When Liberals and Conservatives Came Together on the Environment

Kyle Meyaard-Schaap’s environmental revelation came on the top of a mountain. What was left of one anyway.
As an undergrad at Calvin College, a Christian liberal arts school in Grand Rapids, Mich., Meyaard-Schaap began learning about mountaintop-removal mining. He took trips to West Virginia in 2010 and 2012, where for decades swaths of mountains in the mid-Appalachian region have had their peaks blasted off, allowing miners to bore out the coal within. Before then, Meyaard-Schaap, who grew up in a close-knit evangelical family in a small Michigan town, hadn’t given much thought to the environment. “Those issues weren’t even on my radar,” he says.
But in West Virginia he camped with nuns on top of denuded, geologic stumps. They had to shower with rainwater, because the groundwater had become so polluted. He met with families of children diagnosed with cancer attributed to the mining waste that had seeped into the region’s aquifers.
“I started to connect environmental care with people care,” says Meyaard-Schaap, 29, who went on to found the activist group Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA). “It wasn’t much of a stretch to connect that to climate.”
Meyaard-Schaap is part of a new generation of activists who fight for tougher environmental laws — the sort usually associated with liberals — by asserting the values and policies more commonly embraced by conservatives. Framing issues of the left through the political lens of the right is a method that’s worked in the past, especially when it comes to climate change.

A member of Young Evangelicals for Climate Action participates in the People’s Climate March in April 2017.

A POLICY INNOVATION THAT ‘SKIPPED-A-BEAT’
Two decades before Meyaard-Schaap’s activism, a Republican lawyer and political advisor named C. Boyden Gray crafted a potential solution to the rising threat of climate change. Gray had been intrigued for decades by the possibility of using cap-and-trade to clean the atmosphere. The system works by setting aggregate limits on pollutants while allowing businesses to meet them by paying, trading or innovating to account for their share.
Gray had previously worked for Ronald Reagan, a president whose popularity with evangelicals helped catapult him to the White House, and watched as Reagan’s tenure ended with an environmental crisis. So much sulfur had been belched by Rust Belt coal plants into the wind currents that blew across the Great Lakes and into Canada that fragile ecosystems, along with many thousands of people, had become sick. The prime minister of Canada quipped grimly about declaring war.
In 1988 — the first presidential election to feature staunch environmentalist Al Gore as a candidate — Republican nominee George H. W. Bush pledged to be an “environmental president.” Gray saw his opportunity. With little fanfare he helped write cap-and-trade legislation targeting sulfur; it became law under the Clean Air Act of 1990. Within a few years, the amount of acid rain (which occurs when sulfur rises in the atmosphere and mixes with water, oxygen and other pollutants) decreased by half — at a cost of around one-eighth what critics had feared. The success was resounding.
“You let the market take over, and government doesn’t get in the way,” Gray tells NationSwell. “It’s the most efficient, frictionless way to reduce pollutants.”
Gray and others believed this tool, cap-and-trade, could be expanded and modified to squelch climate change too. But then government — or, rather, politics — did get in the way.
Far-left environmentalists and far-right Republicans both soured on cap-and-trade. Meanwhile, the common ground stood on by centrist members of both parties was splitting apart. Environmentalism was ceded to the left, and then weaponized against them by the right. By 2009, Democratic representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts had written cap-and-trade legislation for carbon that passed the Democratic-controlled House. But Senate Republicans wouldn’t even consider it.
Cap-and-trade, Gray says, “skipped a beat.”

TAKING IT TO THE STATES

Three years earlier, the acrid political climate had made state lawmakers in California give up on the federal government. Assembly speaker Fabian Nunez, a Democrat from Los Angeles, co-authored the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. In sweeping fashion, it reshaped the state’s electric, construction and automotive industries. Inspired by the success against acid rain, parts of this act included cap-and-trade. But Nunez insisted, against the wishes of then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that it also include mandates limiting carbon emissions.
“My idea was, we’ve got do a mandate; necessity is the mother of invention,” says Nunez today. “I’m a Mexican-American from Los Angeles. I grew up in a polluted neighborhood in San Diego underneath the smokestacks of a shipbuilding company, surrounded by junkyards and stray dogs. I care about the environment; I just came about it a little bit differently.”

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (C) signs the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 to reduce greenhouse emissions.

That landmark California law inspired others. Hawaii, for example, made a bold commitment to get its energy completely from clean renewables by midcentury. Dozens of U.S. cities also did the same. Some states, including Illinois and New York, have made more gradual commitments.
Utilities are responding to this pressure. Duke Energy, a large utility provider in the Southeast and former scourge of environmentalists, has set a “new goal to reduce C02 emissions 40 percent from 2005 levels by 2030,” says spokeswoman Dawn Santoianni.
This dogpile against carbon pollution by states, cities, shareholders, customers and citizens could be the best strategy in an era of federal abdication to fight climate change. The common denominator uniting these various tools — cap-and-trade, mandates, shareholder demands and citizen protests — is the assignation of a negative financial, legal or social value on excess carbon.
“If the true cost of production is taken into account, cleaner sources of fuel, such as solar and wind, will be more competitive,” says Tom Erb, national field organizer for the pro-carbon tax campaign Put a Price on It.

CONNECTING ACROSS THE AISLE

How can more bodies be added to the weight of the masses trying to clamp shut the carbon vents cooking the world? Michael Livermore, the executive director of New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, says the answer for environmentalists lies across the partisan chasm.
“The most important actors out there,” he says, “are people who care about climate and are Republicans.”
Meyaard-Schaap, of Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, had a revelation about that too.
He listened as language used by many on the left to convey the urgency of climate action turned to static on the social frequencies attuned to by his loved ones. So he looked to the American evangelical tradition for a solution: Stories of personal transformation can connect where scientific data does not.
He says his own family is an example. Not too long ago, Meyaard-Schaap’s parents and grandparents were “suspicious” about climate change, he says. Since he testified to them about his change of heart, they now donate regularly to his nonprofit. So far, YECA has engaged more than 10,000 people across the nation in the fight against the warming of the planet.
“When it comes to climate change, you’re not going to get anywhere unless you affirm the values of your audience,” he says. “What we’re trying to do is bear witness to the fact that this doesn’t have to be such a divisive issue.”

What Is Powering the ESG Investing Surge?

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, once a sideline practice, has gone decisively mainstream, and this is creating real opportunities for investors. These opportunities meet the interests of a wide spectrum of clients, from fiduciaries aligning their portfolios with the realities of a rapidly changing world to clients who are increasingly looking to have their investments express their values.
Better data, refined tools and improved methods have expanded the possibilities across all of those interests. As a result, ESG investing is no longer a carve-out within a portfolio — it is the portfolio for some investors. What was once the province of a small number of family offices and foundations has drawn sharply increased participation among pension funds, insurance companies, nonprofits and faith-based investors.
At Goldman Sachs, the growth of ESG investing has been significant in recent years. We have seen a virtuous cycle in which demand has driven product and service innovation, creating new models for success and driving further demand. As a result, our assets under supervision in dedicated ESG strategies have grown significantly, to $6.5 billion by the end of 2016.
Fundamental to this growth is an increased understanding that a disciplined approach to ESG investing can drive competitive risk-adjusted returns — just as with any other investment. Risk/return profiles of ESG portfolios now mirror the markets and span asset classes, fueling the evolution of impact investment strategies that meet conventional risk/return hurdles, but also include social and environmental impacts that are both intentional and measurable.

World Resources Institute

How does a research-driven, global institute focused on sustainability manage its portfolio for the long term? One way is by leveraging its own research on trends to more effectively steward their endowment while also using this work to create a model for other institutional investors. Here, the World Resources Institute’s President and CEO Andrew Steer and Head of Sustainable Investing Elizabeth Lewis discuss WRI’s objectives and investing approach with Goldman Sachs’ John Goldstein.
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Municipal Bonds: An Overlooked Impact Investment?

As interest grows in achieving positive impacts while generating market-rate returns, investors may forget about the opportunity in their own backyards: municipal bonds. Often focused on financing redevelopment, infrastructure and key community needs for education, health, housing and sustainability, municipal bonds can drive ESG impact in addition to providing clear tax advantages. Senior portfolio manager Ben Barber and research analyst Michael Kashani of Goldman Sachs Asset Management explain. Read the discussion.
This article is paid for by Goldman Sachs.
Social thumbnail by Tzido Sun/Shutterstock.

The History of the Leaked Climate Report

After a draft copy of the 2017 Climate Assessment Report leaked recently, people are left wondering exactly what it is and why it’s important.

THE CLIMATE REPORT: EXPLAINED

Under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, an inter-governmental agency, is required to research and produce a report that shows the impact of global climate change. The study is conducted by hundreds of scientists and reviewed by multiple government agencies, including NASA and the National Science Foundation.
Despite federal policy mandating an assessment to be released every four years, only three have been issued: once under President Bill Clinton in 2000 and twice under President Barack Obama in 2009 and 2014. (President George W. Bush’s administration was sued for delaying the report’s release.)
There’s speculation whether or not the current White House will sign off on the report’s official release (which is scheduled for the fall), given the Trump administration’s pullback from the Paris climate accord and its push to increase fossil fuel production.
The leaked version of the 2017 report, which was first published by the New York Times, repeats similar warnings of increased greenhouse gas emissions as earlier assessments. But it also uses extremely blunt language regarding the cause, stating that humans are “extremely likely” to be the dominant producers of this pollution.
And according to the latest report, global temperatures have risen 1.2 degrees, in the past 30 years — human involvement accounting for at least 1.1 degrees of that increase.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has publicly said that he does not think carbon emissions cause climate change, writing in the National Review that, “scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.”
Regardless of political actions or ideologies on global climate change, these reports are accepted by the scientific community as a whole and are used to inform policymakers.

PAST FINDINGS

All issuances of the climate report have been in consensus: Global greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures have increased dramatically in the past century, due in large part to humans burning fossil fuels.
“The human impact on [global warming] is clear,” states the 2000 analysis — the first published report. “[Increased carbon emissions] resulted from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas, and the destruction of forests around the world to provide space for agriculture and other human activities.”
The initial report gave warning that U.S. temperatures would rise by up to 9 degrees within the next 100 years if greenhouse gas emissions weren’t curbed.
The 2009 report echoed the same language, stating that human involvement was the largest contributor, but its findings were more dire as carbon emissions continued to rise during the years of the Bush administration. That report concluded that there could be an increase of up to 11 degrees by 2100.
By 2014, when the most recent report was officially published, the evidence was clear to scientists that action needed to be taken, as authors of the report found that certain areas of the U.S., specifically within America’s heartland, were going to experience 2 to 4 degree increases in temperature over the next few decades.

THE REPORT MAKES AN IMPACT

The Obama administration seemingly worked to make climate change policy its primary legacy. In 2009, after the second climate report was released, Obama pledged to reduce the U.S.’s carbon emissions by 2020 and reduce its carbon emissions levels 17 percent below 2005 levels.
Four years later, when the third climate report was under consideration by Obama, the Executive Office of the President released a broad action plan aimed at specifically cutting carbon emissions.
These reactions to the climate reports were dramatically different to actions taken by President Bush. That administration hastily exited the Kyoto Protocol (a global climate change treaty), partnered with Exxon-Mobil‘s leaders to craft U.S. climate change policy and cast doubt among the public that humans were to blame for global climate change.
In contrast, polls conducted during the past three years reveal that more Americans believe humans are to blame for climate change. Furthermore, a March 2017 Gallup poll found that more than 70 percent support alternative energy over traditional fossil fuels.
Which means that Americans are likely to continue curbing greenhouse gas emissions, regardless of whether or not the climate assessment report receives an official stamp of approval.
MORE: Can the U.S. Reduce Its Carbon Emissions?

4 Long Weekends That Have Long-Lasting Impact

You just emptied the sand from your shoes and put the suitcases away in the attic, but you’re already dreaming of your next getaway. Why not take time off to have meaningful impact on others or the planet?

On the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Global Volunteers participants work on a labor project.

FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY

Instill the importance of service in your children by taking them on a volunteer vacation. Global Volunteers helps families plan trips to a variety of destinations in the United States and abroad. Service trip participants can travel to Appalachia where they repair homes of elderly and disabled residents, rehabilitate run-down classrooms and work alongside local youth in community gardens. Or volunteers can head to Montana’s Blackfeet Indian Reservation (located next door to Glacier National Park). While there, they can teach teens and adults computer skills or assist with a summer day camp for Native American youth.

National Geographic Student Expeditions puts teenagers to work cleaning up beaches and collecting data on the Hawaiian coastline.

FOR TEENS

National Geographic Student Expeditions has several options to entice kids to get off the couch and into service. In Hawaii, for example, kids will put in 35 to 40 hours working alongside environmentalists, digging up invasive species, collecting data on the Kohala watershed and conducting beach cleanups.  

American Hiking Society volunteers assist in the restoration of the Grandview Trail in Grand Canyon Nation Park.

FOR OUTDOORS ENTHUSIASTS

Those that want to spend their time off caring for America’s great outdoors can learn how to rehabilitate hiking trails by volunteering with the American Hiking Society. Or sign up with the Sierra Club. You can learn to give backpacking tours of Arizona’s Galiuro Mountains and the giant saguaro cactus forests of the Sonoran Desert.
For information on more volunteer vacations, check out Elevate Destinations, International Volunteer Headquarters, Global Vision International  and Globe Aware.
MORE: 5 of the Best Ways to Volunteer This Holiday Season
 

Bike-Sharing Systems Cost Money, But Make Money Too

In the past decade, several midsize cities have launched campaigns to attract young professionals, and as millennials move in, they’re embracing more and varied ways to get around town. Ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft are making having your own wheels less important, even in car-reliant cities like Los Angeles, where more alternatives to public transit have been a focus for legislators and public transit advocates. And the same is true for bike-sharing programs, which have skyrocketed since the first one was introduced in Washington, D.C., nearly a decade ago. Today, there is an estimated 119 systems nationwide.
As Bill Dossett, executive director of the Twin Cities’ bike share program, Nice Ride Minnesota, said last year, “It’s no longer a novelty. To be a world-class city, you need to have a bike-share program.”
For cities still debating their benefits, here’s what to know — both the good and the bad — about building out a bike-share program.

You Have to Spend Money to Make Money

Bikes cost money, but they also bring it in. The University of Iowa found that bike commuters in 37 of the state’s counties contributed $41.5 million to the local economy through jobs and spending. Fort Worth, Texas, spent $598,000 last year on its first bike share program, and immediately made it back and then some when ridership surged 34 percent more than expected.
But reaping those benefits can come with a hefty price tag.
In New York, for example, the city council requested $12 million this year to fund an additional 2,000 more bikes for its Citi Bike program, the nation’s largest. That comes on top of the bike-share’s rocky — and expensive — start, which was delayed after flooding from 2012’s Superstorm Sandy resulted in $10 million in damages to bike equipment.
And with more bikes comes the need for more bike lanes. To fund them, some cities have turned to tax increases, like in Portland, Ore., where voters recently agreed to a temporary 10-cent gas tax that would raise $64 million over four years, 44 percent of which is earmarked for more bike lanes and safety improvements.

Different Cities Require Different Approaches

There’s no debating that bike shares have been a smash, with the number of bike-share rides exploding from 2.3 million in 2011 to 28 million last year, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials.
But not every system has been successful. Just this year, Pronto in Seattle shut down operations in March after posting poor ridership numbers. The culprits: Hilly terrain, inclement weather, a mandatory helmet law and few bike lanes in the congested downtown area. (The city is giving bike shares another whirl, however, recently announcing it will see two new companies launch operations later this year.)
L.A., too, is similarly struggling with low ridership compared to other cities, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times. In that instance, city officials limited the bike-share system to downtown blocks, making the program out of reach for many who live in L.A.’s sprawling outskirts. Still, officials defend the nascent program. “We’re not New York, we’re not Chicago,” Laura Cornejo, a Metro deputy executive officer told the newspaper. “For every city, you need to look at what the culture is, what the infrastructure is, and what the political and community dynamic is.”

Address Gentrification Controversies Head-On

But not everyone loves the bike-share craze. In some neighborhoods, activists and legislators worry that the bike racks add to congestion and help usher in gentrification.
After New York’s CitiBike program proposed an expansion of bike stations last year in Harlem, a historically black and Latino neighborhood, community leaders called the initiative a “gateway to gentrification” and harmful to local businesses and food trucks.
But research has shown that investing in bike infrastructure and bike shares are actually good for neighborhoods and property value.
In 2013, officials in Indianapolis invested $63 million in grants and private funding to build the Cultural Trail, eight miles of interconnected bike and pedestrian pathways. Two years later, Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute found that properties within 500 feet of the trail increased in value 148 percent, to $1 billion.
“As with anything, some of the pushback is within the community itself, and a lot of it is due to misunderstanding or misinformation,” Jolie Lemoine, president of the board of directors for New Orleans’s Bike Easy program, tells NationSwell. “People think that it will put small businesses out of business, but it’s just not true.”
For Bike Easy, which is currently in the testing phase in parts of New Orleans’s popular tourism areas, such as the French Quarter, the message has been to include the community in deciding where bike docks will go and how they will be used.
“We want people to have the opportunity to get bikes without owning one, so that they can see this is an effective system,” Lemoine says. “It can make areas of town more valuable to residents. I think [the challenge is] changing sentiments, attitudes and desires of what we want our city to offer us.”

Want more? Check out these reads on the challenges and rewards of bike shares:

“Bikes Aren’t Just Good for You, They’re Good for the Economy, Too,” Fast Company
“Have You Heard About That Awesome New Bike-Share Diet?” Next City
“What Keeps Bike Share White,” CityLab

Homepage photo courtesy of Los Angeles Metro Bike Share

California Is Going to Use Toilet Water to Grow Your Vegetables

By the end of 2017, toilet water and other wastewater will be used to irrigate a large swath of Central Valley farmland near Interstate 5, an area that is known as California’s agricultural hub because it produces more than 360 products.
“As long as we keep taking showers and flushing toilets, we can guarantee you water,” Modesto Mayor Garrad Marsh said to farmers at an August 2015 news event.
Treatment facilities in the two inland cities, Modesto and Turlock, will collect the water from sinks, showers, washing machines and toilets, and process it into what’s commonly referred to as “gray water.” Once the not-quite-drinkable H2O is clear of all solid waste, it’s completely safe to be used to water plants or siphoned off to natural wetlands.
By 2018, a $100 million pipeline is expected to transport the processed water to 30,600 acres of farmland roughly 40 miles south.
Two years ago, drought cost California’s state economy an estimated $2.7 billion, according to a study done by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. Water shortages resulted in $247 million in lost crop revenue in 2016.
The gray water should help drought-stricken farmers in the future, as new population growth in this region of California puts increasing pressure on the water supply and scientists predict that climate change could cause future droughts to be more drastic.
“Without something like this, the future for my son and grandson and family — we’re into this third generation — I don’t know if we can keep our business going,” Jim Jasper, owner of Stewart & Jasper Orchards, tells KQED.
California has been recycling water for more than 100 years. Los Angeles County first used treated wastewater in 1929 to water golf courses and parks, and the state has been irrigating farmland with it for more than three decades, according to the Pacific Institute. A 2009 survey (the most recent available) reported that 669,000 acres of California land was irrigated using gray water.
MORE: The Counterintuitive Solution to California’s Drought Crisis
Homepage photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

Fighting Food Waste, One Sector at a Time

America is one of the largest offenders of food waste in the world, according to a recent survey. Every year, roughly 1.3 billion tons of food is thrown out worldwide, a considerable problem given that agriculture contributes about 22 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions and 12.7 million people go hungry in America alone. Entrepreneurs across several sectors have created ways to repurpose food. Their efforts are admirable and economical, but the biggest difference will be if you make food waste reduction a daily habit.

Recovered food from the University of Denver Food Recovery Network chapter.

On College Campuses

On average, a student who lives in university housing throws out 141 pounds of food per year. Multiply that by the number of residential colleges around the country, and it becomes a huge problem, says Regina Northouse, executive director for the Food Recovery Network, the only nonprofit dealing specifically with campus food waste.
WATCH: How Much Food Could Be Rescued If College Dining Halls Saved Their Leftovers?
Northouse’s group reduces waste by enlisting the help of student volunteers at 226 universities. This manpower shuttles still-edible food from dining halls that would otherwise be thrown out to local nonprofits fighting hunger. Northouse estimates that since 2011, Food Recovery Network has fed 150,000 food-insecure people.

Through the box-subscription company Hungry Harvest, farmers sell “ugly food” to consumers instead of tossing the unsightly produce out.

On Farms

If a carrot isn’t quite orange enough, odds are it’ll be tossed. Blemishes and unattractive produce make up nearly 40 percent of discarded food, according to a 2012 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Though some unused fruits and veggies can be sent to food manufacturers, farmers lose profits from about a quarter of their crops because of cosmetic imperfections. To put money back into their pockets, box subscriptions services, such as Hungry Harvest, have found their way into the ugly food market.
“We started out with 10 customers at a stand,” says Stacy Carroll, director of partnerships for Hungry Harvest. “We now have thousands of customers every week buying thousands of pounds of food that would, in the past, have been thrown away.”
Roughly 10,000 subscribers along the East Coast receive weekly boxes of recovered produce from the Baltimore-based company (which was started by the founders of Food Recovery Network). In addition, food insecure families who use SNAP benefits can purchase boxes at 10 Hungry Harvest sites. All in all, the organization redistributes between 60,000 and 80,000 pounds of food through its subscription service each week.

MealConnect provides a platform for retailers to redistribute unsold produce to those in need.

At Food Retailers

For merchants, food wasted is also money wasted. Across the U.S., the cost of tossing food runs upward of $165 billion annually.
MealConnect, a tech platform launched in April by Feeding America (a nationwide network of food banks), allows retailers to post surplus meals and unused produce on its app, which then notifies local food banks workers to pick it up and redistribute it to those in need. The company has recovered 333 million pounds of food by working with large retailers like Walmart and Starbucks. MealConnect also allows merchants to recoup some of their outlays (via tax deductions).

Chef Dan Barber’s wastED pop-ups challenged chefs to create innovate dishes using produce that otherwise would have been thrown out.

In Restaurants

In 2015, the aptly named food popup wastED found itself in the heart of a media frenzy because of what was on the menu: trashed food. 
Since then, a handful of other restaurants in urban areas across the world have used recovered produce in their meals.
“We’re offering our cooks the opportunity to be creative and come up with menus instead,” says Brooklyn, N.Y., chef Przemek Adolf, owner of Saucy By Nature, which uses leftovers from previous catering events to create daily lunch and dinner specials.

The USDA’s FoodKeeper app educates consumers on how to extend the shelf life of stored foods.

In Your Own Kitchen

Individual families throw away nearly $1,600 worth of food per year, according to the EPA, which has spurred the federal government to step in and help.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture created the app FoodKeeper, which informs consumers on how long an apple can last in the fridge, for example, and proper food storage techniques to extend shelf life. It also sends out reminder alerts to use up food that’s in danger of spoiling. The desired outcome? People changing their behaviors, ultimately buying less and consuming what they do purchase.
 

NYC’s ‘Green City Force’

Growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Edna McKay never expected she would one day have a full-time job in the sustainable energy industry.  She lived in public housing where crime was very high…and opportunity very low.
But now McKay has a full-time job installing free, energy-efficient light bulbs for Franklin Energy to people in her neighborhood. “With this position, I’m earning more money than I ever did in my life,” says McKay, who earns $17 an hour.
In this episode of NationSwell’s 8-part mini documentary series on service years, watch how McKay transformed her future by participating in a program called Green City Force, which empowers young adults from New York City’s public housing developments with the highest crime rates.
“We started Green City Force in 2009 with the idea of connecting the dots between two major issues, youth employment and the need to transition to sustainable cities,” says Lisbeth Shepherd, founder of the organization.
The organization’s mission isn’t lost on McKay, who is now considering options that she previously viewed as unrealistic: “In the next few years, I would really love to earn a bachelor’s degree, because I feel like I’m capable of doing it,” she says.
NationSwell asks you to join our partnership with Service Year Alliance. Watch the video above. Ask Congress to support a service year. Do one yourself. Together, we can lead a national movement to give young Americans the opportunity to help bridge the divides in our country.

Building the Future: Sustainable Infrastructure

President Trump has pledged $1 trillion to rebuild America’s systems, but the proposed infrastructure bill relies heavily on private financing to fund sorely needed waterworks and transit projects.
This poses a problem because private companies “only work on projects that create revenues,” says Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), ranking member on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “The vast majority of the national highway system, and our bridge problems and all our transit problems, do not generate revenues. It will not help them.”

A BETTER FINANCIAL MODEL

Sustainable infrastructure is often understood to be a bridge built from recycled materials or an electric plant powered by wind, for instance, but it’s also infrastructure whose upkeep expenses are included in its building costs so that there aren’t social or environmental costs later on.
The ability to fund maintenance prevents massive failures, like the Flint water crisis or the year-long shutdown of certain lines of the Washington, D.C., metro, from ever happening.
“For years, there’s been this separation of costs for building a bridge versus actually making sure that bridge stays up, and over time, it’s created a really weird recipe for a lack of consideration for operational costs in state budgets,” says Anthony O. Kane, managing director for the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure. “If you build a road one way and it has to be built again in 20 years. Why not build a road in another way and give it a longer lifespan?”
For the close to 30,000 rural local bridges that are deficient across the U.S., sustainable infrastructure is a solution with longevity.

The Kansas City street car is a new example of sustainable infrastructure.

SUSTAINABLE CITIES

Leading the way in sustainable infrastructure projects are New York City, Chicago and Kansas City, Mo. The use of recycled materials, a reduction of carbon emissions and sound pollution are often key elements of building plans.
In Los Angeles (another city at the forefront of the environmental movement), the Metro system is being revitalized by utilizing solar panels for alternative energy and adding 6.6 miles of new train tracks using recycled materials.
“It’s not the classic 1950s definition of infrastructure anymore,” says Rick Bell, executive director of New York City’s Department of Design and Construction. “Transportation isn’t just highways and bridges. It is just as important to create a bike lane for people to get around the city without a car.”

“BRANCHING” OUT

Some of the most successful sustainable projects are ones that citizens might not even view as infrastructure. In Chicago, trees are used as infrastructure to help reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage. A 2014 Friends of the Park report found the 70,000 trees that were planted over a 20-year period have reduced carbon emissions in the Windy City by 25,000 tons each year — the equivalent of 15,100 automobiles. The tree canopy also reduced air temperature, saving $360,000 annually on residential utility costs.

CATCH UP ON THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE WITH THESE DEEP READS:

The Role of Public Policy in Sustainable Infrastructure, Brookings Institute
The Sustainable Infrastructure Imperative, The New Climate Economy
The Next Generation of Infrastructure, McKinsey & Company

Homepage photo by Rick Tomlinson / Volvo Ocean Race via Getty Images.

Can the U.S. Continue to Reduce Its Carbon Emissions?

President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord is a blow to work done by the Obama administration to address climate change. It’s possible, however, that the move won’t affect the country’s ability to hit the agreement’s first milestone, but it’s highly unlikely that the U.S. will hit the next target in 2025.
Even without U.S. participation, current domestic environmental policies and economic trends — which favor clean energy — make it possible that by 2020, carbon emissions in this country will be reduced nearly 17 percent below 2005 levels.

During that year, the U.S. released more than 6,500 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In the decade since, the amount of pollutants has decreased dramatically as states began enacting their own set of policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions and federal emissions regulations were put on vehicles and power plants.
Those efforts have already resulted in a 13.7 percent reduction in carbon emissions, according to the research analysis firm Rhodium Group.
But if the current administration does away with existing policies such as waivers that allow for more stringent state environmental laws or higher fuel efficiency standards for cars, experts doubt whether the U.S. will come close to the 2020 goal.