The bumpy path toward lower greenhouse gases

The Rhodium Group, an independent research provider with a strong reputation for timely and reliable reporting, recently issued preliminary US emissions estimates for 2018.  After three years of decline, emissions are estimated to have risen by 3.4% in the past year.  The increase was spread across all sectors: electricity generation, where cheap natural gas played a big role; transportation, where demand for aircraft and diesel fuels increased substantially; and in the industrial and building sector, where there has been little progress in implementing decarbonization strategies.  This graph from the Rhodium paper illustrates that our national will to address the challenge of climate change has been steadily eroding, as evidenced by the trend from reductions in carbon emissions to an increase.

The documentary, “Paris to Pittsburgh”, available on TV from National Geographic, carries encouraging notes.  And, the new 2018 Farm Bill contains several provisions that directly or indirectly affect global warming. The effects on global warming are not huge, but they’re steps in the right direction, and every bit counts. The bill maintains the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) without new punitive work requirements. It expands funding for the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentives program, which helps low-income shoppers purchase more fresh fruits and vegetables from local farmers. It also increases research and support for organic farmers, new farmers, and farmers of color, and includes a new Local Agriculture Market Program, which will strengthen regional economies and better connect farmers with consumers.  On farmland conservation, the bill maintains overall funding for programs that help farmers safeguard their soil and protect air and water quality. This provision is very much in line with the aims of the Drawdown initiative I’ve mentioned previously, though it should be much more aggressively promoting regenerative agriculture.

But real change comes slowly, and only in the face of a lot of pushback. To cite one salient example, big ag aggressively defends its right to continue polluting the planet with energy-wasteful and polluting practices in the production of animal meats.  The entire animal production enterprise is responsible for three-quarters of food-related greenhouse gas emissions. I wrote about one example of this in dairy farming in Wisconsin in a recent blog. 

Meat substitutes offer an alternative to animal-based products. In time, we'll have a high tech solution to the traditional wasteful expenditure of energy: it will be efficient to produce meat from cells. This is not the place to detail how this works or how much energy it would save, but it’s a technology destined to move on a fast track. Nonetheless, with all the health and safety issues that need to be put to rest, it is likely to be 5 to 10 years before cultured meat is a force to be reckoned with in the marketplace.  Predictably, the traditional purveyors of meat products will not go down without a fight.  In Missouri, legislators enacted a new statute that carries a fine of $2,000 and up to a year in jail for using the word “meat” to describe something that’s not “derived from harvested livestock or poultry.” I heard just a day or so ago that the Nebraska legislature is considering similar legislation.  I believe I hear the rumble of the ACLU caravan.

Finally, there was a very interesting post on ecoAmerica regarding shifting attitudes among Republicans with respect to climate change.  First off, it's clear that a majority of Americans believe that climate change--and concomitantly, weather--is changing.  94 % of Democrats, 71% of Independents and 64% of Republicans believe that climate change is real. As this bar graph shows, people are not only personally concerned, they see that others are as well. This would seem a good sign for the possibilities of new opportunities for change on the political level.