children!”—a policy that embeds sustainability into Indian culture.

Despite these conflicts, India has ultimately begun the transition toward sustainable energy sources. Financial analysts have predicted that energy from solar in particular will be cheaper than coal in the coming years, so investing in renewables is the most sensible solution to both questions of development and of the environmental crisis. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government announced the goal of 450 GW of renewable capacity by 2030, up from the 86.3 GW it had at the beginning of this year. Ajay Shankar, a distinguished fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), emphasizes in regards to India that one of the greatest remaining hurdles in wind and solar is the cost of energy storage, but that “India is taking the first steps towards deploying storage technologies.” As a whole, questions of ethics and legacy seem to fall away in the face of urgent development needs and the increasingly dire environmental situation.

Image from NREL

In contrasting China and India’s approaches to converting to renewables, one must consider the historical and economic forces at play. After some obstacles, both seem to be on a path toward sustainability, which is crucial to the possibility of seriously lowering global emissions, considering the two country’s growing populations. Ideally, countries around the world can model their development on China and India, and smaller neighboring countries will benefit from implementing similar systems with the help of these regional powers.

Featured Image from Travel Triangle