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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.