Finding Climate Change Solutions is Complicated – But We Shouldn’t Give Up

A couple of recent events reminded me of the complexity of the issues surrounding climate change. It’s such an overwhelming issue that it can be tempting to throw up our hands in despair and give up.

But that complexity doesn’t mean we can’t make progress or move towards better options. It does mean that we need to be creative and resilient, and while we shouldn’t ignore the realities of our situation, we also shouldn’t let them completely discourage us.

Planet of the Humans

The first thing that brought climate change solutions to mind was the new Michael Moore documentary Planet of the Humans. If you’re not familiar with it, it was released in time for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and I heard about it during an interview Moore did with Stephen Colbert.

In that interview, Moore said that the film wasn’t depressing but that it was about how we need to reconsider the path we’re taking in addressing climate change. He also implied that the film would offer some ideas about what we could be doing differently.

When I started watching, I was therefore not prepared for the dissection of renewable energy, the problems of biomass and biofuels, and the influence of big corporations on environmental leaders. Personally, I did find it depressing, and it didn’t seem to me to offer useful ideas about what we could be doing differently.

A little while after finishing the documentary, I realized I had another complaint with it. It seemed to ignore the complexities of our current situation and the fact that even if renewables come with their own problems, we need to value incremental improvements.   

As this film review from Resilience.org points out, a solar panel “now lasts (up to) three decades—taking four years to compensate for the energy it took to build it—90 percent of the power it then produces is carbon-emissions-free.” Plus, it’s important to consider the entire lifecycle of the products for an accurate comparison.

To be clear, I do think the film raised important points about greenwashing, and I absolutely agree that we have to reduce consumption. But even imperfect, partial solutions will help us get where we need to be.

One Climate Future

The other event that got me thinking about all of these complexities was a One Climate Future workshop. One Climate Future is the group looking at ways the cities of Portland and South Portland can prepare for and address climate change.

In the workshop, we broke into two groups to discuss four areas of interest:

  • Building & Energy Use
  • Transportation & Land Use
  • Waste Reduction
  • Climate Resilience

For each area, we discussed a single question, which was all we had time for in the hour-long session. But even in that short time, I realized how many facets come into play with these approaches.

For example, in the discussion of Waste Reduction, we talked about composting, and whether the cities should have enforced composting.

Many of us in my group are in favor of composting and, like me, already use a service such as Garbage to Garden. But enforcing solutions like that raised a lot of questions.

How could this be made equitable for low-income households? Could we have a composting tax as we do for wastewater? Would the service pay for itself by reducing contaminated materials in recycling, and by limiting food litter on streets, which in turn would cut back on the amount of street cleaning needed?

Where could all that compost go? If it gets transported too far, that would offset some of the gains from composting.

What impact would this have on household trash generation? If people aren’t putting food in the trash, how much would they save on buying purple trash bags? How much would composting help our overall waste situation?

It was amazing how only one question in one area could generate so much discussion. Clearly, making changes is going to be complicated.

But I was heartened by the fact that the folks on the call didn’t seem bothered by all the nuances. Instead, they wanted all those details so they could come up with a solution that’s as fair and impactful as possible.

We Won’t Always Get It Right

All this reminded me of something I heard when I started learning about copywriting, which is the “ready, fire, aim” approach. When doing this, you don’t spend all your time preparing. Instead, the best thing is to try something, learn from your mistakes, and adjust your aim as you go.

I realize that when addressing climate change, the costs of our mistakes are much higher than in copywriting, and it makes sense to spend some time aiming first.

The problem is getting caught in the trap of analysis-paralysis. If we’re so worried about the impact that we don’t act, our current practices won’t change and they’ll catch up with us even sooner.

Instead, it seems more important than ever to act. This includes improvements to green technology, but we also need to change how we live, particularly in Western societies. This time of the pandemic is giving some people an opportunity to realize that perhaps they don’t need as much as they thought, and we should keep focusing on this even when we’re back to (somewhat) normal.

We won’t always get things right, and that will have real-world consequences. But we need to start somewhere, and if we can learn from our mistakes and adjust our process, we’ll be on our way to finding meaningful solutions to climate change.