According to the UN, we have only 11 years to act. Its scientists who say that if we don’t make drastic reductions in carbon emissions by 2030, the climate trajectory and tragedy will be irreversible. Children alive today will face a future of food shortages, destroyed homes, lost jobs, deadly resource wars, and mass displacement.
Already the toll on wildlife and humanity has been staggering. Our moose have declined by 90 percent, dying of 50,000 tick bites because the winters in NH no longer get cold enough to kill off last season’s ticks.
Midwestern farmers regularly face flooding that used to occur once every 100 or 500 years, with livelihoods destroyed and suicide on the rise. Unprecedented drought has caused wildfires that raze entire towns in California and forced desperate migrants to leave their homes in Central America and walk to our borders because their crops no longer grow.
It is nothing short of a planetary emergency that deserves immediate action. But most of us we don’t act like there’s an emergency. While more and more people recognize that our climate is changing, so far the efforts to reverse the planet’s warming have largely been trivial compared to what is actually needed. We buy LED lights or a Prius and use cloth shopping bags, and it gives us hope that we can do something. We don’t want to see the enormity of the situation.
I’m convinced that our collective yawn is not because humanity is crazy, stupid, or unkind. I believe it stems from not wanting to feel the emotions that come with a crisis of this magnitude. We don’t want to feel our fear, our grief, our despair. Most of us don’t want to grapple with what might be coming because we’re scared of feeling overwhelmed.
When the UN published its report last fall that set the timer for 11 years, I realized that I no longer had the luxury of not feeling and only acting around the edges of the crisis. Greta Thunberg, the remarkable Swedish teen who started the international student climate strike, told the powerful men at Davos, “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act.” When she says that she wants us to act, she’s not talking about light bulbs. She wants us to take the bold actions that the enormity of the crisis calls for. I want to act as well.
When the U.S. walked away from the Paris Climate Treaty, I knew that meaningful action couldn’t happen on the national level. So I turned my energy to what could be accomplished locally. The various groups I work with have been and continue to be involved with some important local projects, e.g. creating Peterborough’s first solar ordinance; working to put solar panels on ConVal High School; raising funds to install electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. As important as these individual projects are, we need more. We need to commit ourselves to a future with drastically lower carbon emissions. An urgent first step is to commit to using renewable energy for all of our needs.
This past January, the city of Keene passed a resolution to become 100 percent renewable. It specifies that the entire city’s electricity load will be generated from renewable sources by 2035 and its heating and transportation will also run on renewables by 2050. It’s quite a large task, but it’s essential. It’s also entirely possible. More than 125 cities and towns nationwide, including 5 in New Hampshire, have set similar goals and are taking the necessary steps to reach them. Of course, there are numerous logistical, financial, and equity issues to work out in the process. It will be a lot of work. But it’s essential and it’s do-able.
In the coming year, I hope that Peterborough will also commit itself to a livable future by passing a 100 percent renewable resolution. I will be working to make this happen and welcome others who want to join this effort. We will not be working alone or in a vacuum. We will have the support and experience of a growing number of organizations, towns, and cities who can show us best practices and lessons learned.
To learn more about what is possible in Peterborough, please come to the Community Conversation at Greenerborough on transitioning the Monadnock Region to 100 percent renewable energy.
Dori Drachman is a member of the Peterborough Energy Committee and the Monadnock Drawdown Spoke. She scheduled to be the moderator for Community Conversations: Greenerborough Edition about renewable energy at ConVal High School in Peterborough on Saturday, May 4.