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THE WEST END NEWS | MAY 2020
CLIMATE JUSTICE
We’re All in This Together
Climate Solutions Beyond Your Backyard With COVID19 increasingly threatening industrial food supply chains, we need to consider other options for feeding ourselves.The Victory Gardens of WW II come to mind. Consider: the U.S. has lost 31 million acres of farmland over the last 20 years. Droughts, higher mean temperatures, globalized food supplies, and vulnerable wildlife (especially pollinators) also diminish food supplies, which create major challenges for poor and/or out-of-work folks. Rising food prices and empty grocery shelves warn of bigger problems to come. Growing some of our own food may be more important than ever.
BRIGHT IDEA: Buy fresh, locally grown foods. Fresh, locally grown foods are more nutritious and they’re far better for the planet. Patronizing farmer markets, participating in farm share programs, and purchasing from supermarkets selling local produce, supports our nearby farmers. By reducing our reliance on animal products, we can further lower our carbon footprints.
BRIGHT IDEA: Plant a garden. Getting your hands dirty gardening has untold rewards including a temporary respite from the daily travails of life.Vegetable gardening is a way to grow your own fresh food while flower gardening creates beautiful environments and helps threatened pollinators critical to our food supply. Clark Street Garden. -WEN file photo If you have the space to grow a garden from scratch, there are many options. A “lasagna” garden (also known as sheet mulching) can even be done on a hard driveway with no digging required. Some people grow tomatoes and other vegies in tubs on the porch, indoors under lights, or in south-facing windows. Window boxes are great for flowers but also good for mixing in a few vegetables.Whatever you do, enjoy the process and be creative. If you’re uncertain, confer with a more experienced friend or relative. CAUTIONARY NOTE: The land next to many of our urban homes is contaminated with lead and other substances. Be sure to have it tested before planting a food garden. Seeds, seedlings, and the other supplies you need are easy to come by. Check with local nurseries, hardware stores, or go online. In the spring, you can find a wide assortment of baby plants at farmer markets. It’s hard to find a better deal on seeds than from Fedco Seeds, a Maine-based coop, which offers a wide variety at very reasonable prices. Finally, consider converting your lawn into a wild flower garden to help pollinators and have an excuse to stop mowing! Remember that, while growing your own plants, you’re also sequestering carbon and producing oxygen. Let’s do everything possible to eat well while keeping our planet alive and vibrant. Bright Ideas is brought to you by Portland Climate Action Team which, during the pandemic, meets online the 4th Thursday of the month, 6-7:30 p.m. All are welcome to join in. FMI: portlandclimateaction@gmail.com.
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EnRoads Climate Solutions Simulator allows anyone to see how climate policies might impact our future. (https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/en-roads/) By Tamara Risser What if you woke up one day to find that all the fossil fuel powered cars, buses, and motorcycles had transformed overnight to become electric? Not only that, but transportation planners, employers, and health policy experts had collaborated on policies to reduce greenhouse gases and improve heath by creating a network of trails allowing residents to bike or walk to work and school. In this new world, commuters save money and fuel by parking at satellite parking lots and taking electric buses and light rail systems to work—on the days when they don’t work at home. Better health, cleaner air, and affordable transportation would be some of the side benefits of living in this world. What if there was a free online tool that allowed you to understand the impacts that these changes would have on temperature, greenhouse gases, ocean acidification, and sea level rise over the next 80 years? This model exists, the EnRoads Climate Solution Simulator (EnRoads) exists! EnRoads was developed by a Climate Interactive, an independent, notfor-profit think-tank based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. EnRoads has been used by the Congress, local community groups, the UN Secretary-General’s Office, and teachers (including Bill Nye the Science Guy) to analyze long-term results of different greenhouse gas reduction policies. Users create simulations and see what
works to address climate change, inequity, and related issues like energy, health, and food. EnRoads allows users to adopt policies that influence 18 different inputs that impact greenhouse gasses including: Energy Supply (coal, oil, natural gas, bioenergy, renewable, nuclear, carbon price); Transport (energy efficiency and electrification); Buildings and Industry (energy efficiency and electrification); Growth (population and economic); Land and Industry Emissions (deforestation and methane and other); and Carbon Removal (afforestation and technological). After working with the model, I have come to appreciate the unanticipated consequences of focusing on one policy area. For example, policies that only focus on clean energy technology and energy efficiency reduce energy costs and can actually increase demand for high carbon fuels. When policies that encourage the development of clean energy are joined by policies that discourage the use of high carbon fuels—such as carbon fees—real progress is achieved. Portland’s Citizens Climate Lobby supports carbon fees in the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019 (H.R. 763). To learn more about Enroads or HR 763 visit https://citizensclimatelobby.org/chapters/ME_Portland/. Tamara Risser is a Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteer.
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