I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Professor James Shope, PhD, from the Rutgers Climate Change Resource Center and Environmental Sciences Department. I wanted to get his viewpoint on a few of the trends I had been noticing as a part of my own research, and he was very helpful and offered some valuable insights which I will share with you now.
Firstly, a little bit about Professor Shope:
As mentioned earlier, he is a member of the Climate Change Resource Center and Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute (RCEI), and, like most professors, he teaches classes at Rutgers. In addition to this, he seeks to interact with the community to bring the scientific understanding from his work to actual effect in the outside community. I think this is an extremely important factor to have in scientific research because outreach with the community is the most efficient way to spread knowledge to a degree that it can positively impact everyone. He’s also working on an analysis of NJ’s existing greenhouse gas emission goals using climate model output to determine how in line they are with what New Jersey wants to achieve. The report will be out in the next few weeks, and I’ll share and discuss it when it is.
Our conversation primarily involved the discussion of New Jersey’s climate change goals and the Global Warming Response Act 80×50 report, something which I’ve already talked about on this blog. I wanted to get not only his take on what is being done but also his informed opinions on what we could be doing better (it’s important to differentiate between the two which I’ll attempt to indicate).
One thing I had noticed in my own research was the seeming mismatch of our targets and our current progress, particularly in the transportation, residential, and commercial sectors. I wondered about the effectiveness of what was being done and what the main roadblocks were. According to Professor Shope, New Jersey has been trying to incentivize EVs in addition to electrifying space heating and cooling, however, much more progress would be necessary to remain on course to meet New Jersey’s emissions reduction targets. This boils down to a few reasons which involve more so the politics and social behaviors than the science behind designing the goals themselves.
Firstly, there are practical barriers for people to incorporate these more sustainable practices in their homes and lives. Not only is it expensive to electrify homes and vehicles to the point where it becomes unattainable for much of the population, but there are also other separate concerns. For example, solar panels and clean energy sources used to electrify apartments would rely on the majority of New Jersey infrastructure changing from natural gas pipeline reliance which would require massive amounts of investment from buildings and local governments. In the case of electric vehicles, not only are they more expensive than their gas counterparts, but they are also less efficient time wise due to the relatively longer time required for EV charging. As a result, the reduction of the largest current contributors to carbon in our atmosphere meet heavy roadblocks.
Secondly (and this is more opinionated), there is a lot of pushback from vested interests to the extent that many policies are rendered completely ineffective. An example Professor Shope mentioned was the attempted offshore wind farm installations off Jersey’s shores. The operation of these wind farms were (unscientifically) related to increased amounts of whales washed up on the shores by local residents. However, the farms themselves were not operational and no scientific studies that were conducted supported this proposition. Although not true, negative sentiment against the farms remains to this date. Stories such as this one show the pushback many helpful policies face and how they are frequently hampered. Additionally, while climate change policy is an important long term goal for the government, the truth is that there are political priorities that don’t necessarily align with climate change mitigation. This isn’t to say that emissions mitigation is unimportant, but rather there are naturally other things on a political agenda that may take priority.
Another question I had for Professor Shope was why we don’t focus more on carbon sequestration, something which I’ve already talked about on this blog. While most sectors are outlined to massively drop emissions by 2050 in the 80×50 report, sequestration is expected to only marginally increase. Professor Shope attributed this to the fact that sequestration has a relatively low ceiling. This is because most of the current sequestration is done by storing carbon in soil naturally, and we don’t have a way to really increase the amount of land undergoing sequestration because it’s already contributing to siphoning carbon. In addition, carbon capture technology that would improve upon this pre-existing sequestration requires a lot of investment and the technology is very experimental.
That being said, I wanted to know what Professor Shope viewed as the most important things people should know and what we could do to implement changes to the status quo (this is mostly opinion). The main thing he placed emphasis on was the fact that not enough people actually know about what is being done and that New Jersey is actively trying to help. Our goals aren’t really well known, and because of that, people aren’t fully aware of how they can help. It would also be beneficial to highlight the fact that we are a coastal state in a climate that will only further be impacted by unpredictable weather. Massive disasters such as the flooding that resulted from superstorm Sandy become more likely to happen again as sea levels rise on our coast, which enables more destructive flooding from smaller storms that may form. Given more information about the implications of climate change and how our policies intend to mitigate the situation would most definitely improve support for new policies.
My final question to Professor Shope was what he believed was the biggest roadblock to progress in climate change policy. He explained to me the importance of a unified push both from the top (policymakers, those in power to make a difference) and the bottom (grassroots efforts, advocacy, people understanding the importance of making small sacrifices for larger change). With a unified effort, policies become much more effective because everybody is on the same page and understands the lingering danger to everybody that is associated with changes to our environment. He also mentioned that it is important to acknowledge (even if it does sound dreary or a bit pessimistic) that many people don’t like to sacrifice something if it isn’t directly economically or socially beneficial to them. It is crucial to note that many people aren’t like this, but it is undoubtedly easier to convince people to make a change that makes or saves them more money compared to the opposite as is the case right now. A professor of mine at Columbia University, Professor Michael Bennett, also echoes this sentiment.
It’s important to acknowledge that dropping everything to save the environment isn’t feasible and would lead to more problems than those faced by the impacts of climate change themselves. Hence, it’s also important to find a balance between sacrificing some monetary benefit for the sake of the common good without causing detriment to quality of life. While some sacrifices will certainly have to be made, the costs of implementing solutions dropping in addition to the state of NJ working to fill in the gaps with tax incentives and the like imply that said sacrifices would not be quite as large.
Once again, I am very thankful for the opportunity to have talked to Professor Shope, as I believe his and his colleagues’ work is invaluable, especially as we begin to set our sights on 2050 and the looming goals we hope to achieve by then.
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