Going to lectures on climate change might not be everyone’s ideal way to start the weekend. And while I wouldn’t call last Friday’s lecture a mood booster, I’m glad that I attended.
The keynote speaker for the President’s Science Symposium presented to a crowded Kresge audience during last week’s Common Hour. The speaker, Dr. Daniel Schrag, is both a professor of geology and the director of the Center of the Environment at Harvard University.
Climate change, as Schrag described it, is a massive experiment on the order of nothing ever before seen by the hominid species. Our planet is likely to experience its residual effects for tens—if not hundreds—of thousands of years. The planet’s “recovery time” will hinge on how much longer we prolong fossil fuel combustion.
According to the scenarios presented by Schrag, our options for a clean-energy future are: highly efficient use of all forms of energy; exclusive use of zero-carbon (both renewables and nuclear) power sources, and large-scale CO2 sequestration. Schrag believes that a realistic zero-net-carbon future must include all three.
Both the scale and its tendency to overwhelm the public make climate action a tough political sell. Until renewable energy is cheaper and more convenient than fossil fuels, Schrag expresses doubt that society will choose to make the transition.
He suggested the elimination of coal (both for environmental and human health reasons) and increased use of natural gas in electricity generation. As demand for natural gas grows to take the place of coal, its price will rise until it is on par with renewables like photovoltaic solar power. This, he said, will bring renewable energies into wider use.
Schrag is skeptical of the push for “sustainability,” as it is most commonly invoked: turn off the lights when you leave a room, recycle, line dry your laundry, etc. As much as we might wish it were otherwise, this kind of small-scale “problemsolving” solves very little on a global scale, and he’s wise to advocate moving away from it.
I, too, take issue with patting ourselves on the back for making small lifestyle changes that stop short of significant, if inconvenient, progress. Although I’m sure that hardly anyone believes that systemic energy-use problems could be solved if we all were more conscientious about recycling and turning off lights, it sometimes seems like those kinds of efforts are the only ones that receive any mainstream attention.
This is the reasoning behind Schrag’s opinion that most individual and institutional carbon neutrality pledges should be little cause for celebration.
I agree with Dr. Schrag that “sustainability” should not be held up as the end-all-and-be-all of environmental action, but neither do I endorse wastefulness for wastefulness’ sake.
A healthy skepticism about some sustainability measures shouldn’t stop us from increasing energy efficiency and cutting down on waste. On the contrary, this skepticism ought to be a tool to help differentiate the effective environmental policies from the ineffective ones.
On another level, upholding sustainability measures is a way of showing that the environment matters to us. Unless we demonstrate a commitment to the health of our planet, how can we expect leaders in business and politics to make the changes that are necessary to protect it? Without sustainability, fraught with complications as it is, the message that change is needed will be more difficult to convey to those in power.
As a final point, Schrag raised the topic of environmental activism on college campuses. He echoed administrators at both Bowdoin and Harvard when he said that, rather than adopting a pro-activist attitude, the ultimate sustainability goal of higher education institutions ought to be training a cohort of young adults who, once released into the “real world,” will combat the forces causing environmental degradation from the inside out: in politics, business, science, and beyond, where they have the ability to bring about systemic change.
I sincerely hope that he is right. His words illustrate a hopeful future in which the graduates of the world’s colleges and universities incorporate environmental goals into their life’s work. I only hope that he is not overly idealistic in his prediction of the future choices of my peers.
If my generation learns from our parents, teachers and peers to passively accept the status quo on issues as pressing as climate change, I can only wonder where these visionary leaders of the future will be coming from.