I know, it is easy to sound Pollyanna with a subject line like that.
This year has seen a record number of billion dollar climate disasters. Oil production in the U.S. is at an all-time high. International cooperation on climate solutions is fraught at best, leaving developing nations, and their communities and people, in the dust. There is still a lot of bad news, every day.
I try to have a positive outlook. It starts with my own mantra -- "We are surrounded by solutions."
What does that mean? It means that hopeful signs of progress are appearing almost everywhere, if you know how to spot them.
In Washington, DC, where I live, these include technological solutions (e.g., super efficient office buildings, renewable energy generation like solar panels & wind turbines, public transportation networks, bike and scooter sharing systems, electric vehicle charging stations, home electrification and efficiency, LED streetlights), nature-based, green solutions (e.g., bioswales and rain gardens, new street trees, enlarged tree boxes, rain barrels and gardens, composting services), and behavioral solutions (e.g., people choosing active transportation, composting food waste, abandoning single-use items like cups and forks, reducing power consumption and selecting renewables).
We have access to many effective policies and technologies that will reduce GHG pollution and strengthen our communities against climate impacts. What we need a lot more of is the public support and political will to replicate and scale these current solutions, even as better policies and technologies emerge.
Here is a challenge: the next time you are walking, biking, scootering around your community, play a little scavenger hunt I call Spot the Solutions. Start with yourself, using active transportation. Include newly planted trees, rain gardens, homes with vehicle chargers, or solar panels. Don't forget recycling and composting bins at peoples' homes, or in local businesses. How about the local café that gave up styrofoam containers, plastic utensils and bags? Are your neighbors using active or public transportation, and do they work in new, energy efficient offices? A little harder to spot, but is your local power utility moving away from fossil generation by incorporating more renewables? Does your local government have a climate plan that mandates that transition, and includes policies and programs that support all of these other practical solutions?
If you pay attention, you'll notice that it is starting to add up.
I am curious, though: what did I miss? What are the solutions that give you the most hope?
RECOMMENDED READING: The Energy News Network publishes daily news aggregators covering the U.S. (and four separate regional editions). An impressive number of items every day describe promising solutions from all four corners of the country. And Grist has a year-in-review article that talks about progress being made in climate solutions. Not enough -- but not nothing!
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Dan Barry
Associate Director, LSEN Engagement
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Washington DC
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