5 Ways to help stop Climate Change Now   by Richard Iredale As a young civil engineering student twenty five years ago I remember taking a course about the “Greenhouse Effect.” Scientists were becoming aware that human activity was causing an increase in the Carbon Dioxide level in the atmosphere and that this increase could result in a gradual warming of the planet. At that time the problem was only ‘speculative.’ Climate science was still in its infancy. Recorded CO2 levels had only just started to rise from their pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million (PPM), and most people (including President Reagan) thought that climate changes were probably more affected by solar flares and natural fluctuations in ocean chemistry than by human activity. Homo Sapiens, most of us thought, were just innocent bystanders watching nature do its thing. By 1980 we were pretty sure that the earth has been alternating between short, warm spells and long ice ages for the past 1.2 million years, although we didn’t yet know why.  It seemed likely that our current warm period, which has already lasted for nearly 12000 years, is due to end. According to the geological record, it would soon be time for another ice age.   During the twenty-five years since then, like most other baby boomer Canadians, I’ve pursued “the good life’: I’ve established a career, raised a family, bought two cars, moved to the suburbs, then to the country, taken holidays in Europe, consumed food, clothing, gadgets and appliances manufactured all over the world. Without ever intending to, I, along with my entire generation, have blown off a lot of carbon! Boomers have contributed over ten times more carbon to the atmosphere than any previous generation in Canadian history, thanks to all those cars, gizmos, and fun airplane rides to far away places. In 1930 the lifestyle of the average Canadian produced about one ton of CO2 each year. Today, the average Canadian produces about 13 tons. And this figure is for those who stay close to home. A winter getaway trip to Mexico will double your carbon contribution in one go: the return flight produces 12 tons of CO2 per passenger from jet engine exhaust. Altogether,  humans currently produce about 8.5 Billion tons of  CO2 per year. The planet’s oceans, which for millennia have been responsible for absorbing carbon and keeping greenhouses gases in check, can only take in 3 to 4 Billion tons of CO2 per year. The rest goes straight into the atmosphere and stays there. It’s now 2006, and I wake up to discover that during my adult life the earth’s population has more than doubled, from 3 billion to 6.5 billion and counting.  The number of cars on the road has swelled from about 300 million in 1980 to 2.5 billion today. Most frightening is this simple, bald statistic: in merely twenty-five years, the level of CO2 in the atmospheric has increased from 280 PPM  to 380 PPM. Such a high level of carbon in the atmosphere hasn’t been since the last age of dinosaurs, over sixty million years ago. Back in 1980, we pondered the worst case scenario for global warming, sure that such a fate was science fiction - fantastic and unlikely. We trusted that climate change would be slow, and that we would have time to adapt and prevent permanent devastation. But nightmarish reports are flooding in every day from the scientific community.  Our worst fears are becoming reality, and at a rate faster than anyone could have foretold. We’ve all read the headlines:  unprecedented summer heat-waves are killing thousands all over the world; ever-stronger hurricanes are destroying cities and leaving many homeless; forests are dying due to drought and to pests which warm winters no longer kill; fish stocks are failing in warming oceans. Perhaps most haunting of all is the discovery, published two months ago, that the gulf stream which warms Europe has slowed by a third (due to massive runoff as the Greenland Ice Sheet melts). As a result, Europe and Russia are experiencing extreme winter cold this year. If the gulf streams stops altogether, Europe will plunge into a mini ice age like the one which occurred 14,000 ago (when the St Lawrence river thawed and sent a sudden inflow of freshwater into the North Atlantic). That freeze lasted for 2000 years. When I first allowed myself to fully contemplate what is happening to our planet, I felt suicidal for about a week. Then I put on my humble engineer’s cap and started doing a simple “carbon footprint” calculation for my own family of five. I needed to get a handle on how specific choices we make contribute to global warming. I needed to be able to do something, to make some simple changes, so that at least I knew I wasn’t blindly participating in the devastation of everything I hold dear. I made a list of our activities and habits and came to the conclusion that the five people in my family each contribute about 13 tons of carbon per year to the atmosphere (not counting airplane trips). Here is our individual carbon footprint: HOUSE: Electricity generated by burning fossil fuel for heat, light, hot-water and running appliances (love that clothes dryer!)    - 3 Tons per year SOCIETY: share of electricity generated by burning fossil fuel, required to run stores, schools, hospitals, offices, plants and government buildings that we use, as well as the carbon “embedded” in the building materials used to create these facilities. - 2 tons per year CAR Car-based travel. (A typical suburban family drives about 14000 miles a year.) - 3 Tons per year FOOD Eating non-organic food grown using chemical fertilizers and pesticides (which produce NO2, 62 times more climate-warming than CO2) 2 tons per year Eating food transported to our table from far corners of the world. 2 tons per year MISCELLANIOUS CONSUMPTION Carbon released in the manufacture of magazines, newspapers, clothes, toys, sporting goods, appliances, etc 1 ton After making these calculations, I felt more optimistic, more in control. I realized there are some very simple and easy adaptations we can make that will lower our carbon footprint. Here’s what we all can do immediately:          HOUSE:  Switch house lights to compact fluorescents. Turn down the heat to 65 degrees Fahrenheit (and 60 at night), and replace gas furnaces with electric geo-exchange heat pumps.      Save 1.5 Tons. CAR: Trade the family Van for a 4 door hybrid vehicle (a Honda Civic or Toyota Prius), tripling gas mileage (from 22 to 65 MPG): Rent a Van for those occasional cross-country family camping odysseys with 3 kids, 2 cats and the dog.  Walk, ride a bike, take the bus when possible.  Save 2 Tons. FOOD:  Switch to locally grown organic food. Switch to BC beer and Wine. Save 1 ton of CO2 (from food transport), ½ ton of NO2 (from fertilizer and pesticide) Switch to buying bulk. Save ½ a ton (on the manufacturing and recycling of all that packaging) MISCELLANEOUS: Cut back on newspapers, magazines, and grown-up toys; ask for unpackaged clothes, shoes, and gadgets. Switch to gifts of love at Christmas and Birthdays. Get books from the library        Save a ½ ton. All together, we can save 6 tons of CO2 each, right away, by switching our buying habits, and still enjoy the high quality of life that we are used to!   If all the folks in Canada, the US, Europe and Australia did this we could cut the earth’s CO2 production from 8.5 Billion tons a year down to about 6 Billion tons. The number is still too high, but it is a lot better!   In the long run (i.e. over the next 30 years), we can further reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and perhaps solve the Climate problem entirely by making the following changes to our society: Change the Building Code We need to set limits on building materials whose manufacture and transport creates a lot of CO2, (i.e. build with local renewable materials) Also, we need to require energy efficient heating, lighting and appliances Switch to electric plug-in vehicles Electric vehicles generate no CO2, and they’ll do 40 miles on 60 cents of electricity, maximum speed 35 MPH. We’ll need 35 MPH “Green Lanes” on highways to do this. Switch to Wind Power Wind power costs about 5cents per KW/Hr which is way less than coal, natural gas or nuclear. Canada is rich in wind. We can supplement Hydro with power generated by wind farms Switch from Planes to Trains. Improve rapid transit and create car-free urban Zones Improve alternatives to fossil-fuel-based transportation. Encourage people to live close to where they work. If they want to go farther afield, they can go slow and see the scenery! Redevelop organic bio-intensive farming Encourage organic farms in the Fraser Valley, Saanich Peninsula and Okanagan so we can feed BC’s future 10 million people locally and sustainably. Despair is very disabling.  We need to feel hopeful that we can pull through the current climate crisis. I hope this list of ways to stop climate change will help readers take action now. In the long run, we will all have to embrace a slower, simpler, more locally-based, more community-focused lifestyle Many are already doing so, and finding that such a lifestyle is rich in meaning and fulfillment.    Richard Iredale is an Architect and Engineer  living on Mayne Island. His practice, Iredale Group Architecture, has offices in Vancouver and Victoria, and focuses on ways to build and operate buildings sustainably. He can be reached at Richard@iredale.ca This article was sponsored by the Island Sustainability Institute, a BC think tank promoting practical things we can all do now to reduce climate change and to steward local eco-systems.