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Do you think the 'Race to Zero Carbon' is a sports gimmick stapled to the climate bandwagon?
Peter Burgess / Rezwan Razani
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Gmail Peter Burgess
Do you think the 'Race to Zero Carbon' is a sports gimmick stapled to the climate bandwagon?
1 message
Rezwan Razani Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 8:21 PM
To: peterbnyc@gmail.com
Hello Peter,
Well, do you? I'm curious. But first...
Time sensitive:
April 1: Cloud controlling windmills are going online TODAY! Story via Google Wind.
April 2: the 13th day of Spring is a day to be spent outdoors, #TurfTossing. If you are in New Jersey on the 2nd, join us for a picnic at Colonial Park.
April 3: Meetup. Great news! The first Monday of the month is now our standing meetup date at the Bound Brook Library. Sorry for the short notice for this Monday, April 3. Drop by if you can! I will be there. Ask me anything about getting to zero carbon. More info.
If you're not in the area, consider starting a Footprint to Wings ('fp2w') Chapter where you are.
Why should you get involved with fp2w?
At the last meetup, we were asked: how are we different from other environmental organizations? Why should people join fp2w?
Footprint to Wings is a startup organization with a mighty mission to turn the race to zero carbon into a national pastime and coach each state to win.
But this is not just a sports gimmick stapled onto the climate bandwagon (AHA!)
We’re taking a disruptive, science, math and sports based approach to sustainability. We begin with the endgame in mind.
Unlike many environmental organizations that gloss over a limited set of solutions, we take an unflinching look at all the options. We put everything on the table. We do the math.
We tackle 'Solution Aversion' head on
Other organizations spend the bulk of their resources battling climate denial. It's not denial that's holding people back, it's solution aversion. Most effort should be focused on exploring solutions.
Climate Reality Project: Distracted by Denial
Al Gore's Climate Reality Project is a great example of an organization more focused on tackling denial than solutions. I admire the organization and hope to collaborate with them one day. Imagine our curriculum with their training platform. That said, my main zero carbon coaching tip for them is to face up to the solutions.
Right now, if you download their action kit, you see the word 'solutions' a lot, but no specifics. And then a quick shift to focus on deniers.
'We speak up with relentless honesty about the solutions we have right in front of us and the forces standing in our way: the anti-science deniers and the wealthy corporations who put their own healthy profits from dirty fossil fuels before a healthy planet for all of us.'
Likewise, Climate Reality Leaders are trained to give presentations on climate change and solutions. I attended a presentation. It was polished and informative about climate change, but ended with a quick gloss over a limited set of solutions.
In their Roadmap to 100 you're supposed to come up with a 100% renewable plan yourself. You aren't given much information on how to do that - they suggest you hire an expert. The Roadmap also explicitly rejects carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear energy.
Aren't we supposed to reject those things?
I feel like John Candy right now from that scene in Cool Runnings. Clearing the room of the faint-hearted.
As a zero carbon coach, I take 'relentless honesty about the solutions' seriously. You need to have a clear understanding of the options before you reject anything. Luckily, there is an organization that has put detailed 100% renewable plans on the table. Imagine the Climate Reality Project merging with them:
Solutions Project: 100% Renewables
The Solutions Project is one of my favorite organizations. This is where you go to find Mark Jacobson's 100% renewable energy plans for each of the 50 US states.
Visit their homepage and scroll down to a map of the US. Click on your state for the plan in poster format. Here's the Solutions Project plan for New Jersey.
While most people stop at the poster and say, 'see, the solutions are there', we look under the hood and ask follow up questions. For example, when we see their recommendation that New Jersey get 55.5% of its energy from Offshore Wind - we ask '55.5% of what?' And 'how many wind turbines would that be?' and 'Where are the underlying numbers?'*
Spoiler alert, it's 9,401 offshore wind turbines for New Jersey. FYI, the New Jersey coastline is 130 miles.
9,401 divided by 130 is 72 wind turbines per mile down the entire coast. For half of the state's energy needs.
As zero carbon coaches we have to think - is this something the players (citizens, consumers, wildlife) of this state can get behind? Can they go all the way to 9,401? What would that look like? What is the NIMBY coefficient? If we can't get to maximum wind, how far can we go? What are possible substitutions to make up the difference? What other considerations? Who in the state is working on this?
And we’re just getting started.
As you can see, we go deep. Footprint to Wings begins with the end game in mind. This is not the little leagues. We laugh at incremental and token action. We're looking for serious coaches, serious players, who want to win this game, who want to break apart the plays and make sure they've chosen the best.
We are doing the work most people avoid.
We coach people to zero carbon with their eyes wide open.
If this is work you agree with, please support it!
Your contribution is essential to our continued work. We can't do it without you.
Ready to take action? Join the meetup group - come learn the endgame and train to be a zero carbon coach and spread the rigorous, solution oriented message.
Also, come for the camaraderie. This is a sport, after all, and hijinks will ensue.
To zero carbon and beyond,
Rezwan
*FYI, the spreadsheets and data for the Solutions Project are available by following the link from the poster to the Stanford website, and choosing the right excel document, and the right tab ('intermediate details by State'). In other words, it's not obvious. Footprint to Wings would have that information front and center.
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