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July News You Can Use

Irises blooming at the Japanese Garden in
Portland, Oregon – June 2021

Summer Institute on Sustainability and Energy (SISE) Topic: Finding Ecosystem

Program July 6-16 more info here: https://uicsise.com/sise2021

Keynote speaker July 6th:
Climate Tipping Points and Ecosystems,
Kimberly Miner, NASA bio
followed by:

A Systems Approach to Positive Change,
Marianna Grossman, Minerva Ventures, LLC &
Dave Johnson, SERA Architects
Moderated by Eric Vettel, President, American Energy Society & Prof. George Crabtree, Director, Energy Initiative, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago

Additional speakers throughout the 2 weeks
Watch Virtually on YouTube

Website • Facebook • YouTube

Dave Johnson said “We're in the middle of a transition right now - from an unjust, extractive economy to an equitable, regenerative economy, and it can be hard for us to see that because we're right in the middle of it.” Dave and Marianna will be talking about how to transform the U.S. energy system to one based on principles of regeneration – making the system more resilient to climate shocks. more environmentally beneficial, while producing well-paying jobs and community vitality and health. Breakthroughs are enabled by the intersection of cloud computing, AI, sensors, renewable energy generation, storage and policies that encourage regional resilience.

Monthly Climate Leaders Network

We meet monthly to share projects, resources, insights and encouragement. The next meeting is Thursday, July 15 from 4 - 5:30 pm PDT. Join us!

Extreme Heat in the
Pacific Northwest – June 2021

Are we in a climate emergency?
Some say that phrase mongers fear and is ill-defined.

Temperatures in the Pacific Northwest were more than 30 F (+17 C) over normal during the last weekend in June. It was 115 F (46.11 C) on June 28 There were at least 90 deaths related to heat. The power company managed to keep electricity flowing to most customers through extraordinary effort to keep equipment cool. Trees, other plants, wildlife and physical infrastructure were stressed. The emotional toll of living with extreme heat in a region accustomed to cool and moist weather was striking. One’s brain slows down and it is hard to get any work done inside, much less outside.

My wishful thinking is to consider this a one-time anomaly and hope it doesn’t augar a new summertime pattern. But as someone who follows climate science, it is clear that extreme weather like this will continue to accelerate. The climate system has long delays, so we can expect temperatures to continue to rise over the coming decades. I believe that requires an all of society, urgent response.

A professor at a prominent business school says, “The IPCC offers several emissions pathways that will “allow for” up to 2 C average temperature rise. 2 degrees by 2050 (1.9-2.1 by 2100) with 66% probability, we should be at 41 GT in emissions by 2030 (~52GT now), or a needed reduction of ~1GT per year for the next 10 years. A 1.5 degree limit by 2050 (1.4-1.6 by 2100) with 66% probability would need ~2.5GT reduction in global emissions per year. For various reasons – most notably China’s still-rapid emissions growth – this would be impossibly tough. In the first scenario, we should get to ~net-zero by 2050; in the latter, ~2030.”

Unfortunately, these predictions don’t take into account the long delays between today’s pollution and future warming, tipping points and systemic interactions, such as ecosystem collapse, frequent wildfires releasing carbon that would otherwise be sequestered and other feedback loops such as warming ocean temperatures melting glaciers and ice on both poles and releasing ancient stores of methane. Would you bet your children’s future on a 66% chance of success?

Furthermore, the new net zero targets announced by countries and large corporations sound great but are predicated on assumptions that may not be achievable. (See the Big Con report below.)

I am striving mightily to maintain hope and courage to keep working for solutions through innovation, business, policy and personal action. I hope that you are continuing to act on your commitment to protect our planet and our children’s future. We need each other in this fight!

Extreme heat in Portland Sunday, June 27, 2021 (data for US only)
from the NOAA Weather Radar Live: Clime (phone app)

“Most humans will suffer hyperthermia after 10 minutes in extremely humid, 140-degree-Fahrenheit (60-degrees-Celsius) heat.… The boundaries of survival are better established for long-term comfort. According to a 1958 NASA report, people can live indefinitely in environments that range between roughly 40 degrees F and 95 degrees F (4 and 35 degrees C), if the latter temperature occurs at no more than 50 percent relative humidity. The maximum temperature pushes upward when it's less humid, because lower water content in the air makes it easier to sweat, and thus, keep cool.” Live Science

Chart of temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere from Makiko Sato & James Hansen Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions (CSAS)
Columbia University Earth Institute

Consequences of climate change include the economic and social costs of enduring and recovering from extreme weather events, storms, droughts, fires, and floods. The insurance and financial services industries are beginning to predict and account for these risks. Regenerative agriculture offers hope for greater resilience for our food system.

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/mapping

NGSF Climate Scenarios portal considers cost of inaction and costs of making the transition. At the Paris “One Planet Summit” in December 2017, eight central banks and supervisors established the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS). Since then, the membership of the Network has grown dramatically, across the five continents (see « Membership »).

The Big Con: How Big Polluters are advancing a “net zero” climate agenda to delay, deceive and deny

This report by Corporate Accountability, the Global Forest Coalition and Friends of the Earth in collaboration with many other organizations, challenges the basis for the net zero pledges that large companies and countries are making, promising to remove more carbon than they emit. Their pledges count on natural sequestration in soils, forests and other living systems; in products such as concrete and through processes such as carbon capture that are not yet proven at scale. Access the report here.

Resources for Reinventing Capitalism

The key to reversing the momentum of climate change is to address the underlying root causes. What leads human enterprise to destroy the ecosystems on which all life depends? Why do we blast poisons on our crops and soils? Why do we extract and burn fossil resources or fill our land and oceans (and ourselves) with plastics? Why do we exploit human labor and natural resources rather than designing our societies and economies in a way that celebrates and nurtures life and the interdependence of all living things?

The key is to transform from a culture and economic system based on exploitation and domination to one based on reverence and relatedness to all life and that operate in balance with the geophysical and natural systems of the planet and our atmosphere. There are many pioneers doing important work to define a new Regenerative way of organizing humanity.

US EPA Green Streets Handbook just released in 2021. This handbook is intended to help state and local transportation agencies, municipal officials, designers, stakeholders and others to select, design and implement site design strategies and green infrastructure practices for roads, alleys and parking lots. Green infrastructure can keep urban areas cooler, healthier and more beautiful. Roads can make up 30-40% of the surface area of a city.

California Climate Adaptation Forum 2021: The Grand Challenge Adaptation Challenge featuring interactive workshops over a 5-month virtual series, from June to October 2021. Hosted by the Local Government Commission, in partnership with the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, and many other partners. Program here

Dennis Meadows, co-author of the Limits to Growth delivered an update 47 years later in a lecture at Ulm University in Germany. June 7, 2019. The systems modeling work that he and his co-authors did for the Club of Rome was ground-breaking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRXb4bJhSSw

Donella Meadows Project of the Academy for Systems Change continues the legacy and work of the late Dana Meadows, extraordinary teacher, systems modeler and passionate advocate for a world that works for everyone. http://donellameadows.org https://www.academyforchange.org

Hasten Regeneration is implementing Miyawaki Forests and other systems transformation measures to invigorate communities in India, Madagascar and other regions around the world. https://hastenregeneration.com/

Kate Raworth is an economist who understands that our human economy is wholly dependent on the natural world that supports us all. https://www.kateraworth.com/

Janine Benyus is a pioneer in the field of biomimicry (learning from and being inspired by nature) https://biomimicry.org/

The Capital Institute is reimagining the basis for our economy through Regenerative Capitalism https://capitalinstitute.org/regenerative-capitalism/

Ellen MacArthur Foundation leads breakthrough work on the circular economy https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/concep

Hunter Lovins champions Regenerative Capitalism through Natural Capital Solutions: https://natcapsolutions.org/regenerative-economics-101/

RMI (formerly Rocky Mountain Institute) founded by Amory and Hunter Lovins has vast treasure troves of information on transforming the way we use energy throughout our economy and society. https://rmi.org/

Here are some links to the many initiatives in architecture and planning:

Whole Building Design Guide https://www.wbdg.org/resources/living-regenerative-and-adaptive-buildings

International Living Futures Institute offers the Living Building Challenge and other initiatives to transform buildings, neighborhoods and communities. Their annual meeting will be virtual from April 20-23, 2021. https://living-future.org/

Architecture 2030 https://architecture2030.org/

Minerva Ventures, LLC now has an office in Portland, Oregon. We continue to work with California-based clients and others around the world. We are in the process of getting certified as a beneficial corporation.