Conservation Wedge

This is a huge topic. At its core, this is tackling the revered "American Way" of over-consumption and mountains of waste. While there are climatically more important aspects of conservation, like using less electricity and driving less, basically every single purchase supports the use of fossil fuels. So this list is pretty long and, again idealistic. But the idealism is grounded in the obvious: we need a healthy planet for us to be healthy, and our entire culture is based on the consumption of finite "resources."

International
Insist that there be language in the treaty to be signed this December at the international climate meeting in Denmark that:

• Agrees to a goal of stopping the CO2 level before it hits 400 ppm, then reducing GHG emissions to a CO2 equivalent of 350 ppm by 2080. Emphasize that this agreement cannot be diluted with “market” solutions.

• Requires nations to set up a system of carbon rationing or a Cap and Dividend program. Each nation is responsible for their historical share of carbon emissions, those that have polluted most have to cut the most. For example, the USA, with about a quarter of the historic share of global carbon emissions, would need to cap its emissions much lower than they are today, while, say Haiti, could probably increase emissions for a few decades.

In Your Country
Pressure your elected officials to adopt:

• The aforementioned carbon rationing or Cap and Dividend schemes. Timescale: a full scheme in place by July 2010.

• A Green New Deal plan that heavily favors low-tech, human-scale, and local projects, particularly urban and suburban community gardens and greenhouses, local mass transit, bicycle lanes and bicycle repair shops.

• A ban on the sale of incandescent light bulbs, patio heaters, garden floodlights and many other wasteful and unnecessary technologies. Allow no fridge or freezer with an energy rating below grade A++ and no other appliance rated below grade A be sold or manufactured. Introduce a stiff “feebate” system for all electronic goods sold in this country. The least efficient are taxed heavily while the most efficient receive tax discounts. Every year the standards in each category rise. Timescale: fully implemented by end of 2010.

• Ban the new construction of electricity generation plants that use fossil fuel, current nuclear technology or dams.

• Create a carbon tax that is revenue neutral, meaning, for example, that as the carbon tax increases, income or sales taxes decline, or maybe it replaces the income tax for all households under $90,000 AGI. See the Carbon Tax Center, and support them.

• Abandon the road-building and road-widening programs, and spend the money on public transport and a national high-speed rail system between existing Interstate highway system lanes when possible. Timescale: immediately.

• Remove all subsidies for polluters, especially GHG emitters, and instead shift this money to re-train the loggers and factory workers losing jobs (in forest conservation and riparian rehabilitation, for example). Pay people to clean up and restore the natural environment. What a great use of tax money!

• Freeze and then reduce US airport capacity. While capacity remains high there will be constant upward pressure on any plan the government introduces to limit flights. We need a freeze on all new airport construction and the introduction of a national quota for landing slots, to be reduced by 90% by 2030. Timescale: immediately.

• Legislate for the closure of all out-of-town superstores, and their replacement with a warehouse and delivery system. Shops use a staggering amount of energy (six times as much electricity per square meter as factories, for example), and major reductions are hard to achieve. Warehouses containing the same quantity of goods use roughly 5% of the energy. Out-of-town shops are also hard-wired to the car—delivery vehicles use 70% less fuel. Timescale: fully implemented by 2020.

• Create a national vehicle excise tax for the most polluting cars, with a range of $500 to $5000 a year. Use the money this raises to:

• a. Start closing key urban streets to private cars and dedicating them to public transport and cycling.
• b. Increase the public subsidy for bus and train journeys. Oblige the bus companies to sign contracts providing a wider range of services. Give us integrated low-carbon transport, in which buses are scheduled to meet trains, trains and buses carry bicycles and safe cycle lanes connect with each other across entire cities.
• c. Train thousands of new bus drivers and public transport operators. Create bus lanes on all the highways and start moving bus stations from the city centers to the highway junctions, to enable bus travel to become as fast and efficient as car travel. Link them to city centers and the aforementioned rail system with dedicated bus lanes.

Timescale: Pass laws this year, begin work in 2010; completed by 2020.

• Create tax breaks for not owning a car. Timescale: pass law this year, effective 2011.
[Many of these ideas are adapted from George Monbiot.]


Easy Lifestyle Changes that Affect this Wedge
• Start the new culture of responsible living by doing everything you can to minimize your destructive impact on the planet, but don’t let this personal transformation get in the way or detract from the more immediately important work of pressuring all levels of government to address global warming as if it was World War III. I have gotten into the habit of asking myself if each purchase or trip is really necessary, and I’ve gotten good at discerning which justifications ring true and which don’t. It isn’t that hard. If you really care about birds, never buy a cell phone again. If you really don’t want to support war and the systemic rape of women and children, never buy another cell phone, DVD player, computer, digital camera, video game, or new vehicle. Ditto for diamonds, and any chocolate or coffee or tea that isn’t fair trade certified.

In other words, educate yourself about the atrocities hidden in every product you buy and your desire to buy will greatly diminish.

• Shop at thrift store/second-hand stores.

• Eat locally as much as possible: support farmers’ markets, grow a garden or join/start a community garden, join a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm

• Use public transit and bike as much as possible

• Don’t take any trips by personal auto, plane or motor vessel that aren’t necessary (you’ll have to have ask your own morality about what “necessary” means)

• Set your thermostat down to 60 or lower in the winter (wear sweaters) and up to 80 or higher in the summer

• There are so many ways to conserve, maybe I should send you to websites all about this: Riot4Austerity, US EPA, The Nature Conservancy, WA State DOE, Sharon Astyk.