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As state and federal governments continue to fail at halting climate change at the global and national levels, smaller communities have a great opportunity to take change-making initiative. Without assistance from national governments, municipal environmental groups have set up their own local peer-to-peer networks, and indigenous communities like the Lubicon Cree First Nation have reclaimed tar sands for solar. Supporting the expansion of such projects from one community to another could be the key for rapid and inclusive action, and this grassroots domino effect could make it less likely that climate action is an elitist and expensive imposition.
In my small village of Sleepy Hollow, New York, I'm trying to put us on the map for something other than fictional horror stories, looking at these existing initiatives where other small communities are already taking the lead on climate action in the face of higher-level indifference and even pushback.
Communities that move forward with environmentally friendly initiatives are sometimes penalized for being ahead of higher levels of government. For instance, some communities that have adopted plastic bag bans have been sued, and many oppose such initiatives because they impact some businesses and not others. When higher-level governments take the lead and enact broader legislation, it evens out the playing field, making it easier to put community interests ahead of fear of expensive backlash
But that's taking too long - we need to ask faster. In my research on options for Sleepy Hollow, one takeaway has been that we should draw on existing efforts. For instance, some communities in New York have been part of a pilot program with free tools to assess emissions and decide what actions should be taken for each community, such as streamlining government fleets or making streets safer for bikes and pedestrians.
Funding for this program will be ending soon and its future is uncertain, but expanding the reach of such programs would allow for faster action that's also flexible enough for each community's needs. While it seems like we have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time, the nation doesn't need to start from scratch: much of the problem-solving is being done already, though at a recent event on gender and climate justice, speakers said that local solutions were not being given their due in higher-level planning.
Another lesson is to make sustainable behavior the default. According to Morten Kabell, mayor for technical and environmental administration of Copenhagen, shifts to more climate friendly behaviors happen if the "best choice is the easiest choice." Although European cities are often looked to as models of sustainable living, the prioritization of bike-friendly infrastructure is relatively recent and was initially driven by concerns about safety and health, not climate change. Some American cities are transitioning to being more bike friendly, but to change behavior, we need to make the choices with lower emissions the easier and cheaper ones.
The controversy around climate change is shifting from whether it exists to whether it's worth acting on, even while Texas produces more wind power than any other state, generating 9% of its power with the potential to make more than 1,800%. President Obama has already connected asthma to air quality and green energy to jobs, and continuing to highlight these concrete benefits could reveal surprising allies for mitigation.
We're already experiencing extreme weather that could become the new normal, and villages like Kivalina, in Alaska, will soon be lost to the sea. The relative "nimbleness" of small communities has allowed them to experiment with climate action; we need to apply what they've already learned and do something, fast.
