IPCC, What Are We Waiting For?

What are we waiting for?

I'm organizing my files.  I used to say, "I can't die until I get my filing done."  I'm not particularly getting ready for death as much as I am just prematurely buried in paper, both electronic and the actual made-from-trees stuff.  My new treasure is a 4T hard drive and its partner, a Canon desktop scanner.  Progress is occurring!  

The thing about organizing, though, is that you find things you forgot you had, like the little booklet--IPCC in a Nutshell--that I wrote in 2019.  That's a collection of a series of posts I published on Facebook about the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Five years on, the recommendations still apply, but they seem so minor in the face of the changes that have occurred in such a short time.  There are new reports now coming from the IPCC, and the Sixth Assessment Report seems to be the newest.  It's bleak enough that my little booklet seems like a relic of a long ago past, where filling the recycling bin would be enough to make a difference.  

Closer to home, so to speak, the US seems to be issuing NCA5--the fifth National Climate Assessment.  This happens every four years, and a review draft was issued about a year ago.  It seems that the final version is now out.  It also seems that the final version is amazingly optimistic.  Here are the key messages on mitigation:

• Successful Mitigation Means Reaching Net-Zero Emissions
• We Know How to Drastically Reduce Emissions
• To Reach Net-Zero Emissions, Additional Mitigation Options Need to Be Explored
• Mitigation Can Be Sustainable, Healthy, and Fair
• Governments, Organizations, and Individuals Can Act to Reduce Emissions

I say amazingly, because I know that agriculture is one of our big GHG emitters, and Texas (All Hail the Mighty State!) just fought back on every single key message with Proposition 1, cunningly touted as "Food for Texas."  Likely to favor agribusiness, protect polluters, and defang environmental regulations, the Right to Farm amendment to the Texas Constitution passed on November 7 with 79% approval.  (Not mine.)

It does help that most of our major cities have taken their own steps to get to net zero emissions (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio--and Austin--but not Fort Worth).  Since Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are three of the ten largest cities in the US, this is not a small thing.  On the other hand, The Right to Farm amendment was directly aimed, in part, at cities and towns that incorporate land that someone wants to put to agricultural use without regard for the concerns of neighboring residents for animal welfare, use of pesticides, etc.  Given the tendency of Texas cities to sprawl, this is also not a small thing.

I have been focusing on individual action, but it may be time to look at group action.  The Austin Community Climate Plan bears a closer look.  Passed in 2015, there will have been subsequent audits and adjustments to the plan, such as this one from 2020.  And a new version of the plan focuses on climate equity.  In all of these plans, there is collaboration between the various levels of government, the community, and interested parties (industry, business, and advocacy coalitions).  As Ethicals, I think we can find some partners of our own in this process to help us learn more about what we can do--and what we need to do--to change the message from "Food for Texas" and the "Right to Farm" to regenerating the planet with food for everyone.