Climate Actions

Local Applications and Practical Solutions

Brenda Groskinsky

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367500788
• eBook ISBN: 9781000551273
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Law
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book offers a diverse set of solid concerted strategies in the development and implementation of specific "climate actions," in natural and built places where we all live. The book also serves as a conduit of knowledge for those who are unsure on how they can make a difference for their families, their communities, and the natural places that surround them. Through many actionable examples of mitigation efforts for the ever-present effects of climate change, especially for those who may not understand the wide range of climate action opportunities that are available. Scientists, academics, and community leaders, will find concrete examples on how they too, can develop and implement climate action solutions.

1 Our Local and Practical Places

DOI: 10.1201/9781003048701-1

Brenda Groskinsky

Contents

1.1 Introduction of the Local and Practical

1.2 The Advancement of Global Warming

1.3 New Book Series Based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

1.4 What Is a Climate Action?

1.5 How Are Climate Actions Connected to Climate Change?

1.6 The Utility of Documenting Unique Climate Action Stories

1.7 A Summary of the Climate Action Stories

Notes

Literature Cited

1.1 Introduction of the Local and Practical

The two words, local and practical, should create an opportunity for us to think about the place(s) where we live, and that they are the places that accommodate our needs. Before now, none of us needed to think about how the places where we live are “changing” right in front of us. But we certainly have to think about it now. I live in the state of Kansas. For the last couple of weeks, it has been too smoky and too hot to go outside, for even a short amount of time.¹ And we don’t even have fires burning here. The U.S. fires burning on the West Coast, as I write this, are bringing the smoke to us. I used to run three times a week. I can’t do that now. The air quality has not been healthy for me anymore. Instead, I have to use my indoor elliptical for cardio exercise, noting my air purifier is operating right next to me. I’m now wondering how do we get back to our normal, local and practical lives? For most of us, the thought of changing how we live because of the impacts of global warming and climate change seems very daunting.

1.2 The Advancement of Global Warming

Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still. However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the upward rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau, but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries to come. There is a time lag between what we do and when we feel it, but that lag time is less than a decade. While the effects of human activities to date on Earth’s climate are irreversible on the timescale of human lifetimes, every little bit of avoided future temperature increase represents less warming that would otherwise persist for essentially forever. The climate benefits of greenhouse gas emissions reductions occur on the same timescale as the political decisions that lead to those reductions (Shaftel, 2021).

1.3 New Book Series Based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

CRC Press has embarked in the development of a new book series, Environmental and Societal Dimensions of Sustainable Development Goals, based on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Ten of the goals match up with ten books in this series of books. The book you are reading now, Climate Actions: Local Applications and Practical Solutions, is based on the United Nations’ SDG of Informing Climate Action.

1.4 What Is a Climate Action?

Actually, there truly is an unlimited number of climate actions, and each action that is implemented gets us closer to the positive modification of climate change. The beauty of implementing a climate action is that even a small action can make a positive difference in all of our lives. For example, taking the time to insulate your basement that creates enhanced energy efficiency for your home and thus, providing lower energy bills and increased warmth for your family. Another climate action example is the implementation of wind turbines as a way to generate electricity instead of using fossil fuel–based resources that create carbon dioxide emissions.

A single rotation of the blades generates the electricity for one household’s daily use. … In the United States, the wind energy potential of just three states – Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas – would be sufficient to meet electricity demand from coast to coast.

(Hawken, 2017)

1.5 How Are Climate Actions Connected to Climate Change?

The word climate “is a statistical description of the weather over a period of time, usually a few decades” (Dessler, 2016). Therefore, “‘climate change’ refers to increasing changes in the measures of climate over a long period of time – including precipitation, temperature, and wind patterns” (USGS, 2021). Any activity that works to combat climate change while reducing global warming is a climate action.

1.6 The Utility of Documenting Unique Climate Action Stories

The distinct climate action stories that are told in this book, by authors from all over the world, clearly have a scientific component. However, it is the people on this earth who will ultimately have to make a difference in our struggles to defeat climate change. The creation and implementation of practical climate actions can work to save our local spaces and our ways of life.²

The authors’ individual stories and documentation of peoples’ lives in this book will connect you to the local places where they live, and the design and implementation of their specific practical climate action solutions, all happening in the shadow of climate change.

1.7 A Summary of the Climate Action Stories

Six chapters of this book reflect extremely carefully designed climate action solutions created by a large set of authors, who are anxious to tell their stories on how they are implementing climate actions all over the world, and in very unique communities.

Vast teams of worldwide environmental research scientists, environmental and human health policy experts, nonprofit organizations and Indigenous people who have sacred knowledge have witnessed and investigated a wide variety of climate change challenges. Their challenges and their science and social solutions are documented in this book. The final result is the development and documentation of a unique collective set of “Climate Actions” in the specific places where they live.

There are a couple of climate action efforts that specifically focus on agricultural (Chapter 2) and native plant communities, such as worldwide grasslands (Chapter 4). Both describe the necessity for methodical oversight as a means to overcome alteration caused by not only climate-related issues, but also crop and grassland management processes that allow soil degradation (Chapter 2) and tree encroachment (Chapter 4).

It is not a new information that agriculture and special ecosystems require a stable climate. Because of the current climate-related issues, we are now forced to create manmade processes that will limit the degradation of soil and water resources. Chapter 2, which involves a worldwide team from China, Uruguay, Italy and the United States, has documented three separate approaches that include an incentive-based strategy, government regulatory practices, and government and regulatory land management plans.

Grasslands can be found on every continent except Antarctica. They are unique ecological systems that contribute to a number of ecosystem processes that are extremely important, such as carbon storage and regulation of the water cycle. Chapter 4 outlines a climate action plan that focuses on grassland ecosystems at multiple levels, including individual, community and global scales. I’ve visited Kansas’s Konza Grassland Prairie, more times than I can count. I have hiked the prairie trails, always noting a new species of lizard or flower that I’ve not seen before. Chapter 4 offers multiple potential solutions that can enhance the viability and persistence of grasslands. They are an extremely unique and a viable necessity in the survival of our planet.

Chapter 3 articulates that many low-income people, who are living in older housing stock, are typically forced to endure the cold in the winter from the lack of heat, and then in the summer months they suffer from heat because they do not have access to air-conditioning. Perhaps a potentially obvious solution is the documentation of why so many people procrastinate implementation of energy efficiencies in buildings and homes, when they could be creating mechanisms that can resolve the social injustices. Kristin Riott, Executive Director of Bridging the Gap, a nonprofit organization in Kansas City, MO, is working to create and understand the psychological nuances of energy efficiencies, i.e., the procrastination of insulating basements. There are multiple weather-related deaths in Kansas City every year. The implementation of energy efficiencies in low-income neighborhoods is a necessary climate action.

Chapter 5 authors note that many coastal areas in California relied on snow melt from the Sierra Nevada mountains for their drinking water. However, urban water systems are now being challenged noting that the freshwater systems just can’t keep up with the demand. The key question is: what do we do when all of the clean drinking water sources have dried up due to climate-related events and issues?

The authors document that the potential for stormwater capture and reuse is a current and critical climate action. They also summarize that we need to develop methods to capture stormwater as well as the creation of methods to facilitate water reuse. It will certainly require a cadre of diverse, knowledgeable and committed stakeholders to create and implement the water systems of the future. One unique opportunity described in Chapter 5 documents how the American company, Facebook, has created an onsite water reuse system for toilets. Clearly, innovative ideas and technologies are in play. The authors significantly note that if California’s urban water systems are to survive, they will need to break away from importing water from the Sierra Nevada.

Chapter 6 points out that the state of Minnesota has been described as the second warmest state in the United States. How does that make any sense at all, unless climate change is involved? The nonprofit, Minnesota Land Trust, has been working to facilitate...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Series Preface
• Preface
• Editor
• Contributors
• Chapter 1 Our Local and Practical Places
• Chapter 2 Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change: Limiting Degradation of Soil and Water Resources
• Chapter 3 The Psychology of Energy Efficiency
• Chapter 4 Climate Change in Grassland Ecosystems: Current Impacts and Potential Actions for a Sustainable Future
• Chapter 5 Securing Urban Water Systems in a Changing Climate in the San Francisco Bay Area, California
• Chapter 6 An Eye to the Future – Implementing Climate-Resilient Approaches to Land and Water Conservation in the State of Minnesota
• Chapter 7 Sč̓iɫpálq͏ʷ: Biocultural Restoration of Whitebark Pine on the Flathead Reservation
• Chapter 8 It Is People Who Implement Climate Actions
• Index