Solve Climate by 2030
NFP State Coordinator Tim Rinne was invited to participate in an April 7 online panel hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Environmental Studies Program in partnership with Bard College’s “Solve Climate by 2030” educational campaign. Printed below are his remarks to the largely undergraduate audience.
I want to thank you all for joining this “Solve Climate by 2030” webinar… for—as you well know—there’s no more urgent issue facing us than the climate crisis, and this isn’t an easy subject to grapple with.
The “by 2030” date in the title particularly punctuates the emergency of solving the climate problem. We’re on a clock—trying to meet the deadline set by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its “Special Report” two-and-half years ago.
According to that 2018 Report, the world community has to cut greenhouse gas emissions BY HALF between now and 2030 if we’re to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.
And for those of us living in the U.S.—where we have the highest per capita carbon footprint in the world—cutting greenhouse gas emissions IN HALF roughly amounts to Middle Class Americans cutting their LIFESTYLES IN HALF. HALF the energy use. HALF the transportation and travel. HALF the shopping. HALF the dietary choices. HALF the impact we’re currently having on the planet’s ecosystem by curtailing our consumption.
This is not anything anyone wants to hear. I can tell you that I sure didn’t—and still don’t. But it’s important to remember that:
• 4 out of 5 people in the world have never even been on a plane
• 4 out of 5 people in the world don’t own a car
• Middle Class Americans live better than 90 percent of the world’s population
• No other country in the world has access to the incredible variety of food we have, where we can eat whatever we want, whenever we want, regardless of the season… or consumes anywhere near the meat and dairy we Americans consume daily.
…And no other nation, accordingly, has the capacity to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions the way we do… Comparatively, the rest of the world doesn’t have much. People can’t cut what they don’t have.
Those with the most have the most to cut. And from those with the most, the most is required. It’s a matter of both basic arithmetic and ‘Environmental Justice’.
So, this is the setting we find ourselves in… with NINE years to reduce global emissions by HALF (with the REMAINING HALF to be cut by 2050). This is a tall order, admittedly —one that’s going to require major shifts in our thinking and our behavior.
Let’s stop for a moment, though, to think about what we in America have gotten with this out-sized carbon footprint of ours…
• We’ve gotten a polluted, gutted planet with fouled air, fouled land and fouled water—with undegradable plastic in our landfills, our oceans and even micro-plastics in our bodies.
• We’ve gotten a coronavirus outbreak that’s directly related to our relentless industrial and agricultural encroachment on the natural world. The entire planet is now experiencing a massive biodiversity loss event: The Sixth Extinction.
• We’ve gotten the biggest wealth divide in human history, with the Top 1% of the U.S. population holding 15 times more wealth than the Bottom 50 percent combined. In 2018, Three White Men at the top of that list—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett—held combined fortunes worth more than the TOTAL wealth of the poorest half of Americans.
• We’ve gotten a social structure that’s as institutionally rife with White Male Privilege as ever. Societies with authentic ‘Equality Before the Law’ and equal opportunity don’t need to be having a ‘National Dialogue on Race’ 150 years after the end of the Civil War… They don’t have to be explaining in 2021 that ‘Black Lives Matter’, or be dealing with deeply embedded, institutional racism in every aspect of their lives… Nor in societies where true equality prevails, do women have to mount #MeToo Movements to counter pervasive sexual harassment and discrimination.
• And finally, for our carbon footprint, we’ve gotten a global war machine that’s spending more on war-making than ever before: In a world already beset by a pandemic and climate crisis, the U.S. government is currently embarked on a trillion-dollar modernization of its nuclear weapons arsenal so we can even more effectively kill all life on earth…
I’m a Boomer. As by far the oldest person on this panel, by design, I’m going first tonight because it was MY GENERATION that promulgated this consumption-crazed, ‘Throwaway Society’ that’s launched us down this self-destructive path.
My generation took consumption and the pursuit of material wealth to never-before-seen heights… Thirty years ago you could actually see bumper stickers on cars with billionaire Malcolm Forbes’ brag that “He who dies with the most toys wins”—with its vulgar ideology that ‘getting more’ is all that matters… And we’ll get it whatever the cost.
This selfish, cynical worldview has pushed us to the cusp of civilizational collapse. Apart from being morally hideous; it’s unsustainable. And to preserve our ecosystem, we need to step back from this brink and seek another path.
AND THERE ARE OTHER PATHS WE CAN TAKE.
Everybody knows about The Boomers. But we don’t talk as much about the generation just preceding them: my parents’ generation.
They grew up during the Great Depression; lived closer to the land; knew the value of local community; came of age at the start of World War II; rallied together to deal with hardship —with rationing and separation from loved ones; grew “Victory Gardens” to support the national war effort; feared for the future, because no more than us, they didn’t know how things would turn out… But they never gave up hope, and they never quit. We revere and celebrate them today as “THE GREATEST GENERATION”.
They were heroic. Common folks, but heroes nonetheless… They didn’t fly. Didn’t go to the mall. Had no refrigeration and ate only what was available in season. But they knew how to live and love, care for their homes and communities, and be grateful for what they had.
And there are things we can learn from them.
NOT EVERYTHING, of course. There was rampant, horrific racism, sexism and homophobia then too; and greed, jealousy and small-mindedness. But when the world hung in the balance, they rose to the greatest challenge they’d ever face in their lives.
The whole EARTH--our entire global ecosystem—now desperately needs another ‘Greatest Generation’… and I’m hoping all of YOU will rise to this new challenge, and step up to help chart a new course for the planet as we “BUILD BACK BETTER”. What your generation chooses to do will determine our collective future.
There’s tons to be done and anything anybo does is helpful.
But given the narrow window for action we have, it’s also going to be imperative to ‘work smart’: to do the most we can given what we have to work with… Because the NEXT NINE years are critical, and we have to get moving.
So what’s the ‘smartest’ thing we should be doing?
This is not a ‘dodge’ when I tell you only you can decide that for yourself. You best know your personal strengths and interests, your living situation, your political environment, and the possibilities for action.
But having said that, I do have some thoughts gleaned from my 40 years as a political organizer here in Nebraska.
Generally, in a talk like this, this is the moment when speakers exhort you to “Contact Your Members of Congress”.
Well, I’m not going to tell you not to, because they need to hear their constituents care about climate change. But Nebraska’s all-Republican federal delegation is not going to climb the climate barricades any time soon. Even the ones who authentically understand the climate science—like Representatives Jeff Fortenberry and Don Bacon—are not going to buck their Republican leadership in Washington, or run the risk of alienating their Trump supporter political base when they have to run for re-election every two years. So by all means, contact your two senators and district congress member. But know that this will be a long slog. And it may not produce much in the way of concrete results when we need to move fast.
Sadly, things aren’t much better in the Nebraska Legislature. Governor Pete Ricketts is an out-and-out climate denier, and the Legislature is heavily populated with deniers and obstructors. They too need to hear from the constituents—and we should continue to lobby them… But again, don’t hold your breath.
On the other hand, as you’ll hear from our next speaker, the City of Lincoln just adopted a Climate Action Plan on a Bi-partisan vote. Climate impacts will be considered with every action city government takes from this point forward. Getting that to happen was the result of literally years of organizing: Meeting with local officials, speaking to groups, trying and failing… and retooling and trying again. But now Lincoln is positioned to be a model and a laboratory for climate mitigation and adaptation that other communities can appropriate to their own circumstances.
Wherever you are, whatever your situation, there’s something you can do politically to advance the work of climate action. You’ll want to take some time to study and identify the courses of action best-suited for you: Whether it’s prodding a public body (city council, county commission, school board, Board of Regents, public power district, NRD)… Or modeling a leaner, less-consumptive lifestyle for your social network (such as eating a more plant-based diet, riding your bike instead of driving)… Or—my own personal passion—growing some of your own food.
I’ll close my remarks with a little background about the neighborhood garden we’ve established in our city block in Lincoln: the Hawley Hamlet.
Food is the foundation of everything we do. None of us would even be on this webinar tonight if we hadn’t eaten something at some point today.
And though we eat almost constantly, we almost never think about our food system. Those of us who live in the city see our role in the food chain as merely that of consumers, as ‘eaters’ —not producers. But like just about everything else, our global food system is in crisis.
• The extreme weather of climate change will make it harder to grow food, decreasing yield—just as a growing world population is increasing overall demand.
• As of this instant, the average bite of food we eat travels 2,000 miles to get to our mouths.
• Even here in Nebraska—the renowned ‘breadbasket’ of the world—90 percent of the food we eat is imported from outside the state.
• Fully dependent on this global distribution system to supply our food, the typical grocery store and restaurant stocks just three-days-worth of inventory. Just 72 hours... And the COVID pandemic has shown us just how easily that global distribution system can break down—leading to food shortages.
Growing some of our own food and re-localizing our food supply increases the odds we’ll always have something for dinner.
As a state, we have to start shifting our agricultural system from its myopic focus on growing livestock feed (our field corn and soybeans) to again growing food for human consumption.
But those of us living in the urban environment can also start doing our part by growing what we can. While we don’t have the room in our yards to grow ‘calorie crops’ like grains, dry beans and potatoes, we can grow perishable fruits and vegetables better than anyone else. Because they’re harvested right on site, right outside our kitchen door, what we grow will be fresher and therefore more nutritious.
Twelve years ago, my wife and I began digging up our grass lawn to put in an ‘edible landscape’ and establish the first garden in our block. Today, in a block with no vacant lots, 20 of our neighbors now annually garden an area the equivalent of 80 yards of a football field, sideline to sideline—growing both food and neighborhood.
We grow lettuce and strawberries, carrots and cucumbers, beets and green beans, zucchini, tomatoes and peppers. We call our block the “Hawley Hamlet”, after the Hawley Neighborhood we live in. People who lived in the same block together for years and never even knew each other’s names now garden side by side.
We’re not going to feed ourselves, and, in and of itself, we know this isn’t going to ‘solve’ the climate problem. But we’re making better use of what little ground we have in the city core, growing some food for our tables— and we’re ‘building community’… Which is what we’re going to be needing a lot more of if we’re going to cut our carbon emissions as drastically as we need to.
I’ll just end by saying that while I have no illusions about how hard this transition is going to be the coming years, I’ve never been prouder to be a citizen of Lincoln… I wouldn’t want to live anywhere but in the Hamlet with my fellow “Hamleteers”…
And I can’t shake the feeling that, right now, I’m looking at THE GREATEST GENERATION America has yet seen.
I want to thank you all for joining this “Solve Climate by 2030” webinar… for—as you well know—there’s no more urgent issue facing us than the climate crisis, and this isn’t an easy subject to grapple with.
The “by 2030” date in the title particularly punctuates the emergency of solving the climate problem. We’re on a clock—trying to meet the deadline set by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its “Special Report” two-and-half years ago.
According to that 2018 Report, the world community has to cut greenhouse gas emissions BY HALF between now and 2030 if we’re to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.
And for those of us living in the U.S.—where we have the highest per capita carbon footprint in the world—cutting greenhouse gas emissions IN HALF roughly amounts to Middle Class Americans cutting their LIFESTYLES IN HALF. HALF the energy use. HALF the transportation and travel. HALF the shopping. HALF the dietary choices. HALF the impact we’re currently having on the planet’s ecosystem by curtailing our consumption.
This is not anything anyone wants to hear. I can tell you that I sure didn’t—and still don’t. But it’s important to remember that:
• 4 out of 5 people in the world have never even been on a plane
• 4 out of 5 people in the world don’t own a car
• Middle Class Americans live better than 90 percent of the world’s population
• No other country in the world has access to the incredible variety of food we have, where we can eat whatever we want, whenever we want, regardless of the season… or consumes anywhere near the meat and dairy we Americans consume daily.
…And no other nation, accordingly, has the capacity to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions the way we do… Comparatively, the rest of the world doesn’t have much. People can’t cut what they don’t have.
Those with the most have the most to cut. And from those with the most, the most is required. It’s a matter of both basic arithmetic and ‘Environmental Justice’.
So, this is the setting we find ourselves in… with NINE years to reduce global emissions by HALF (with the REMAINING HALF to be cut by 2050). This is a tall order, admittedly —one that’s going to require major shifts in our thinking and our behavior.
Let’s stop for a moment, though, to think about what we in America have gotten with this out-sized carbon footprint of ours…
• We’ve gotten a polluted, gutted planet with fouled air, fouled land and fouled water—with undegradable plastic in our landfills, our oceans and even micro-plastics in our bodies.
• We’ve gotten a coronavirus outbreak that’s directly related to our relentless industrial and agricultural encroachment on the natural world. The entire planet is now experiencing a massive biodiversity loss event: The Sixth Extinction.
• We’ve gotten the biggest wealth divide in human history, with the Top 1% of the U.S. population holding 15 times more wealth than the Bottom 50 percent combined. In 2018, Three White Men at the top of that list—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett—held combined fortunes worth more than the TOTAL wealth of the poorest half of Americans.
• We’ve gotten a social structure that’s as institutionally rife with White Male Privilege as ever. Societies with authentic ‘Equality Before the Law’ and equal opportunity don’t need to be having a ‘National Dialogue on Race’ 150 years after the end of the Civil War… They don’t have to be explaining in 2021 that ‘Black Lives Matter’, or be dealing with deeply embedded, institutional racism in every aspect of their lives… Nor in societies where true equality prevails, do women have to mount #MeToo Movements to counter pervasive sexual harassment and discrimination.
• And finally, for our carbon footprint, we’ve gotten a global war machine that’s spending more on war-making than ever before: In a world already beset by a pandemic and climate crisis, the U.S. government is currently embarked on a trillion-dollar modernization of its nuclear weapons arsenal so we can even more effectively kill all life on earth…
I’m a Boomer. As by far the oldest person on this panel, by design, I’m going first tonight because it was MY GENERATION that promulgated this consumption-crazed, ‘Throwaway Society’ that’s launched us down this self-destructive path.
My generation took consumption and the pursuit of material wealth to never-before-seen heights… Thirty years ago you could actually see bumper stickers on cars with billionaire Malcolm Forbes’ brag that “He who dies with the most toys wins”—with its vulgar ideology that ‘getting more’ is all that matters… And we’ll get it whatever the cost.
This selfish, cynical worldview has pushed us to the cusp of civilizational collapse. Apart from being morally hideous; it’s unsustainable. And to preserve our ecosystem, we need to step back from this brink and seek another path.
AND THERE ARE OTHER PATHS WE CAN TAKE.
Everybody knows about The Boomers. But we don’t talk as much about the generation just preceding them: my parents’ generation.
They grew up during the Great Depression; lived closer to the land; knew the value of local community; came of age at the start of World War II; rallied together to deal with hardship —with rationing and separation from loved ones; grew “Victory Gardens” to support the national war effort; feared for the future, because no more than us, they didn’t know how things would turn out… But they never gave up hope, and they never quit. We revere and celebrate them today as “THE GREATEST GENERATION”.
They were heroic. Common folks, but heroes nonetheless… They didn’t fly. Didn’t go to the mall. Had no refrigeration and ate only what was available in season. But they knew how to live and love, care for their homes and communities, and be grateful for what they had.
And there are things we can learn from them.
NOT EVERYTHING, of course. There was rampant, horrific racism, sexism and homophobia then too; and greed, jealousy and small-mindedness. But when the world hung in the balance, they rose to the greatest challenge they’d ever face in their lives.
The whole EARTH--our entire global ecosystem—now desperately needs another ‘Greatest Generation’… and I’m hoping all of YOU will rise to this new challenge, and step up to help chart a new course for the planet as we “BUILD BACK BETTER”. What your generation chooses to do will determine our collective future.
There’s tons to be done and anything anybo does is helpful.
But given the narrow window for action we have, it’s also going to be imperative to ‘work smart’: to do the most we can given what we have to work with… Because the NEXT NINE years are critical, and we have to get moving.
So what’s the ‘smartest’ thing we should be doing?
This is not a ‘dodge’ when I tell you only you can decide that for yourself. You best know your personal strengths and interests, your living situation, your political environment, and the possibilities for action.
But having said that, I do have some thoughts gleaned from my 40 years as a political organizer here in Nebraska.
Generally, in a talk like this, this is the moment when speakers exhort you to “Contact Your Members of Congress”.
Well, I’m not going to tell you not to, because they need to hear their constituents care about climate change. But Nebraska’s all-Republican federal delegation is not going to climb the climate barricades any time soon. Even the ones who authentically understand the climate science—like Representatives Jeff Fortenberry and Don Bacon—are not going to buck their Republican leadership in Washington, or run the risk of alienating their Trump supporter political base when they have to run for re-election every two years. So by all means, contact your two senators and district congress member. But know that this will be a long slog. And it may not produce much in the way of concrete results when we need to move fast.
Sadly, things aren’t much better in the Nebraska Legislature. Governor Pete Ricketts is an out-and-out climate denier, and the Legislature is heavily populated with deniers and obstructors. They too need to hear from the constituents—and we should continue to lobby them… But again, don’t hold your breath.
On the other hand, as you’ll hear from our next speaker, the City of Lincoln just adopted a Climate Action Plan on a Bi-partisan vote. Climate impacts will be considered with every action city government takes from this point forward. Getting that to happen was the result of literally years of organizing: Meeting with local officials, speaking to groups, trying and failing… and retooling and trying again. But now Lincoln is positioned to be a model and a laboratory for climate mitigation and adaptation that other communities can appropriate to their own circumstances.
Wherever you are, whatever your situation, there’s something you can do politically to advance the work of climate action. You’ll want to take some time to study and identify the courses of action best-suited for you: Whether it’s prodding a public body (city council, county commission, school board, Board of Regents, public power district, NRD)… Or modeling a leaner, less-consumptive lifestyle for your social network (such as eating a more plant-based diet, riding your bike instead of driving)… Or—my own personal passion—growing some of your own food.
I’ll close my remarks with a little background about the neighborhood garden we’ve established in our city block in Lincoln: the Hawley Hamlet.
Food is the foundation of everything we do. None of us would even be on this webinar tonight if we hadn’t eaten something at some point today.
And though we eat almost constantly, we almost never think about our food system. Those of us who live in the city see our role in the food chain as merely that of consumers, as ‘eaters’ —not producers. But like just about everything else, our global food system is in crisis.
• The extreme weather of climate change will make it harder to grow food, decreasing yield—just as a growing world population is increasing overall demand.
• As of this instant, the average bite of food we eat travels 2,000 miles to get to our mouths.
• Even here in Nebraska—the renowned ‘breadbasket’ of the world—90 percent of the food we eat is imported from outside the state.
• Fully dependent on this global distribution system to supply our food, the typical grocery store and restaurant stocks just three-days-worth of inventory. Just 72 hours... And the COVID pandemic has shown us just how easily that global distribution system can break down—leading to food shortages.
Growing some of our own food and re-localizing our food supply increases the odds we’ll always have something for dinner.
As a state, we have to start shifting our agricultural system from its myopic focus on growing livestock feed (our field corn and soybeans) to again growing food for human consumption.
But those of us living in the urban environment can also start doing our part by growing what we can. While we don’t have the room in our yards to grow ‘calorie crops’ like grains, dry beans and potatoes, we can grow perishable fruits and vegetables better than anyone else. Because they’re harvested right on site, right outside our kitchen door, what we grow will be fresher and therefore more nutritious.
Twelve years ago, my wife and I began digging up our grass lawn to put in an ‘edible landscape’ and establish the first garden in our block. Today, in a block with no vacant lots, 20 of our neighbors now annually garden an area the equivalent of 80 yards of a football field, sideline to sideline—growing both food and neighborhood.
We grow lettuce and strawberries, carrots and cucumbers, beets and green beans, zucchini, tomatoes and peppers. We call our block the “Hawley Hamlet”, after the Hawley Neighborhood we live in. People who lived in the same block together for years and never even knew each other’s names now garden side by side.
We’re not going to feed ourselves, and, in and of itself, we know this isn’t going to ‘solve’ the climate problem. But we’re making better use of what little ground we have in the city core, growing some food for our tables— and we’re ‘building community’… Which is what we’re going to be needing a lot more of if we’re going to cut our carbon emissions as drastically as we need to.
I’ll just end by saying that while I have no illusions about how hard this transition is going to be the coming years, I’ve never been prouder to be a citizen of Lincoln… I wouldn’t want to live anywhere but in the Hamlet with my fellow “Hamleteers”…
And I can’t shake the feeling that, right now, I’m looking at THE GREATEST GENERATION America has yet seen.
