JENNIFER ALLEN | Professor in Environmental and Natural Resources, College of Urban and Public Affairs
TAKING MEANINGFUL action—be that choosing lower-carbon transportation, shifting to a lower-carbon diet, or working to support policy changes to address climate change—is one of the best antidotes to discouragement and despair.
What gives me hope are the actions already being taken to address climate change impacts. I am working closely with others at Portland State to explore how we can elevate and accelerate PSU’s work on climate resilience, gathering information on climate-related research, education and community partnerships, and identifying ways we can better align and coordinate these efforts for greater impact. The update to PSU’s 2010 Climate Action Plan will center on equity and integrate a focus on resilience and adaptation as well as mitigation.
I am also inspired by the dedication and commitment of PSU’s students, who are working with other regional schools and colleges to organize the Youth Climate Summit scheduled for Earth Day 2022. Our students don’t need to be convinced of the urgency of this issue—they are fully engaged in identifying actions that can help address climate impacts.
Faculty, staff and students across PSU are eager to explore how they can contribute to climate-focused solutions. As Will Turner with Conservation International recently stated, “inaction [on climate] due to hopelessness is indefensible. We can still make a difference, but we must act now.” And PSU is acting now
JOHN PERONA | Professor of Environmental Biochemistry and Law, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
DOOMSDAY NARRATIVES about climate change are not uncommon because they appeal to a strand of apocalyptic thinking in America with adherents on both left and right sides of the political spectrum. But this kind of storytelling is out of sync with reality. What gives me hope and motivation to address climate change are the revolution in awareness and the great strides made in renewable energy over the past decade.
A dozen years ago, solar panels and wind farms were a gleam in the eye, and battery electric vehicles were all but nonexistent. But in 2009, President Barack Obama and Congress leveraged the financial crisis to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which invested large sums to jumpstart the clean energy economy. The positive consequences of that investment are all around us now: 40% of U.S. electricity is already carbon-free, and automakers everywhere are racing to claim shares of the ascendant EV market.
A crucial transformation has occurred in business and finance. Dirty fuel operations are becoming uninsurable, green banks are proliferating and renewable energy stocks are much more profitable than their fossil fuel counterparts. And the voice of the world’s youth is now irreversibly activated, most prominently by Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future in Europe and the Sunrise Movement here. A great deal of work lies before us to follow through on these technological and social breakthroughs, but there is no question that the fundamental breakthrough has been achieved.
ANDREW G. FOUNTAIN | Professor Emeritus of Geology and Geography, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
MY WORK directly faces the effects of climate change. I study glaciers and how they respond to climate. From time to time, I check on the glacier that I first visited in 1980; it is unrecognizably smaller. Only recently it dawned on me, in a visceral way, that perhaps in a few decades the science of alpine glaciers will be, more or less, dead.
I understand that the Earth has gone through climatic changes throughout its history and that it was probably covered in ice several times and vacant of ice several times. So, part of me has a “whatever” attitude. Sure, humans are largely causing much of the current global warming and nature is responding. But I also understand that humans have global power to affect climate, water resources and all ecosystems.
Our influence has been an unconscious product of our lifestyle activities multiplied by population size. But we have agency. We can consciously decide to change the global climate if we wish to do so.
The Montreal Protocol of the late 1980s is an example. The protective layer of ozone in the atmosphere was shrinking and the polar ozone hole was enlarging because of increasing human production of ozone-depleting chemicals. The Protocol reduced production of those chemicals and the ozone hole stopped growing. Collective action can stop climate warming. Knowing this, I remain active and positive that we can make change.