View this email in your browser

This week: Energy & Cities

Green energy shown here with wind turbines and solar panels in Tijuana, Mexico.

Going Global: Green Recovery from the Pandemic

When Covid-19 became a global pandemic over a year ago, the environment started to recover—albeit at the expense of an economic crisis and the failure of fossil fuel-emitting companies.

Fossil fuel emissions released by vehicles and large corporations have decreased drastically over the past year. Sectors that relied on fossil fuels have suffered more than those reliant on clean energy technologies. As a result, cities have seen bluer skies, cleaner air, and wildlife roaming the streets.

However, as businesses begin to recover and economic crises improve with stimulus packages, emissions will be on the rise once again. This happened before with the 2008 recession in the United States, when emissions temporarily fell, but returned to normal levels once the economy recovered.

Given this trajectory, it is important to consider the ways that countries plan to use “clean” energy techniques to avoid surpassing the 1.5℃ threshold by the year 2030.

What is Renewable Energy?

One of the key solutions to the world’s climate crisis is transitioning the world’s energy sector over to renewable energy that does not have greenhouse gas emissions--unlike fossil fuel electricity generation. There are many different ways of producing renewable energy in the world today. Three of the most common are wind, solar, and hydroelectric.

Some other forms of energy production that do not emit greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere: Biomass, Geothermal, tidal/wave energy, and nuclear.

More information on the first three can be found here. Information on nuclear energy can be found here.

Do We Need to Plan Our Cities Better Than We Do Now?

Better Urban Planning and management is the need of the hour. Among all the effects of climate change and strategies in place to combat them, planning our cities better for communities to live a more conscious life is extremely important. In order to increase sustainability and sustainable alternatives we need behavioral change. And to bring behavioral change, we need to incorporate sustainable choices into our lifestyle. The way we live determines the plausibility of credible change.

There are various ways to bring sustainable changes to our cities but the best way to bring out maximum efficiency would be to BEGIN with a sustainable plan. And for cities that are already built, like most of the ones that exist today, we should reconstruct minimally.

For all the changes that are made to infrastructure, at least 80% of them should be green. From inculcating green practices in our architecture to providing electric bikes across the city for easy transportation services, we have a lot of choices. There are various cities across the world that have started the provision of electric bikes for you to borrow from a station and drop at your workplace, where someone else can pick it up. This helps us to travel across the city easily without worrying about parking tickets and our carbon footprint. This is just one radical change to make cities technologically green.

Ask your senator for these changes. Reach out to your teachers for green alternatives you can incorporate to make your city smarter and greener. Write back to us about any such steps taken by your city.

Graphic inspired by The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy’s (ITDP) graphic.

Lime bikes and Amtrak are examples of eco-friendly forms of public transportation.

Stay Connected With Us!

Stay up-to-date on more environmental topics, sustainability tips, and ways to continue promoting the campaign: