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THE WAVES AND WEATHER are always changing on the coast of Maine. Last summer, I paddled my canoe to a nearby island in the sun, and two hours later had to feel my way back through a fog that hid the mainland.
There are longer-term forces at play here, too. The black mussel beds I steered around as a child are all gone now. So is the sea grass that made a good hiding place for crabs. These disappearances, I’m told, are due to climate change. The Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than virtually any other ocean surface in the world.
Tides are higher now, and a January storm knocked a nearby house off its foundations. The waves battered down brick walls at the bell tower at nearby Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. Sensing the trend, I raised the property insurance on my cottage last year.
I was receptive, then, when the rector of my church recommended a new book about climate change with a surprisingly hopeful title: Not the End of the World. Its author, Dr. Hannah Ritchie, is a senior researcher in the Programme on Global Development at the University of Oxford.
Ritchie subjects climate claims to rigorous factual analysis and finds more hope for our future than most. Yet hers is not a climate denial book. With the current carbon reduction policies we have in place, she estimates that the planet may warm by 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius. This is far more than the 1.5 degrees sought in 2015’s Paris Climate Accord.
Yet, in Ritchie’s thinking, we’re halfway toward solving our problem of excess carbon in the atmosphere. If no policies had changed, the climate would be warming by much more—by 4.1 to 4.8 degrees Celsius, she calculates. Yes, total carbon emissions are rising, she notes, but emissions per person peaked in 2012 and have fallen since.
To cite just one spot of progress, electricity from solar panels, which was the most expensive form of power generation 10 years ago, is the least expensive source today. Are solar panels popping up on the roofs and garages of your neighborhood? They are in Maine, too.
Meanwhile, coal is dying. Thirty years ago, the U.S. generated 55% of its electricity by burning coal. It now accounts for less than 20%.
See if you can guess the correct answer to this quiz question. What has happened to carbon emissions in the U.S. over the last 15 years? Have they:
a) Increased by more than 20%
b) Increased by 10%
c) Stayed the same
d) Fallen by 20%
The correct answer is d), but it was only chosen by 19% of respondents in a recent survey. Two-thirds chose either a) or b). “No wonder people think we’re screwed,” Ritchie observes.
A defeatist outlook can leave people feeling hopeless. Ritchie recommends that instead we adopt a philosophy of “urgent optimism,” as she calls it. “Optimism is seeing challenges as opportunities to make progress,” she writes. “It’s having the confidence that there are things we can do to make a difference.”
Okay, but what can we do specifically? The biggest of Ritchie’s recommendations would be to trade an SUV for an electric vehicle. It does take more energy to manufacture an electric car, Ritchie notes. But after 12 years, an EV would be responsible for one-third of the CO2 emissions of a typical gas-fired car.
The next biggest step would be to adopt a vegan diet. Livestock creates about 20% of the world’s carbon.
If buying an EV or going vegan feels like too big a leap, here are other, incremental steps Ritchie recommends:
People are inherently good and want to do right by the earth. Yet there are many steps people think will reduce their carbon footprint that have little effect, Richie writes. Here are some things she says we can “stress less about” because they make little difference to our carbon footprint:
Greg Spears is HumbleDollar’s deputy editor. Earlier in his career, he worked as a reporter for the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. After leaving journalism, Greg spent 23 years as a senior editor at Vanguard Group on the 401(k) side, where he implored people to save more for retirement. He currently teaches behavioral economics at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia as an adjunct professor. The subject helps shed light on why so many Americans save less than they might. Greg is also a Certified Financial Planner certificate holder. Check out his earlier articles.
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If everyone can do something, then we don’t have to individually do everything. We have gas cars, but very fuel efficient. We do recycle just about everything. We compost ALL organic materials, and food waste in our home is non existent. Even bones are turned in to stock for soups and beans. We grow vegies and have a passion for planting bee happy flowers. That is our part. Doing what we can to be a good steward. And SAVING money doing it!
Better than switching car tech is no car at all. I realize for a lot of people this is unrealistic.
But policies can change. It is absolutely absurd that the work week hasn’t gotten shorter with the same pay, even thru Americans are much more productive than decades earlier.
A shorter work week would mean people are more willing to use longer public transit commutes, and get in shape to walk / bike more.
Another policy change would be zoning changes. Many places a living quarter above a store is illegal. If that changed, a store owner could get rid of the car they needed to commute from home to work.
I’m no scientist, I’ve and read so much conflicting data/reports on climate change. During and after the COVID I’ve learned how money and politics massively distorted the truths and how many intelligent and reliable sources were shamed and put down .This has taught me that you really can’t believe a lot of what you hear and it depends on your background or personal beliefs as to what you do believe. I’ve also concluded a lot depends on were funding comes from and whether or not folks want funding to continue.
I can’t say that we have real global warming or not but I do know that I’d be living at the south edge of the Laurentide Ice Sheet about 12,000 years ago.It would be pretty chilly here if the earth had not warmed.We do know that the earth has had many warming and cooling trends over millions of years. I do know that many national weather service locations are now located in locations that they should no longer be according to their own rules. Being to close to a metropolitan area artificially raises their reported temperatures, many cities have grown around the NWS stations over the years. I know that when all things are considered EV’s are very likely less ‘green’ than ICE. I’ve read many times that livestock emissions are infinitesimal in the big picture.
I’ve concluded that I I’m not to concerned with all the mostly politically driven hype of global warming.
Interesting, but what does this have to do with retirement or investing?
My community saw a wildfire in the middle of winter that destroyed 1,000+ homes. Toxic smoke from massive fires far away hurts the lungs. This never happened before the climate crisis!
Just imagine how much more $ could go to retirement or investing if people didn’t have to replace houses or spend so much on their health because of toxic smoke!
I bought a Tesla Model Y, can’t do vegan.
Climate change is caused by the Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) already emitted by fossil fuels that have been burned over the past centuries.
Please read carefully….
1.1 Trillion (yes, Trillion) tonnes of CO2 has been added to the atmosphere by humans. This will inexorably warm this planet to ~6C above preindustrial due to amplifying feedbacks. The other GHGs will add a further ~4C.
10C is 18 degrees Fahrenheit. See Dr. James Hansen, “Global Warming in the Pipeline” :
https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.04474
We know what GHGs do to this planet by studying ice cores and other paleoclimate records. Around 120ppm CO2-equivalent caused ~7C of global warming during the last deglaciation.
Humanity has now added a further 140ppm CO2 plus other GHGs in a geological instant.
The Earth takes time to respond to such an influx. But it will respond as a certainty of physics. According to observations and modeling, 60% to 90% of the eventual warming can be expected to materialize over the next 100 years.
Our problem, simply, is:
There’s no way to get the Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) out of the air.
There’s no way to get the heat out of the oceans.
There’s no way to stop the ice sheets melting.
Sea level rise on its own is an apocalypse.
The true objective of humanity is to survive this event as long as possible with the least possible suffering. There’s nothing else. It might seem that there are other options but that’s just an illusion.
You might find Morgan Housel’s podcast this week worth a listen. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-morgan-housel-podcast/id1675310669?i=1000677122750
I recommend versatile Pyrex or Anchor Hocking glass products which one can use for cooking, baking, microwaving, freezing, and of course, storing food. They are a kitchen workhouse & a great score when you find them secondhand.
Plastic bottle recycling has a long way to go to be successful. Although your article is about climate change/global warming, the main negatives of plastic are the alarming rates of plastic bits found in our world’s waterways, seas, oceans, fish & other marine life, and thus our food supply.
For those interested in this topic I recently finished an interesting library book, Transforming Plastics by Albert Bates– everything you wanted to know.. and then some!
Thanks, Greg. This is one of the articles that I occasionally print out to save, read later and share in person with family and friends. Good information with several surprises.
This bit of positivity is welcome. I remember back in the 70’s or 80’s when acid rain was an issue. One would have thought that all the trees in NY state (which I frequently visited) were going to die. I understand that climate change is a significant problem and that it needs to be addressed. I will continue to do what I can-using public transportation when I can, reducing food waste, energy and water usage at home, etc. Can’t wait to read Ma. Ritchie’s book.
Unfortunately, while the US is flat to down in carbon emissions, both India and China are up substantially along other 3rd world countries. Global Warming is a Tragedy of the Commons. 3rd world countries see the need for economic development in order to provide for their populations. The 3rd world is waiting for the US and other developed countries to pony up trillions of dollars to allow them to become more carbon neutral and still have economic growth. It is going to continue to get warmer, weather events will grow more frequent and no one really wants to pay the piper enough to change the song….
Personally, I am planting trees.
Saying China are up substantially along other 3rd world countries is rather misleading. A lot of their Greenhouse Gases is caused by manufacturing stuff for US & other 1st world countries.
Corporations love manufacturing in brutal dictatorships because it allows them to treat their workers like dirt, spew toxic waste & more. That makes them huge amounts of money.
Good summary of Dr. Ritchie’s book. She mentioned Hans Rosling as a sort of mentor in the introduction. I am happy to recommend his book “Factfulness” along with Ritchie’s “Not the End of the World” to anyone who might appreciate reading accurate facts and statistics presented in a clear and understandable manner, without bias, hysteria, doom or gloom. While I appreciate Dr. Ritchie’s recommendations, I struggle with the one about giving up beef. Maybe I can compromise by eating slightly smaller portions….
Greg, thanks for an interesting article and the book recommendation. As a retired aerospace engineer specializing in thermal/fluid sciences, the science behind climate change is of special interest to me. The analytical techniques used to calculate the temperature of a satellite orbiting the earth are fundamentally the same as those used to calculating the temperature of a planet orbiting the sun. A few years back I audited a Coursera course on the Science and Modeling of Climate Change from the University of Chicago. It’s a good introduction to the science for anyone so interested. What struck me was how complicated our climate system is looking from the atmosphere inward. The many systems and feedback loops are fascinating and confusing. I look forward to reading Dr. Ritchie’s book.
We try to be environmentally conscious when we make decisions. Here are some: 1) We built a new home for our retirement that is very energy efficient, 2) When we built our retirement house eight years ago we bit the bullet and bought all LED light bulbs, 3) we installed smart thermostats, 4) our electricity provider generates with only 100% renewables (except for two darkest months in winter, and two hottest months in summer bill rarely exceeds $100), 5) today we are picking up a new Toyota hybrid to replace a car which has a gasoline only engine. We would have considered a plugin hybrid, but couldn’t find one we liked and have to find a car quickly due to the current one failing. We’re not ready to switch to all electric yet due to a lack of infrastructure. Since both cars are now Toyotas less than five years old and less than 40K mileage vehicles if we ever have to buy another hopefully there will self driving ones available, because we will be so old we won’t be safe driving ourselves!