Climate Change: Framing a Solution

Introduction

Part 1 ~ Climate Change: Grand Challenges

Part 2 ~ Climate Change: Framing a Solution

Part 3 ~ Sustainability Framework for Carbon Reduction

Sustainability Framework for Carbon Reduction (entire article)

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Framing a Solution

Civic and corporate entities tackle climate change through sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks based on the global initiatives and carbon accounting methodologies, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol is a common method of accounting for carbon emissions.

Corporate sustainability frameworks are structured around organizational principles and the bigger picture of creating efficiencies that not only lower emissions but create more cost effective, safer and environmentally sound processes. The complexity of the framework is dependent on the size of the organization as well as the "buy-in" of the participating members of the organization.

Yet, how can a smaller organizations participate and potentially drive demand (for a green economy) to the corporations that produce and market carbon intensive products as well as driving demand for civic institutions from a neighborhood to a town, city county and state work within a carbon reduction framework?

Engagement

To date, the top down approach such as a worldwide effort with the Kyoto Protocol, to The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to corporate and civic level initiatives have left smaller organizations and households to participate in their own ways whether it is driving an electric car that may or may not be powered by a green energy mix or the purchase of certified products that promote a green lifestyle.

The consumer has created a scattershot of practices from recycling or driving an electric car to lower their footprint. While this is good intentioned, there may not be any baselining of carbon reducing practices that can be measured and improved upon over time following a specific framework.

With the USDA Organic Certification, a method of agriculture has been marketed as a green lifestyle choice attained through the purchase of certain certified products, leaving the consumer to think that they are helping the environment. “I only buy organic” is a common refrain of the modern day consumer. The consumer aligns with a method of agriculture through their purchases, though that is only part of the carbon reduction puzzle.

Yet, it is hard to know whether buying an organic head of lettuce from the local food cooperative is grown locally or trucked from far away. Though due to the scale of an organic lettuce operation in a far away place this method may have a lower per unit carbon footprint than the locally purchased head of lettuce trucked in by a panel van to a distributor that supplies the local food coop. Understanding the emissions in the supply chain is a difficult concept that can work in either direction despite the agricultural method, organic or traditional that is employed.

The Victory Garden

Looking back in recent history, from an American perspective, the country as a whole seems to engage through shared adversity whether it is a natural disaster or a war. The collective idea that we as citizens, are all in this together, leads to a collective effort towards a purpose or a goal. During these events, efficiencies through sustainable practices are realized, whether they are intended or not.

The Victory Garden movement is a good example of a collective effort on a national scale to plant gardens on a community level not only to conserve fuels and the labor force needed within the agricultural supply chain, but to create community well-being from the hard work, sense of accomplishment and nutrition available from a local food source.

In 1917, Charles Lathrop Pack one of the five wealthiest Americans prior to World War I, whose family’s timber empire was later diversified into real estate investments and philanthropy, organized the US National War Garden Commission in 1917, with the goal of putting idle land into agricultural production.

This approach engaged the citizenry, three million garden plots were planted in 1917 growing to five million in 1918, primarily to support the war effort so that local communities could feed themselves with the larger agricultural production supporting the allies in the war effort. Concurrently in Canada the motto “a garden in every home” brought expert gardeners into schools and promoted gardening and home based chicken coops for egg production.

By localizing food production, a portion of the fuel and labor resources that would typically be used for large scale agricultural production and transportation could be repurposed due to the savings for the war effort.

In the early 20th century local food production was in part influenced to the work of George Washington Carver, who was born into slavery and had a lifelong passion for the natural world. Carver's passion for botany led to a college education and later as a professor at the Tuskegee Institute. His early work was based on techniques of diversifying crops for poor farmers beyond the common cash crops of the day. Carter promoted crop rotation as well as soil conservation. Carver published Natures garden for Victory and Peace a detailed pamphlet describing numerous nutritional and medicinal uses for common plants.

With World War II, the victory garden movement was revitalized through necessity in Britain with food rationing and as a patriotic duty to support the war effort in the United States. In 1943 Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden on the white house lawn while up to 18 million victory gardens were planted nationwide, 12 million in the cities and 6 million in rural areas.

Victory Garden Film USDA 1942 with modern restoration and notation.

Many gardeners followed the framework of Victory Gardens for Every Family by the New York based National Victory Gardens Institute. This easy to understand pamphlet along with other publications aimed at home, workplace and civic gardens provided a framework of common understanding to a methodology to participate on an individual level towards a larger goal in supporting the war effort.

The typical household of the WWWI and WWII era had a larger average of occupants, the gardens at the time were larger than today's standard garden. The ubiquity of made from scratch cooking and home canning as well as other preservation techniques dealt with the surplus home production. Many of the gardens during WWII were using organic methods since the marketing of synthetic fertilizers reached the mainstream after the war. Synthetic fertilizers were primarily used in larger agricultural methods, primarily corn.

Mechanization and a global supply chain has shifted household food acquisition from the yard to the supermarket, delivery and the high carbon footprint ready to cook meal subscription. By localizing food production with the primary goal of national fuel savings in WWI and WWII can now be repurposed towards the goal of reducing carbon emissions in the supply chain of a modern food delivery system.

Framework for Household Reduction of Carbon Emissions

In WWI and WWII, citizens responded to the threat of war following a national campaign with a defined framework. Local ingenuity refined the processes that have since been handed down through generations of gardeners. Today's threat is climate change and the immediate need for mitigating future warming of the planet beyond 2 degrees Celsius.

The Gardens of Victory / Office of Civilian Defense

The Victory Garden campaign engaged 51% of US Households during WWII. With potential social media engagement there is the potential to reach a similar civic engagement rate by extending a Victory Garden response to a global threat, climate change.

https://garden.org/special/pdf/2014-NGA-Garden-to-Table.pdf

Comparing the participation in gardening through these three eras, two of which were world wars and the third era perhaps a larger battle for the survival of the planet. Participation in 1943 seemed to be the height of the American gardening movement with ⅓ of national vegetable production originating in a victory garden. The Victory Garden movement is an excellent example of a purposeful civic campaign that yielded results by engaging numerous sectors of the society in a common cause.

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Introduction

Part 1 ~ Climate Change: Grand Challenges

Part 2 ~ Climate Change: Framing a Solution

Part 3 ~ Sustainability Framework for Carbon Reduction

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