What do you get to do today?
I recently started asking my kids this question. I thought it would help them appreciate all they have in their lives and focus more on the silver linings rather than the clouds. Today, I ask you to pause and think about the question; maybe consider it altruistically and ask yourself what do you get to do today for the environment?
The United States Global Change Research Program recently released Volume II of the Fourth National Climate Assessment.
According to its website, the USGCRP “is a Federal program mandated by Congress to coordinate Federal research and investments in understanding the forces shaping the global environment, both human and natural, and their impacts on society.”
Through authoritative science, tools, and resources, the USGCRP, comprised of thirteen federal member agencies, helps people and organizations address environmental risks and changing environmental conditions.
A team of more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee produced the NCA4.
Before its release, the public, federal agency experts and a panel of the National Academy of Sciences reviewed it. The report contains 16 national-level topic chapters, 10 regional chapters and two chapters that focus on societal responses to climate change. Following are some of the highlights from the report.
More frequent and intense weather events along with broad changes to average climate conditions will continue to damage infrastructure, ecosystems, and social systems communities rely on and benefit from. The challenges to local economies will differ across the United States; regions with limited capacity to prepare for and cope with these weather changes will suffer more.
Failure to mitigate these risks will lead to rising temperatures and sea level rise that will damage infrastructure and property as well as disrupt labor productivity and industries like agriculture, tourism, and fisheries that rely on natural resources and favorable climate conditions.
The NCA4 report projects losses in some economic sectors reaching hundred of billions of dollars by the end of the century. Energy demand and energy costs will rise as temperatures increase.
We are not yet reducing risks at a scale adequate to avoid substantial damage to the economy, human health, and the environment in the coming decades. There needs to be more immediate and substantial global greenhouse gas emissions reductions and better water management.
Surface water and groundwater sources are at risk because of changes in precipitation and increased temperatures. The availability of drinking water, as well as the availability of water for hydropower and for cooling power plants, is threatened.
Human health is vulnerable because of wildfire and ground-level ozone pollution, increased exposure to waterborne and foodborne diseases, more heat-related illness, greater frequency of allergic illnesses like asthma and hay fever, and expanded disease zones as disease-carrying insects and pests spread. Physical health threats like these can affect the mental health of a community especially if they cause diminished livelihoods or community relocation.
As with lower-income communities, indigenous people face greater consequences from climate change with disruptions to their livelihoods and economies and community and cultural continuity.
Ecosystems damaged by climate change will continue to be unable to provide clean air and water, protection from coastal flooding, wood and fiber, crop pollination, hunting and fishing, tourism and support for economic activity, recreation and subsistence activities.
We need to create safe havens for species, control invasive species and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect these already damaged environments.
Major U.S. crop yields will decline; the availability and price of many agricultural products across the world will change.
There will be more frequent and longer power outages, fuel shortages and service disruptions.
Rising sea level subjects coastal property and public infrastructure to flooding. Inland infrastructure is exposed to greater damage from more severe and frequent heavy precipitation and flooding. Increased drought in some areas will threaten oil and gas drilling and refining and electricity generation.
So what can you do today?
If a four-person family skipped eating steak once a week, it is the equivalent of taking a car off the road for nearly three months.
If every American ate no meat or cheese just one day a week, it would be like not driving 91 billion miles or taking 7.6 million cars off the road. You could walk, ride a bike, carpool or take public transportation.
You can turn off the lights when you leave work, leave a room, go to bed. Plug appliances like microwaves, televisions, game systems, and computers into power strips that you can turn off when not in use to eliminate standby electricity consumption.
Turn your yard into a carbon sequestration zone by planting trees, tall grasses and other perennials. Use your compost to feed your plants and avoid tillage. Turn your thermostat down a couple degrees in the winter and up a couple degrees in the summer.
Our lives are full of so many advantages, benefits and comforts.
Appreciate them all by protecting our children’s and their children’s access to the basics like water, food, a home and good health.
