Committing To Renewable Energy

The climate crisis is a huge impending problem that we must fix before it’s too late. We can’t continue to ignore the impacts of the crisis, and we have to stop burning fossil fuels. During the pandemic it’s been hard to think about all of the crises that are still happening and destroying our planet. But they’re still there, and there are things that everyone can do and learn about. But instead of focusing on the problem, I wanted to learn about the solution. So, my focus is on renewable energy. We need to eliminate fossil fuels from our atmosphere and transition to renewables. Something really important that everyone should know about is that we do actually have all of the technology to stop this and change. We’re not waiting for a big breakthrough, we have the solutions, we just need to implement change.

Transitioning to renewable energy is a crucial step in stopping climate change. And you may think that this is too big, and yes it is going to take a lot of commitment. It will involve transitioning to electric appliances, and switching energy usage.

This is a video made by Grist that shows how a hypothetical town could completely switch to renewable energy. It’s a small scale example that has to leave out the fact that individual cities can’t completely do this on their own because everything is connected to the power grid, but it still shows that it is possible to transition.

And it will cause many people to lose their jobs in the fossil fuel industry. But you know what? Renewable energy will create millions of new jobs, and benefit the Earth. You may also wonder how in the world are we going to do all of this change? Well, we already have the technology and the plans to do it. Some of the renewable technology that we already have includes solar, wind, and hydro energy. Those are popular, efficient, renewable energy sources. In my research I found other, innovative renewable energy sources, such as using kinetic energy. There are floor tile designs that capture the kinetic energy of people walking on them. In a Wired article about these floor tiles, they said that the tiles have “been used to help light soccer pitches in Brazil and Nigeria, a hallway in Heathrow Airport, and offices and shopping centers in London.” There is so much technology that we can use to transition to renewable energy, and we can do it now with plans that are already laid out for us. The Green New Deal is a plan for the United States to dramatically change the current system. It says that the “United States has historically been responsible for a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions, having emitted 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions through 2014, and has a high technological capacity, the United States must take a leading role in reducing emissions through economic transformation.”

This is the cumulative CO2 emissions in countries in 2018. The graph is from a video that shows the cumulative CO2 emissions of countries around the world since 1750. It starts out with the United Kingdom being first, but you can see that the USA quickly gains speed and shoots ahead on the chart, passing the United kingdom in 1911 and has been steadily far ahead of other countries since, and continues to be in first as of 2018 when this was made.

The Green New Deal states facts about many of the current crises, such as income inequality, and racial injustice. It’s not just a plan to switch to renewable energy, it’s a plan to make the US a more just place for everyone. So, now you know that we have the resources and a plan to transition and stop this crisis. There’s more. In october of 2019 Philadelphia pledged to commit to 100% renewable energy. They passed a resolution that said that the city would be renewable by 2050 or sooner. And “over 170 cities, more than ten counties, and eight states across the U.S. have goals to power their communities with 100% clean, renewable energy,” according to Ready for 100. A recent development in the push for climate action is the call for a climate emergency by President Biden from AOC and Bernie Sanders. President Biden said he would back the Green New Deal and help make real change with the US in the climate crisis, and now is the time for him to fulfil his promises. The call for a “climate emergency” comes in the form of a House Bill that “compares the action needed on the climate crisis to the wartime mobilization during World War II” according to Grist. It lays out many of the disastrous impacts of climate change, and the impacts that the US will and has been taking. It also lays out a plan for President Biden to take, by first declaring a climate emergency, and then having many response projects that will help restore the United States, such as modernizing infrastructure so it’s best for citizens and best used with new affordable energy. Something really great that Grist said when reporting on this is that “the National Emergencies Act could give Biden real powers: The president could use the declaration to reinstitute a ban on crude oil exports, send emergency aid packages to states, or even redirect billions of dollars of funding away from defense projects and toward the production of renewable energy.” This is really amazing. The President can make priorities, and have a big impact on how we solve this crisis.

I’ve learned about the different goals, and bills that have been made so that there is more action on climate change. I’ve also learned about how we can go renewable and what technology there is that can help us do that. It’s clear that there are a lot of people that want to do this, and are pushing for a change. There are many plans, and things that we can do to transition to renewables and help the Earth. My question is why aren’t there big changes? The Philadelphia pledge to go renewable was made two years ago and I can’t find any recent developments. So that’s what I want to know now, what do we do next? We have the plans, we have the technology, it’s time to make the change.

Here is my annotated bibliography