Climate Change is the Visible Problem – Regenerative Sustainability is the Invisible Solution

A recent article in the New York Times, “U.S. Cities Are Vastly Undercounting Emissions, Researchers Find” (John Schwartz, 2/2/2021), reports on a new study showing that “Inconsistent and flawed data is undercutting efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from American cities.” It asserts that more accurate measurement of city emissions is necessary for effective action as the US rejoins the Paris Agreement and the larger effort to reverse global climate change, but is it?

Although the point is a valid one, it is not the crux of the issue nor the whole solution. 

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Citizens Climate Lobby

Citizens Climate Lobby is a non-profit, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change. We train and support volunteers to reclaim their democracy and engage elected officials and the media to generate the political will for solutions that will stabilize the Earth’s climate.

“If the political will of the people is asleep at the wheel, then the political will of government is likely to be asleep at the wheel.” - Sam Daley-Harris Founder, President RESULTS

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Net Zero Walgreens?! Implications for Transformation

Walgreens' embrace of net zero retail, is laudable, particularly because of the potential for its adoption to drive the normalization of net zero building performance industry wide. In addition, it's authenticity is reflected in seeking Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification, the only sustainability framework that embraces the ultimate sustainability goals of net zero as a minimum and restorative impacts as the standard. As you likely know, the LBC won the Buckminster Fuller Challenge in 2012 as the most promising innovation to drive global sustainability.

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Climate Update

Climate change is upon us, and almost every facet of California’s natural and built environment is being affected. Increasing global temperatures are causing significant effects at global, regional, and local scales. In the past century, average global temperature has increased by about 0.8°C (1.4°F), and average global sea level has increased by 17 to 21 centimeters (7 to 8 inches) (IPCC, 2013). Sea level at the San Francisco tidal gauge has risen 20 centimeters (8 inches) over the past century, and the National Research Council projected that sea level may rise by as much as 140-165 centimeters (55-65 inches) in California by 2100 (NRC, 2012). The Coastal Commission has developed this guidance to help California’s coastal communities prepare for the effects of sea-level rise.

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Approaching the Planetary Tipping Point?

Finally, a decade or so after the path-breaking IPCC 4th Assessment Report that confirmed anthropogenic climate change (see article), a new report and multi-disciplinary research project (The Berkeley Initiative in Global Change Biology) is focusing on the likely global biological effects of climate change (see article).

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131 Years of Global Warming in 27 Seconds & the Fallacy of Adaptation

See the visualized data map here.  The public policy mantra on global warming has shifted in the last few years from mitigation, which is viewed as impractical, to adaptation, which is viewed as smart and practical.

If only! The problem with such a "positive, constructive, boosterism" framing of the challenge of catastrophic climate change is that full mitigation (full societal mobilization/innovation to stay below 1, 2 at most, degrees C average surface temperature warming), is our best and only shot at success. Even that success is uncertain.

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IEA Says 5 Years Left Before We "Lock In" Perilous Climate Change

Vancouver Sun, AFP, Nov 9, 2011

PARIS - The world has just five years to avoid being trapped in a scenario of perilous climate change and extreme weather events, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned on Wednesday .

On current trends, "rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change," the IEA concluded in its annual World Energy Outlook report.

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Climate Warming Skeptics Denied!

An SF Gate article begins with, "A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming [Richard Muller] spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly."

Although the scientific method triumphs, public discourse on the topic still reflects a misunderstanding of the relationship between science and public policy decisions.

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The Basis for Non-Expert Democratic Decisions - Case of Climate Change

How do we integrate expert knowledge into democratic decisions and policy? Think through the issue with Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, who provides a nice example of critical thinking applied to the current public dialogue over human-induced climate change.

"Experts have always posed a problem for democracies.  Plato scorned democracy, rating it the worst form of government short of tyranny, largely because it gave power to the ignorant

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