Kat's Environmental Philosophy: More of the Good, Less of the Bad
Also - every step matters. Big or small.
Decarbonizing the global economy is an extremely lofty goal. Not to say that it’s a purely aspirational or impossible goal – but the technical aspect of reaching net zero will require a multi-sectoral approach, significant public and private finance, and also the one thing we don’t really have – time.
In this world, after decades of delay, we’ve been given a short leash for action to reduce temperature rise.
So in this newsletter, I wanted to share my environmental philosophy, and think about some of what needs to happen in order to slow the pace of climate change, and give us more time.
For those who follow climate news, the tone has been urgent for a while – but what makes it more urgent now, for me, is that positive change is in sight. I often feel compelled to ignore problems I can’t impact or control, which may be a defense mechanism in a world where virtually nothing feels solvable.
But the things that make me hopeful – that financing is materializing in the U.S., that COP28 finally cemented international agreement on the need to transition away from fossil fuels, something no COP had previously managed – these things also bring up the complexity of what happens if we can’t do this quickly enough. It’s like – now that the urgency has been realized, there’s a chance – and that gives me license to imagine a future where we take that chance, and another where we miss it.
One of the realizations that inspired me to write this newsletter was simple.
It felt, as all revelations feel for me, like a flash in a pan. I was thinking about productivity – how capitalism (and our brains) both suck at estimating the actual value of physical goods, or the externalities associated with their creation. Basically, our brains are wired for short term pleasure rather than long term practicality. We also are only so rational economically – we observe what’s in front of us, which is a limited set of information about how the time and effort it took to the produce the item – in other words, the sticker price.
The combination of that short-sightedness and limited signaling (as well as industry influence, and uniquely human-centered, capitalist view of nature) means:
Our current global economy doesn’t have mechanisms to associate the environmental consequences of the production of a good (say, the logging in a forest) with the cost of the good itself.
We didn’t design it with that in mind. This is something I knew well. But as all revelations are, this was more of a feeling - an optimism.
As someone educated in the ecological economics tradition, I view labor as the center component of economic value - of what price entails. Labor is what transforms a raw good into a useful economic product. The old adage came to mind – time is money. And if the reverse is also true, and we’re short on time, maybe we can make up the difference with money – and actually fund labor, at every level of society and in every human-habited place - to rebalance our earth’s ecosystems.
On some level, this means funding and financing – using taxes to build and distribute and install machines that produce clean electricity and clean heat and clean transportation.
On another level, that means re-evaluating the idea of what’s productive in our society.
It means funding those who care for the earth and care for other humans (farmers and teachers) - and defunding those industries that damage the earth or consume more ecological value than they produce human or social value.
If our brains operate on a flawed economic calculus dependent on only a few things (the sticker price of an item, and its contrast with the item’s utility to us), let’s support them by putting systems in place that create sticker prices that are realistic to more long-term benefits (both environmental and social).
That means not only funding real, genuine contribution to the public good in our work lives and economic exchanges, and disincentivizing goods and services that don’t bring genuine benefit.
That means paying good teachers and good social workers, and turning our valuable attention towards things that matter, and using our economic and legal power (the little of it that we have as individuals, and the gigantic amount we have as a collective) to pay people for the benefit that they create and punish them for the harm that they create.
Back to the beginning. Despite the potential to actually operationalize an International Loss and Damage Fund, despite the passage of the IRA last year, a lot of lives hinge on the difference between degrees of temperature rise.
There’s no clearer illustration of the existing, present, everyday value of moral action than slowing climate change. Every significant reduction of emissions means an increase in human and animal life, biodiversity, and quality of life.
That relationship will continue irrelative of perspective, political opinion or personal unwillingness to acknowledge the dangers posed by climate change. Every step, incremental or gigantic, does have impact here.
Climate news has felt particularly woeful for me this time of year, as the cold season was delayed by several warm, almost summery days here in Saint Louis. That window of time I talked about keeps getting shorter – individual predicted impacts are materializing – and many of the negative changes scientists predicted seem nearer and nearer as change accelerates faster than predicted. But I hope this newsletter is a chance to pause, reframe, and refresh your will in the fight to slow planetary climate change. Your time, labor, money, and your words and perspective – all of these things matter. They matter in terms of climate change, and they matter when crises unfold.
I’ve been thinking about Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s profile in the New York Times this month. As always, Dr. Johnson’s hopeful outlook poses a crucial question for all of us to consider – how can we, individually, contribute to that fight against climate change in our daily lives?
No matter what industries we work in can we use our time, our labor, our conversations, our art to create real value and lasting change? Frequently, we don’t have a choice in our use of those things. But if and when we do, I’d encourage us all to consider how our choices with our productivity impact the fight against climate change – in all industries.
The world, after all, will not end when climate impacts seriously materialize – it will simply change drastically. But the fact that we live in drastic times shouldn’t discourage us from action. If anything, it should make it clear the value of our efforts, especially the collective ones. Happy holidays, all!
Good News Roundup:
COP28 delivered: The final agreement included what some climate advocates called ‘weak’ language to transitioning away from fossil fuels – but it did for the first time, get there. The final language signaled an international consensus on the inevitability and the importance of transitioning away from fossil fuels in order to reach net-zero by 2050, and accelerating action this decade. Despite the need for stronger language and explicit commitments, some see this as a step forward on the international political landscape. My favorite language that I’ve seen so far – COP28 seen as a ‘disappointing’ win.
20+ countries committed to increasing nuclear power at COP. Nuclear may be an important part of a clean energy future; it’s an established zero-emission technology that can provide significant baseload power.
The Global Methane Pledge could reduce warming by .2 degrees.
The UAE is creating a $30 billion climate investment fund called Alterra. Though that fund is largely profit seeking, that’s a significant amount of finance that will start flowing, and ideally contribute to de-risking climate investing.
The Loss and Damage Fund is real – though some say its’ loan-based structure has significant drawbacks, and some see initial contributions as falling far short of what is needed.
The IRS released tax credit guidance that provides a boost to thermal storage.
The DOT awards $8.2 billion for 10 passenger rail projects, including the first U.S. high-speed rail project. Like most climate advocates, I harbor a deep fondness for public transportation. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated - “If you’ve ever seen the standard of passenger rail service in Japan or Germany … and come home and said ‘Why can’t we have these nice things?’ This is the beginning of the answer to that.” Pete, I do hope you’re right.
What am I listening to while I write today? Easy. I’m listening to my 2019 Spotify Top Songs, and I forgot how hard Rosalia’s early work hits. Also, required Neo photo below.
